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Circle Economy and ICLEI have partnered up to initiate the go to knowledge hub of case studies about the circular economy in cities. The Cities Collection is a repository of case studies that demonstrate the role of cities in the circular transition, and includes policies, business cases and research articles. Cases in the Collection flow into an ecosystem of digital products which support users in transitioning cities to circularity, for example [Ganbatte](https://ganbatte.world/cities/) and <a href="https://circulars.iclei.org/" target="_blank">ICLEI Circulars</a>, both part of the <a href="https://circulars.iclei.org/circle-lab-for-cities/" target = _blank">Circle Lab for Cities Programme.</a>




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Circular Cities

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Circular food systems entail that the food is produced regeneratively and, where appropriate, locally. Food and packaging waste are designed out entirely, while healthy, low-impact diets are promoted and easy to access. 

[Circle Economy](https://www.circle-economy.com/) is a not-for-profit organisation working to accelerate the circular transition. Through the *Circularity Gap Reporting Initiative*, our mission is to deliver an annual global Circularity Metric that measures the state of the world economy and identifies key levers to transition to global circularity. With nature as our guide, we work alongside cross-sector stakeholders from academia, businesses, NGOs and governments to provide a powerful combination of practical and scalable interventions that transform circular opportunities into realities. 

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Circular Food

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Limes and lemons - Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

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Starter Kit collection

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Rampant material extraction is pushing the ecosystems of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) to their limits. Over 11% of global raw materials are extracted within the region, yet it represents only about 8% of the world's population.

[*The Circularity Gap Report* (CGR) Latin America and the Caribbean](https://www.circularity-gap.world/lac), a first of its kind, demonstrates how the region can leverage the circular economy to tackle systemic inefficiencies in satisfying societal needs, conserve its unique natural wealth, and improve its people’s well-being.

To devise pathways for a circular transition, the report analysed the sectors where circular interventions could yield the most positive impact—environmentally, economically, and socially. This entails shifting to a circular food system, building a circular built environment, advancing circular manufacturing, transforming the energy system, reducing waste generation, and improve waste cycling.

[Circle Economy](https://www.circle-economy.com/) is a global impact organisation with an international team of passionate experts based in Amsterdam. We empower industries, cities, and nations with practical and scalable solutions to put the circular economy into action. Our vision is an economic system that ensures the planet and all people can thrive. To avoid climate breakdown, our goal is to double global circularity by 2032. Through the Circularity Gap Reporting Initiative, our mission is to deliver Circularity Metrics that measure the state of the global and national economy and identify key levers to transition to circularity. 

Latin America Collection

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Policy case

Impact on the availability of resources as well as their effect on living organisms, ecosystems, and components of the environment.

Ecological Impact

Impacts on the social fabric of the community and well-being of the individuals and families.

Social Impact

Impacts on the financial condition of a company, as well as the the economicconditions of its stakeholders and on economic systems at local, national, andglobal levels.

Economic Impact

Impact on the quantity or quality of jobs, and shifts in the labour market

Jobs

Impact on the health and happiness of human populations

Well-being

Direct and indirect reduction in economic costs

Cost Savings

Reduced green house gas emissions released into the biosphere

Reduce Emissions (SDG13)

Producing agricultural products and processing them into food and beverageproducts for consumption

Agri/Food

Societal Services

Providing public and private education and support services at any level or for any profession, and governmental and public administration services, including judicial, regulatory, and legislative activities, taxation, defence, public order and safety, immigration services, foreign affairs and the administration of government programmes

Education and Government Services

Producing and gathering crop and animal products from land and water through farming, hunting, and fishing

Agriculture

Work together throughout the supply chain, internally within organisations and with the public sector and communities to increase transparency and create joint value

Team up to create joint value

Industry peers to industry peer collaboration to create joint value and identify synergies

Industry collaboration

Putting in place purchasing guidelines for procurement departments and evaluating suppliers on circular economy principles

Circular procurement

Circular Economy in school programmes

'Mobilise' sets the direction of and builds momentum towards long-term change, while also determining how this direction is determined and governed.

Mobilise

Govern the Transition

Participatory governance mechanisms

Cross-departmental collaboration and engagement

Redesign systems to lay the foundation for circular activities and enable the transition to a circular economy 

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Rethink

Do better with less by using and supporting infrastructure, processes and products that are designed to minimize material, water and energy use and waste generation from production to end of use


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Reduce

High-level changes to policy and practice (such as taxation systems, investment and procurement guidelines and criteria) that disincentivize activities that perpetuate linear economic systems, as well as vision-setting (goals, roadmaps) to catalyze
action on circularity across the city

Eliminate linear incentives and set goals and incentives for circularity

Ensure that infrastructure and built assets in the city are designed and upgraded to be as resource-efficient as possible.

