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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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This collection features a selection of case studies, based on the global *Circularity Gap Reports*, that can mitigate climate breakdown by reducing virgin material consumption, waste and greenhouse gas emissions. The latest **[Circularity Gap Report 2023](https://www.circularity-gap.world/2023#download)** reveals that the global economy is now only 7.2% circular and outlines how circular solutions across four sectors can bring global planetary boundaries back within safe limits. 

In the six years of the *Circularity Gap Report*, the global economy has extracted and used unprecedented amounts of materials. The first edition of the *Report *in 2018 found that global circularity was 9.1% and it has decreased every year since—leaving a Circularity Gap of over 90%. If this trend continues, we will have to find more and better solutions to combat the negative effects of climate change. This is why we have identified case studies from across the globe—based on the needs of society and planetary health—that serve as real-world examples of the circular economy in action.

Circle Economy 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. 


To learn more about these interventions to accelerate the circular transition, read the latest [Circularity Gap Report 2023](https://www.circularity-gap.world/2023#download), as well as previous editions of the global [Circularity Gap Reports](https://www.circularity-gap.world/global).

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Global Circularity Gap Report 2023

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Business case

Impact on increased knowledge and understanding as a result of the case study

Increase Awareness

Reduced use of virgin materials and/or an increase of the use of secondary and bio-based materials

Reduce Material Consumption (SDG12)

Producing and providing business and consumer goods and services

Goods and Services

Designing products of multiple parts that can be easily disassembled

Design for disassembly

Designing products so they are able to be easily repaired

Design for repair

Engaging in discussions with government bodies and policymakers to push for regulations that support the circular economy

Advocacy for circular economy policy

Participating in government programmes that support and advance the circular economy

Government programmes

Other

Use longer and more often by extending and intensifying use of existing resources, products, spaces and infrastructure

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Reuse

Maintain and repair city-owned spaces and infrastructure to increase longevity, and support opportunities for residents to do the same for privately owned items and property

Support reuse, repair, remanufacturing, maintenance of existing resources, products, spaces & infrastructure

Recent years have witnessed a shrinking of the lifespans of consumer goods, following trends in fast-fashion and planned obsolescence in consumer electronics. These patterns of unsustainable consumption lead to many consumer goods being thrown away after only a small amount of time.

Repair initiatives can present a tangible solution to support the repair of consumer goods. Repair initiatives, such as repair hubs, provide a physical location with tools to allow people to repair their goods, as well as experts to help in the repair process. Consumer goods can range from furniture, to electronics, to clothing, and other consumer goods. Repair initiatives can be connected throughout a city to form a network to enable access to a wide range of goods and services. 

Local governments can promote such initiatives by providing space and equipment, financial support, recruiting staff or volunteers and raising awareness to local residents that such services are available and beneficial for society and the environment. Local governments can also introduce tax breaks for the costs of repair services to incentivise people to repair rather than purchase new goods


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👕📱 Promote repair initiatives for consumer goods

Consumables are a diverse and complex group of products - such as mobile phones, refrigerators, clothing, cleaning agents, personal care products and paints - that generally have short to medium lifetimes in society. Textiles including clothing also consume many different kinds of resources such as cotton, synthetic materials like polyester, dye pigments, and chemicals.




Consumables

- Impose a minimum duration for consumables before which the sellers are obliged to remanufacture, refurbish, repair, or upgrade for free the product. 
- Repair
- Maintenance
- Sharing
- Secondhand use of textiles, appliances, furniture, machinery and equipment

Saving: 0.18 Gt emissions and 0.27 Gt material us

👚📺 Durable consumer products

Impacts

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Industries

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Nace Sectors

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

Urban Opportunities

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

The framework consists of 21 complementary interventions, across six scenarios - one for each of the six societal needs we model. These interventions can mitigate climate impact by curbing GHG emissions

Note: interventions are currently focused on:
- 🏠 Housing 
- 🍎 Nutrition
- 🚗 Mobility
- 👚📺 Consumables
- 👩‍⚕️👨‍⚕️ Healthcare
-  🔊 Communication

These 21 interventions are spread across six societal needs and wants, with a set of solutions. Within these solutions are strategies on ’how to get there'.  

The framework moves beyond incremental action and provides solutions that will require behavioral change (dietary shifts towards less meat consumption, for example) and the adoption of state-of-the-art technologies in the industry to mitigate emissions in hard-to-abate sectors (such as steel manufacturing). It illustrates how continued globalisation can benefit from the uptake of digital solutions. The combined interventions showcase the mitigation potential that begins where the current country pledges end; illustrating the additional impact our interventions can bring to the NDCs. In short, the interventions provide input for a more profound fundamental transformation than the more current pathways that make up the vast majority of NDCs. 

Together, the combined interventions can almost double the current global Circularity Metric of 8.6%, bringing it to 17%. 

This results in:
• Shrinking global material use and extraction by 28%. 
• Cutting global GHG emissions by 39%—fully closing the Emissions Gap as defined in our report and taking into account the updated NDCs.
• Allowing the world to achieve the Paris Agreement’s goal of keeping at 1.5-degrees of warming by 2032.

