Taranto Circolare – Taranto CirTech honoured by ICESP: when circularity becomes a lever for territorial regeneration
On March 25, 2026, in Rome, during the 8th ICESP Annual Conference dedicated to “ICESP Best Practices for the Circular Transition,” Tondo received the ICESP Best Practice Award 2025 in the category of “Territorial Regeneration, Nature, and Local Systems” for the project Taranto Circolare – Taranto CirTech. This recognition goes beyond a single project and reflects something broader: a way of working with territories that places connections, activation and tangible impact at its core.
An award that speaks of territory (and method)
The award was granted to Tondo “for generating concrete and measurable results at the local level, connecting numerous stakeholders active in the circular economy in the province of Taranto and creating a reference platform for businesses, researchers and institutions.”
These words capture the essence of the work carried out: not simply developing projects, but building ecosystems. In recent years, the circular economy has increasingly been framed in strategic and systemic terms. However, turning these principles into concrete practices requires more: the ability to understand and map local contexts, activate local stakeholders, and ensure continuity over time.
This is precisely where Tondo’s work in Taranto fits in.
Taranto: from complex context to innovation lab
Over the past decades, Taranto has undergone profound transformations, becoming a symbol of the challenges linked to industrial, environmental and social transition. At the same time, it is a territory rich in skills, energy and initiatives that often remain fragmented.
From this awareness, Taranto Circolare was created: a platform designed to map, connect and give visibility to local actors working in circular economy, sustainability and urban regeneration.
Building on this foundation, Taranto CirTech was launched as an innovation and entrepreneurial development program, transforming mapping into concrete action by supporting nine startups and innovative projects in their growth paths linked to the circular transition.
Two different yet complementary tools: one focused on understanding and connecting the territory; the other on activating and developing new initiatives. Together, they contribute to building an ecosystem capable of evolving.
From map to action: what it means to activate an ecosystem
At the core of Taranto Circolare – Taranto CirTech lies a clear belief: territorial regeneration works when a territory is well understood—but above all when that understanding is translated into action.
Through Taranto Circolare, Tondo analysed value chains, flows and local opportunities, building a shared knowledge base. With Taranto CirTech, this knowledge was turned into concrete initiatives through calls for startups and innovative ideas, hackathons and co-design sessions, and an acceleration program dedicated to deep tech startups.
The most innovative aspect lies not in a single tool, but in the integration of territorial knowledge, entrepreneurial innovation and local ecosystem activation.
In this sense, Taranto Circolare – Taranto CirTech represents a concrete example of how the circular economy can become a driver of territorial development, going beyond environmental aspects to include economic and social dimensions.
The results achieved confirm this approach. The Taranto CirTech program supported 9 startups, offering a free acceleration pathway valued at approximately €20,000 per startup, with final prizes of up to €12,500.
However, the value of the project goes beyond numbers.
One of its most significant impacts lies in strengthening connections between startups, research centres, companies, institutions and investors—a less visible but essential factor in making a territory more capable of attracting and developing innovation.
At the same time, the project had a strong communication, education and engagement dimension, through reports and knowledge-sharing content, events, discussion moments and stakeholder engagement activities.
These actions contributed to spreading a culture of circularity and making opportunities for territorial regeneration more visible.
The national framework: ICESP best practices
The recognition awarded to Tondo is part of the broader work carried out by ICESP – the Italian Circular Economy Stakeholder Platform, promoted by ENEA and linked to the European platform ECESP. Over the years, ICESP has created a space for dialogue among institutions, businesses, research and civil society, with the aim of:
– promoting knowledge of the circular economy;
– showcasing concrete experiences;
– fostering multi-stakeholder dialogue.
During the Conference, the new ICESP Report was also presented, offering an updated overview of circular economy practices in Italy.
The platform’s database currently includes 253 best practices, of which 245 are implemented in Italy, across different sectors and stages of product life cycles. The most represented sectors include agri-food, textiles and construction, while practices are mainly concentrated in the production and waste management phases.
The report also highlights the growing role of circular biotechnologies, present in around 30% of the practices, confirming the increasing interconnection between technological innovation and sustainability.
Different experiences, a shared vision
Alongside Tondo, the ICESP Best Practices Award recognised a variety of organisations, all sharing a key element: the ability to make circularity concrete and replicable.
From textile recovery initiatives like Corertex, to reusable packaging solutions by Movopack; from training programs on Minimum Environmental Criteria promoted by the Emilia-Romagna Region, to circularity measurement tools developed by Matrec; and the territorial model by Let’s Do It! Italy, which combines environmental education and active citizenship.
A diverse set of experiences showing that the circular transition does not follow a single path, but can take different forms depending on contexts and objectives.
A replicable model?
A key aspect of this best practice is its replicability. The model developed in Taranto is based on three main elements:
1. In-depth territorial analysis;
2. building and activating a local network;
3. concrete support for innovation and entrepreneurship.
Three components that, if adapted, can be applied to other urban and industrial contexts.
In this sense, Taranto Circolare – Taranto CirTech is not just a local project, but a potential model for territorial regeneration processes elsewhere.
Beyond the award: circularity as a driver of transformation
Every recognition is both an achievement and a starting point.
For Tondo, this award represents an encouragement to continue along a clear direction: working within territories to activate connections, develop projects and generate tangible impact.
At a time when the ecological transition requires increasingly integrated approaches, experiences like Taranto Circolare – Taranto CirTech show that it is possible to build pathways that combine:
• innovation and economic development;
• environmental sustainability;
• engagement of local communities.
In this perspective, circularity is not just a theoretical model, but a practice that takes shape every day through relationships, skills and experimentation.
And Taranto continues to stand as an important laboratory to observe—and actively build—this transformation.
