Deliverable D5.2 – Baseline Environmental Impact Assessment provides the first systematic environmental assessment of Circular and Sharing Economy (CSE) initiatives examined within the TransScale project. Building directly on the methodological framework established in Deliverable D5.1, the report combines Social Practice Theory (SPT) with Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to establish a robust baseline against which future changes and scaling effects can be assessed. The deliverable analyses how everyday practices of repair, reuse, material sharing, and food sharing generate environmental impacts, while also highlighting how social meanings, competencies, and material arrangements shape these outcomes across different national and institutional contexts.
The assessment covers four CSE initiatives in Denmark, Norway, Latvia, and Poland, representing diverse governance models and practice configurations: Repair Cafés in Denmark, municipal furniture reuse in Asker (Norway), the Nomales material-sharing initiative in Latvia, and the Jadłodzielnia food-sharing initiative in Poland. For each case, the report documents activity flows, actors, material and product streams, and available quantitative data to estimate environmental benefits such as avoided CO₂ emissions and reduced waste. Where full quantitative data are not yet available, the deliverable transparently identifies data gaps and methodological limitations, ensuring comparability and credibility across cases.
D5.2 goes beyond a purely technical accounting exercise. By embedding LCA results within an SPT-informed analysis, the deliverable demonstrates that the environmental significance of CSE initiatives extends beyond immediate material savings to their potential to transform social practices over time. The baseline assessment thus serves as a critical reference point for subsequent mid-term and final evaluations in TransScale, supporting evidence-based discussions on scaling up and scaling out CSE initiatives while remaining attentive to social dynamics, institutional constraints, and context-specific pathways for sustainable urban transformation.