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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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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 increased knowledge and understanding as a result of the case study

Increase Awareness

Scalability

Minimise waste through diversion: Instead of sending waste to landfill, it is redirected into other industrial processes for handling, treatment, recycling, recovery, or reuse in various forms. 

Minimise waste through design: At the outset of a process of project, plan and design such that there is zero waste or minimal waste during production, use, and at end of life. 

Minimise Waste (SDG12)

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

Collecting waste from households and businesses by means of refuse bins, wheeled bins, containers, etc., and providing treatment, incineration, materials recovery and reclamation, and disposal of hazardous and non-hazardous waste

Waste Management

Utilise waste streams as a source of secondary resources and recover waste for reuse and recycling

Use waste as a resource

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

Reuse, repurpose, and recycle waste streams within other industries

Valorise waste streams - open loop

Engage with the government on circular policies and programmes

Government collaboration

Collection programmes that process products and parts for reuse or recycling within other industries

Open loop collection

Participating in government programmes that support and advance the circular economy

Government programmes

Provide guidance or professional training to educate employees to use circular economy principles

Training on the circular economy

'Inform' increases the overall levels of awareness and builds the necessary skills and knowledge around the circular economy to foster long-term change.

Inform

Integrate principles of circularity into primary, secondary and tertiary curriculum and conduct workplace trainings

 Education and Curriculum

Conduct research

'Manage' influences the use and function of physical and material elements within the urban environment. 

Manage

Infrastructure

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

Mobilise

Visions and Ambitions

Roadmaps and strategies and targets

Govern the Transition

Cross-departmental collaboration and engagement

 Convene Towards Action

Advocate for circular change

'Incentivise' sends market signals and support to businesses, citizens and governments to promote certain activities.

Incentivise

 Direct Financial Support

Incubator and investment programmes

Public-private partnerships

Awareness raising events

Develop infrastructure to support resource cycling

Economic Frameworks

Information campaigns

 Develop research, structure knowledge, encourage innovation networks and disseminate findings with integrity


Strengthen and advance knowledge

Eliminate waste by maximizing the recovery of resources at the end of the use phase so that they can be reintroduced into production processes


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Recover

Ensure that household and business waste is collected and appropriately sorted (by type, label, etc.) to allow for maximum recovery of value.


Collect and sort waste to facilitate recovery

The circular potential of organic wastes is dependent on the quality and low contamination rate of the residual stream that is collected. Food and organic wastes are difficult to sort and separate post-collection, and as such, collecting organic wastes through a mixed collection are often limited to incineration or landfill. Therefore, collecting organic wastes through a separate collection system is key to unlock potential high-value management practices, for example, composting and anaerobic digestion.

Due to the strong influence over the operation of local waste management systems, local governments have a key role in the provision of separate organic waste collection systems throughout the city. Collections systems can vary to suit the specific characteristics of particular neighbourhoods and areas of a city. For example, areas with detached homes have more space for bins, while for apartments with less space, a communal receptacle may be more appropriate. Communication campaigns can help to raise awareness and encourage participation of residents to separate their organic wastes. 


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🍏  Separate organic waste collection infrastructure

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

The built environment, including housing, commercial buildings, and the necessary infrastructure for mobility, is essential for our livelihoods, but:
- the extraction of minerals used to produce construction materials is responsible for a quarter of global land use change,
- approximately 40% of global GHG emissions can be attributed to buildings’ construction, use and demolition, and
- construction and demolition processes drive nearly one-third of all material consumption. 