*This framework was developed in the Circularity Gap Report 2021. Read more about it [here](https://www.circle-economy.com/resources/circularity-gap-report-2021)*






Global Circularity Gap Report

An intervention-based framework for nations and stakeholders working towards circular countries

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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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 Author | M. Martínez Euklidiadas
For years Paris has been an exemplary city in terms of mobility policies. Initiatives in favor of pedestrianization and public transport led to a drop from 44% to 35% in the use of private vehicles between 1999 and 2016. And that without taking into account the globally-acclaimed pedestrianization of the Seine in 2016. Now, the Mayor, Anne Hidalgo, is planning a “15-minute Paris”.
This new proposal by the Mayor, who has been in office since 2014, aims to convert Paris into a city in which nobody takes longer than 15 minutes to get to work or take their children to school. Under the name of La Ville Du Quart d’Heure (the quarter-hour city), the aim is to decarbonize the economy and make Paris a healthier city.
Cities of the future: Paris plans to become a 15-Minute City
Urban mobility is essential when it comes to facilitating the exchange of ideas and innovation. However, during the last century, we went from urban planning aimed at pedestrians and cyclists to a city designed for cars. Is there any way of going back to a sustainable and healthy model? Hidalgo believes this is possible, by prioritizing bike lanes and public transport.

La #VilleDuQuartDHeure, c’est quoi ? C’est la ville des proximités où l’on trouve tout ce dont on a besoin à moins de 15 minutes de chez soi. C’est la condition de la transformation écologique de la ville, tout en améliorant la vie quotidienne des Parisiens. ⤵️ #Hidalgo2020 pic.twitter.com/lcQbPAjdxj
— Anne Hidalgo (@Anne_Hidalgo) January 21, 2020 Despite today’s technology enabling people to work from home and work flexibility allowing people to move between cities and countries, the truth is that a large number of journeys to work still take one hour of travel time and are highly dependent on the carbon economy.
Paris is not the only city in the world that collapses every morning when many parents are taking their children to school. Those that are not parents also block the roads, but this group is particularly interesting because it is the result of inadequate urban growth.
For decades cities have supported parents being able to use their private vehicles to take their children to the school gates, which increases the intense traffic (cars searching for a place to park), urban noise, pollution and the consumption of fossil fuels. However, it also fosters segregation by economic level and encourages obesity.
La Ville Du Quart D’Heure — A people-friendly city
Having an active life is essential in order to improve our overall health and that includes walking, moving. This is why Anne Hidalgo’s policy is to build a city intended for people, not cars. The truth is that commuting by car can have a negative impact on health, as demonstrated in the draw held in Peking to determine who could use their cars.

Those that won, moved 50% less by walking, cycling or on public transport and they all gained an average of 2 kilograms. Those over the age of 50 even gained an average of 10 kilograms. Similar results can be found across the world and in all types of cities.
That is why the 15-minute city is such an attractive and noteworthy scheme for citizens. A local government that facilitates walking children to school also facilitates sport, it is seen as an example of social integration and it is also a successful policy for shopping. Because in fact, pedestrian streets encourage shopping, and this has been demonstrated by initiatives such as Madrid Central.
Converting streets into decarbonized mobility spaces
Until now, Hidalgo’s policies have proved to be highly efficient and effective. In 2019 alone, Paris managed to reduce car traffic by 8%. The city council’s new star measure is expected to reduce it even further.
For Parisians, their health depends on it, since urban pollution is related to a whole host of diseases, and not just typical lung diseases, which are often mentioned. Since 2018, we know that a high exposure to urban pollution during pregnancy reduces the cognitive capacity of school-age children, and causes other diseases and deficiencies.
Health studies illustrate that in cities such as Madrid, which we used as an example earlier, 39% of hospital admissions due to heart problems and 13% of breathing problems are directly related to traffic intensity. Cities such as San Sebastián, New York, Boston or New Orleans, have already begun mass pedestrianization.
Pollution is also the reason why the British justice system has paralyzed plans to extend Heathrow airport, declaring it illegal, as it does not comply with the Paris Agreement of 2015 (COP21). It seems that cities are starting to move towards the Sustainable Development Goals.
Turning streets into spaces of carbon-free mobility

As well as improving health by eliminating pollution, improving health by promoting mobility, increasing local consumption thanks to pedestrianization or reducing atmospheric emissions, which accelerate climate change, reducing the number of private vehicles on the streets will also result in safer streets.
The graph above shows the “progress of road traffic victims in Paris”. The graph shows a direct relationship between both the gradual abandonment of private vehicles in favor of other means of transport and the different speed reductions in the French capital. Going from maximum speeds of 80 km/h to 70 km/h in access areas in 2014 was a success.
This has also led to a friendlier city with more quality time for its citizens. Not just because this will save travel time, resulting in more time that they can spend with their loved ones or enjoying their hobbies, but because the time gained will have the aforementioned benefits and less noise pollution.
Is it actually possible to transform Paris into this kind of sustainable city?
Despite certain opposition to the change, the truth is that Parisians are socially and environmentally responsible. Proof of this is that Anne Hidalgo has supported the same strategy for six years and to date all the proposals, even those that remove vehicles outside of certain areas, have been well-accepted.

Paris is an ancient city full of history, which means, as with other European cities, it has grown organically in an onion-like or layered manner. One simply has to look at the capillarity of the subway map to confirm that a car-free city is possible. At the moment, the proposals include hundreds of new kilometers of bike lanes.
In a few years, when technologies such as autonomous mobility reach Paris, the last owners of internal combustion vehicles will no longer be interested in owning a means of transport that it detrimental to their neighbors, entails a significant personal economic cost and when mobility will be extremely restricted. Paris is a beacon of hope, but behind it are hundreds of other similar projects.
Images | Rob Potvin, Annehidalgo2020, Paris Metro 

Repair Network Vienna

<p>A major obstacle to repairing broken goods is that many people lack the skill to repair things themselves and don't consider it worth the effort and cost to get them professionally repaired. Vienna's Repair Network provides resources and assistance to help people to repair their goods and get their goods repaired. They are a network of 23 small repair companies that offer specialised know-how and accessible repair. Furthermore, they offer repair workshops and cafés where people can learn how to repair their own goods, and get access to the tools and the knowledge required to do so. This should not only extend the life of products, but also create more emotional connection between consumer and product.</p>