Design infrastructure and the built environment for resource efficiency

Increase efficiency and promote local economic growth by shortening supply chains and connecting local producers to consumers.


Support local low-impact circular economies

Local governments can act as the first movers, and accelerate the transition towards a more circular food system through integrating circular criteria into public procurement policies for food. Purchasing decisions by local governments, -such as buying food for canteens in municipal offices and schools-, have a large economic influence in the region, and create important market demand for circular businesses and products.

Criteria within public procurement could, for example, prioritise regionally and organically produced foods, encourage the use of recyclable packaging and assess food waste prevention. Low-carbon and plant-based menus could also be developed. Used strategically, public procurement can be used to drive innovation in the sector to meet these circular demands,for example, new circular cultivation techniques and technologies, and low-impact food and packaging products.


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🍏  Circular public procurement of food products and services

As cities have expanded, they have conventionally pushed space for agricultural activities to the peripheries and surrounding rural areas, and have become reliant on globalised supply chains. Cities can nevertheless have a home for organic urban and peri-urban agriculture. 

Organic urban and peri-urban agriculture refers to production of food that happens either in or near the city. It includes organic farming at any scale, and can also refer to small holders, various forms of private urban farming initiatives, and community initiatives (vegetable gardens). Organic urban and peri-urban agriculture can support food security in the city, boost biodiversity, as well as stimulate local economies and community participation.

A local government may stimulate and enable organic urban and peri-urban agriculture by making spaces in and near the city available for markets, growing spaces and waste processing through spatial planning. Communities may be engaged through the use of making information and tooling available, alongside making spaces in neighbourhoods available and accessible to different people through spatial planning. Local governments can support local food services businesses in sourcing and obtaining locally grown organic crops. 


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🍏  Organic urban and peri-urban agriculture

The food system nourishes populations and employs 50% of the global workforce, but:
- it currently drives a quarter of the overshoot on the climate change planetary boundary due to its greenhouse gas (GHG) production, 
- animal farming alone uses over one-quarter of all land, equivalent to the size of the Americas,
- nearly a quarter of freshwater resources are lost due to rampant food waste, and
- it is the single largest driver of biodiversity loss.

A circular food system must address the whole value chain, from production to consumption to waste management. The four key solutions for the food system are:
- Put healthier, satiating foods first: Prioritise satiating and healthy foods with a lower environmental impact—ideally shifting calories from meat, fish, and dairy towards cereals, fruits, vegetables, and nuts.
- Go local, seasonal, and organic: Prioritise the production and consumption of local, seasonal, and organic produce (sometimes in combination with GMO to reduce pests and disease loss on crops), which can lead to a significantly reduced need for chemical inputs, fuels, and processing services that contribute to environmental impacts.
- Mainstream regenerative agriculture: Scale up agricultural practices that regenerate ecosystems, recirculate nutrients and sequester carbon by design. 
- End avoidable food waste: Minimise food loss and valorise waste following the food waste hierarchy along the supply chain and at the consumer level through better management of transport and storage, more refrigeration and smart planning, and technology at the consumer and food service levels.



🍏 Food Systems

Businesses

Governments

Urban food transportation is a crucial component of both food and mobility systems, and significantly influences the level of urban sustainability and the total carbon footprint of foods. Cities can reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with food transportation, commonly known as “food-miles”, through various urban logistics measures. These measures require the participation of multiple actors, from city users and inhabitants, to urban food suppliers, logistics providers and carriers, and distributors. 

Local governments can optimise the distribution of food to small retailers and consumers, reducing the associated environmental and social impacts generated by the urban food deliveries, for example, carbon emissions, congestion, mobility, and food loss. 

They can do this by incentivising the use of environmentally-friendly vehicles by, for example, using spatial planning to reserve spaces, regions and lanes in the city for low-carbon modes of transport. Local governments can also use Information and Communications Technology (ICT) tools and local businesses to explore the challenges and barriers for food logistics in the city, and to identify how the city’s spatial planning can be optimised to reduce food loss and waste.


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🍏  Optimised food logistics

Impacts

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Industries

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A framework of policy instruments that enabled and encourage the transition to the circular economy

Policies

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A framework of policy instruments that enable and stimulate the transition to the circular economy

The principles of a circular economy concern designing out waste, regenerating ecosystems and keeping items in use. Decoupling the economy from material flows—improving the rate of resource productivity faster than the economic growth rate—is also a consistent guide. By evolving with the growing number of applications of circular economy principles, and consolidating these strategies across thematic areas, Circle Economy’s Key Elements Framework (KE) renders the elements of the circular economy salient and serves as a basis to derive contextual strategies and interventions. 