Making the built environment more circular must prioritise a heavy reduction in material use—while also closing the loop on materials and bringing secondary and renewable material choices to the fore. Our four key solutions for the built environment are:
- Make the most of what already exists: Make the most of existing materials by reusing, repurposing, upgrading and renovating following circular approaches. Where new builds are needed, use secondary materials and be as efficient as possible with urban planning solutions that follow circular design principles so that buildings can be reused, repurposed, and easily disassembled in the future.
- Be as energy efficient as possible: From the design phase, utilise circular strategies to create material- and energy efficient buildings. Couple these designs with a rollout of clean energy solutions, and prioritise energy-efficient appliances and retrofitting. 
- Utilise secondary materials: Maximise the high-value reuse of buildings and components where possible. Ideally, enable the utilisation of construction and demolition outputs and ensure that as much of it as possible is recycled to avoid the need for virgin materials, such as sand and gravel.
- Prioritise circular materials and approaches: Transition to using renewable wood, timber or cross-laminated timber instead of steel and concrete, or move to other locally available materials. Utilise mainstream modular construction and prioritise lightweight frames and structures to reduce cement and steel use, as well as green roofs where possible.



🏢 Built Environment

Manufactured goods, such as vehicles, textiles, appliances and equipment and their associated production processes are big employers but:
- production processes often rely on fossil fuels and currently drive one-third of the overshoot on the climate change planetary boundary due to its GHG production, 
- material- and energy-intensive industrial activities are linked to deforestation and drive 15% on both the land use and freshwater planetary boundaries, 
- manufacturing goods results in substantial amounts of hazardous industrial waste and leaks chemicals into the environment.

Here, circular solutions must tackle the full value chain, but material demand must also shrink: this will necessitate a societal shift to favouring sufficiency over excess and reducing consumption to sustainable levels. Our four key solutions for manufactured goods are:
- Mainstream industrial symbiosis and efficiency : Achieve process improvements, scrap diversion and reduction in yield losses through greater industrial symbiosis and efficiency. Foster tighter collaboration within and between industries to deliver powerful material and emissions savings.
- Extend the lifetime of machinery, equipment, and goods: Maximise the lifetime of goods that serve our daily needs to bring a number of environmental benefits. 
- Buy what's needed: Reduce the number of purchases of common electronic goods, appliances, and other equipment to sufficiency levels. 
- Eschew fast fashion in favour of sustainable textiles: Drastically reduce new clothing purchases. All used clothing should go on to be repaired, reused or, if needed, recycled appropriately. Prioritise natural and local textile manufacturing, as well as higher-quality and more durable garments. 




👕📱 Consumer Goods

Governments

Cycle strategies aim to cycle and reuse materials at their highest value: they maximise the volume of secondary materials re-entering the economy, ultimately minimising the need for virgin material inputs and therefore also narrowing flows. Of course, virgin materials will always be needed to a degree: all materials degrade and can’t be cycled infinitely, use energy, and require blending with virgin materials to maintain strength and functionality.

Cycle

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

Policy Instruments

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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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 Following the disaster in Rana Plaza in 2013, where a garment factory collapsed, resulting in the loss of 1,136 lives, we were asked to develop a methodology for assessing the structural safety of the factories in Bangladesh.

Understanding the importance of the garment industry for the people of Bangladesh, employing more than four million people, we came up with a pragmatic approach for carrying out the structural safety assessments, focusing on critical life–safety issues.

Driving change

Post-Rana Plaza, we have supported a number of clients in driving an agenda of change. So far, we have inspected over 800 factories there for Inditex (Spanish retail group) and the Bangladesh Accord on Fire and Building Safety - an umbrella organisation of clothing companies, employers and workers' representatives. We have provided clear advice on actions required to ensure the safety of the workers, including closure of a small number of facilities. In addition, we have overseen and provided a quality review role on an additional 750 fire, electrical and structural factory inspections which were commissioned by the International Labour Organisation on behalf of the Bangladesh Government. 

