Under the current urban paradigm, cities consume more resources than they produce. Additionally, 68% of the world’s population is predicted to live in urban areas by 2050.

The REFLOW project was built on the concept of urban metabolism, a model and concept used to describe and analyse the flows of the materials and energy within cities, by understanding the city and its surrounding region through the lens of biological systems and technical processes. The project calculated, analysed, and redefined urban resource usage to assess the relationship between urban production and consumption and addressed the overconsumption of resources. REFLOW’s mission was to show how rethinking our economy and configuring the urban metabolism can enable the transition to circular and regenerative cities.

Creating and implementing a circular and regenerative city vision is a complex process and requires an interdisciplinary perspective. The project approached these perspectives through work packages, which each represents an essential element that cities should focus on in the transition to a circular and regenerative city mode. Each work package can be understood as an element that needs to be considered during the circular transition of a city. This includes circular co-creation designs and frameworks, software and technical infrastructure, creating and managing circular material flows, the cities circular journey as well as capacity and community building. During the project, the local consortiums were composed by representatives of the city’s municipality, makerspaces, FabLabs or SMEs. Municipalities are particularly focusing on citizen engagement, awareness rising and systematic approaches for a circular economy, which can benefit the municipal covered area. You can find more details about the circular transition of the pilot cities here: https://reflowproject.eu/pilots/

The aim is to make sure that the lessons learned and concrete outputs of the project live on and can contribute to the work of other cities and organisations aiming to become more circular. A key resource developed for this is the Reflow Theoretical Framework, a supportive model to enable the agency and participation of municipalities, SMEs, and citizens’ associations in the development of circular economy practices and governance. The framework supports municipalities’ circular transition by:

- Providing insights on the development of new products and product-service systems for a circular economy, which can benefit urban and peri-urban environments as well as society as a whole.

- Providing insights on the links between functional problems and broader societal issues relevant in the creation of circular and regenerative cities.

- Supporting the description of the design process, change process and transition process to describe and understand future design-based initiatives for CE transition.

Further, the project developed practical tools such as the Regenerative Governance Toolkit or REFLOW operating system for municipalities to leverage the systematic change of municipalities towards circular actions. This change requires brand new collaborations, synergies and pooling of resources and assets across public and private sectors. Lastly, the project developed robust circular business models, functioning as inspiration for innovation and circular material management.