The Framework consists of:
- Core Elements: Activities directly handling product or material flows; and uniquely,
- Enabling Elements: those that remove obstacles for core actors.


Key elements of the circular economy

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Circle Economy's framework of strategies and activities that define the circular economy

The Circular City Actions Framework provides urban changemakers with five complementary strategies they can use to start working towards a more circular system. 

The framework is action-based to provide users with concrete strategic directions and showcase the desired outcomes of each strategy. 
The framework consists of five complementary **strategies**, under which **sub-strategies** provide further detail. Finally, each sub-strategy consists of a diversity of tangible **solutions** which are framed in relation to key thematic areas. 

Note: solutions are currently focused on:
- 🍏 **Food systems**
- 🏢  **Built environment**
- 👕📱  **Consumer goods**
- ⚡ **Energy Systems**
- 🚌 **Mobility Systems**
- 💧 **Water Systems**

More thematic areas are coming soon...

'Click through each of the five strategy cards below to explore the framework and circular economy case studies in more depth!'



This framework was developed in collaboration with ICLEI, Metabolic and Ellen MacArthur Foundation with support from the MAVA Foundation. Read more about it [here]( https://circulars.iclei.org/action-framework/). 



Circular City Actions Framework

An action-based framework for local governments working towards circular cities

Thematic Areas

City Stakeholders

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Based on the work of [Bocken et al. (2016)](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309699661_Product_design_and_business_model_strategies_for_a_circular_economy), the Four Flows Framework serves as a simple framework for managing resource flows in a circular economy by using less (Narrow), using for longer (Slow), using again (Cycle), and using clean, regenerative materials and energy (Regenerate).

These different principles of circular economy can be applied to our socioeconomic metabolism: we can design stocks like buildings, infrastructure, machinery, and vehicles to be rich resource mines for the future, and design manufactured goods and consumables to be cycled and made regenerative. Furthermore, the focus must also centre on getting more value out of fewer materials. Achieving the aims of a circular economy—minimising material use, regenerating the Earth, and preventing material losses—can be done through these four key strategies mentioned above.

Source: Circle Economy. (2023). *[The circularity gap report 2023](https://www.circularity-gap.world/2023)* (p.22). Amsterdam: Circle Economy. 

Four Flows Framework

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                In a constantly urbanizing world, city governments have come to play a crucial role in urban food policies. From among the challenges facing cities, ensuring food security for their residents is vital, and this must be achieved keeping in mind both the balance to be found between urban and rural areas and the sustainability of food systems. Public commitments to this challenge have been made any number of times since the 1990s, but it was at the end of 2016 that access to “safe, sufficient, and adequate food” became part of the new urban agenda adopted in Quito, Ecuador, during the Habitat III Conference. Work by Agence Française de Développement (AFD) to promote urban food security currently takes on several forms. For nearly 30 years, AFD has been working alongside emerging and developing cities, particularly in Africa, to develop and upgrade their commercial facilities. Among the cities that have benefited fromthe support are Mahajanga in Madagascar, Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso, and Cotonou in Benin. At the same time, the urban development projects financed by AFD have been gradually integrating urban agriculture. These often have multiple objectives that are economic, social, and environmental in nature. In Porto Novo, Benin, for example, urban agriculture acts both as an income-generating activity for the poorest and as a means for sustainably developing its lagoon area. To optimize the cycle of materials, AFD is also paying special attention to the reduction–and where applicable upcycling–of waste, be it organic matter (which can be reused as fertilizer) or energy. For example, this year AFD started up an energy-upcycling project in the sector of restaurant food waste in the city of Shaoyang, China. This project will help to produce 17,220 MWh/ year of energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions (70,000 tCO2/year). For several years, in order to better guide its partners in defining and implementing this new aspect of local public policy, AFD has been thinking more specifically about food for cities. This has taken on concrete form
through a research program on urban supply systems and through the present publication, which stems from deliberations following the Urban Food Policies symposium organized by the UNESCO Chair in World Food Systems and the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (Cirad) in late 2015, with the support of AFD and other organizations.
                  
               

Bolivia

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Government of Chuquisaca

World Food Programme

<p>In Bolivia, 11 municipalities in the department of Chuquisaca joined forces to form an association to jointly manage the food supply chain, from purchasing directly from producer collectives to product storage, in order to optimise logistics, and minimise costs and losses.</p>