 
Cooperation Period: November 2006 to November 2009
 Executing Agency: Hanoi Urban Environment Company (Hanoi URENCO)

 

The rapid economic development and urbanization of Vietnam have resulted in an increase in solid waste, particularly in cities. As of 2003, the annual waste generated in the country was 15 million tons, at least 12.8 million of which were produced by cities such as Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. About 30 percent of this urban garbage lies on public roads uncollected or is disposed illegally in lakes or ponds, creating improper drainage conditions and underground water pollution.
To address the situation, the Vietnamese government is taking steps such as revising its environmental protection laws and adopting Vietnam Agenda 21, a program focused on sustainable development with care for the environment. As a part of this organization, the concept of reduce, reuse, recycle (the 3Rs) is given high precedence under the 3R Initiative.
In Hanoi, the reduction of solid waste and recycling are being promoted as part of a national strategy, though the infrastructures to do so are lacking. Currently, the scope of collection is limited as only those objects of value are collected by informal collectors. To build a recycling community based on the 3R Initiative, the citizens of Hanoi must adequately understand the 3Rs and the issues of waste, and further, an urban garbage management system must be created whose basic functions are the collection and separation of waste.
JICA therefore implemented this technical cooperation project (3R-HN) toward creating a recycling community with cooperation from Hanoi URENCO and related agencies. Under 3R-HN, four model areas were being created in Hanoi, where waste was separated and then collected or composted. Environmental education activities were also being carried out to teach Hanoi citizens the Japanese concept of “mottainai” or the importance of the 3Rs. Based on the results of the separation and collection project in the model districts, a strategic paper was being prepared toward improving the urban garbage collection system through discussion by a wide range of stakeholders and organization of the “3R Stars.”
It is hoped that 3R-HN will put the 3Rs into practice in Hanoi and contribute toward the creation of a recycling-oriented community.
 

Gaining Ground – the 3R Movement
Mr. Nguyen Van Hoa, then-Deputy Director of Hanoi URENCO, made an appeal about the garbage crisis, saying that if waste continues to increase at the current rate, the Nam Son landfill would soon break down. He said, “We cannot ignore the adverse effects on the environment—the disposal expenses, odors and water pollution. It is imperative that the government and the citizens think together to find solutions.”
In November 2006, URENCO and JICA began the project based on mutual cooperation. The 3R-HN was a comprehensive residential environment improvement project to separate and collect garbage, implement composting and provide environment education in four districts within Hanoi.
 



Since separation and collection began using the 3R concept, the amount of garbage lying on the streets has decreased in the model districts. Ms. Nguyen Thi Hien, a member of the housewife committee in the Lang Ha district said, “I was so happy when I heard about the 3Rs. It’s also so encouraging to have all of this cooperation from the Japanese experts.”
Organizations have been springing up such as the 3R Volunteer Club (3R-VC) made up of students and young workers in their twenties, and the Go Green Club (GGC), which is affiliated with people having concern for environmental problems.
Ms. Dang Lang Ngoc of the 3R-Volunteer Club (3R-VC) and Ms. Dang Ngoc Phuong of the Go Green Club (GGC) expressed the need for the energy of young people to educate society on the environment. They are inspired to create a great environmental movement that is powered by events and activities.
Activities of the 3R-VC and GGC include environmental education for children in a “Mottainai Fair” and creating a “free market” for participants to exchange unwanted items. With the support of Toyota and the FPT Group of Vietnam, they also manufacture and distribute eco-bags made from post-consumer plastic as part of their campaign to educate people on the magnitude of the environmental problem.
 

Ms. Luong Thi Man Huong works at the environmental education and public relations division of URENCO and thinks about the future of the 3R movement. Ms. Huong said, “I have heard that it took 12 years to establish separation and collection in Japan. I’m sure it takes continued efforts to convince citizens to change their long-term habits.”
3R-HN was completed in November, 2009. Nowadays, voluntary activities to separate and collect garbage have also been started outside of the model areas. This brings great hope for further expansion of the 3R-HN’s outputs.
Photography and cooperation in writing: Masato Nishigai of the Nishigai Photo Studio
PDF for printing (190 KB) 
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Hanoi

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Municipality of Hanoi

Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)

<p>A technical cooperation project (3R-HN) is creating a recycling community in Hanoi URENCO, where waste is separated and then collected or composted. Environment education activities complement urban planning efforts, while organic waste is used to produce fertiliser.</p>