Nowadays, cities around the world are facing several challenges. Amsterdam, the capital of the Netherlands, is not an exception: rapid urbanisation is adding pressure to create more liveable cities, to manage natural resources more efficiently whilst protecting the environment, and to meet the challenges of climate change. Increasingly, cities are recognizing the importance of circular economy as a means of addressing these issues and making cities healthy and enjoyable places to live.

Since 2015, Amsterdam has been discovering the opportunities for circular economy in the city and metropolitan area alike. As a forerunner of this transition, Amsterdam now has the task of taking this transition to the next stage, by scaling circularity and standardizing it. To do so, the district of Buiksloterham, on the northern bank of the IJ waterway, once the site of Amsterdam’s most polluting industries, is being transformed into a sustainable area to live and work. Over the coming years, Buiksloterham will develop into a sustainable district, based on the principles of circular economy. It will be up to the project partners in Buiksloterham to determine the particular issues that need to be solved.

The City of Amsterdam is one of the signatories of a manifest which has been drafted to emphasize the circular ambitions of the project. Over the next 10 years, Buiksloterham will be transformed into a circular neighbourhood where products and raw materials are reused as much as possible.

The past three years of circular economy action in Amsterdam have showcased the importance of local policy to support circular economy activities. Indeed, policy can be the support that circular projects need to transform ideas into practice or scale up from anecdote to standard.

Key lessons:

1. Knowledge instruments are developed to disseminate insights about the circular economy through research to the business community and residents of the city. By means of knowledge instruments, the municipality can increase insights in and awareness of the circular economy among its population

2. Circular public procurement is the process of acquiring products or services with a view to optimally (re-)use products, parts and materials during and at the end of their lifetime. By means of circular procurement, the municipality can use its purchasing power to influence the market and so to stimulate the production of circular products and the delivery of circular services.

3. Legislative instruments are obligations that the municipality can formally impose on itself, the market and consumers in the form of, for example, standards of bans. By means of legislation, the municipality can use its legal authority to require or prohibit more or less circular practices.

4. Spatial planning instruments influence the physical environment by determining the amount and function of space, what materials are used as well as its physical character. By means of spatial planning, the municipality can divide and classify the physical environment in a way that promotes circular resource management.

5. Business support instruments assist companies with financial and non-financial resources such as grants, guarantees and technical advice. By means of business support, the municipality can assist (small- and medium-sized) businesses that have limited internal capacity and resources to launch circular products or services or those that need high-risk investment.