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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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Business case

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

Increase Awareness

Impact on the health and happiness of human populations

Well-being

Impact on the ease of innovation, and facilitating uptake of innovations

Innovation

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

Reduce Material Consumption (SDG12)

Contributing to the improvement of biodiversity including species diversity, total number of protected species, and ecosystem health

Biodiversity

Producing building materials and finished and semi-finished building products for construction

Construction Materials and Products

Extracting and gathering wood through forestry and producing wood and paper products

Wood and Paper

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

Agriculture

Using bio-based materials such as bioplastics, mushroom-based materials, etc.

Alternative bio-based materials and inputs

Replacing freshwater use with rainwater, fogwater, seawater, etc.

Alternative water use

Enacting measures that optimise water use

Water efficiency

Preserving and conserving biological products such as food, forests, etc.

Preservation, conservation

Managing and enriching biological products such as soil, land, etc.

Management, enrichment

Utilising data and models to to identify, enable and/or implement circular strategies (eg. effective resource use & logistics planning, circular business models & design)

Data analytics, modelling

Installing sensors to gather data from products and services to identify, enable and/or implement circular strategies (eg. effective resource use & logistics planning, circular business models & design)

Sensors, monitoring systems

Measures to drain accumulating rainwater from rooftops, roads or other public surfaces and channel it into containers for multipurpose use. These include watering plants and crops, as an input into manufacturing processes, the establishment of public water features, or the introduction back into plumbing systems, Uses may include the application of filtration and treatment systems when needed. 

Manage rainwater

Locally produced food has to travel shorter, which means less fuel is consumed and less greenhouse gases are generated. Moreover, buying locally produced food helps local farmers and markets and creates more jobs in the local businesses. 


Produce locally

In the context of cities, regenerating ecosystems refers to the active protection of native habitats or the conservation and restoration of natural habitat analogues. Examples: reforestation and afforestation in urban contexts, protection of birds and local wildlife, management of green spaces, and removal of waste and plastic (or other anti pollution measures).

Regenerate ecosystems

Develop regenerative infrastructure

**Harmonize with nature** by promoting infrastructure, production systems and sourcing that allows natural ecosystems to thrive




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Regenerate

Prioritize solutions that use the power of functioning ecosystems as infrastructure to provide natural services to benefit society and the environment; consider nature-based replacements for grey infrastructure.

Prioritise renewable resources 

Promote solutions inspired and supported by nature

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

Businesses

Communities

Almost 60% of the built environment required to accommodate the earth’s urban population by 2050 remains to be built. Materials going into the built environment are currently dominated by non-renewable carbon-intensive minerals, such as concrete, asphalt, bricks, sand and gravel. As urbanisation increases, demand for these materials increases and related negative environmental impact follows. 

Substituting conventional materials with renewable bio-based materials can successfully cut demand for virgin materials—thereby decreasing the overall environmental impact of the built environment. Bio-based materials have far lower embodied carbon and can even act as carbon sinks, sequestering emissions from the atmosphere. They can replace hazardous materials like asbestos and improve the health and well-being of communities. Examples of these materials include: wood, bamboo, hemp, crop residues, as well as more sustainable forms of concrete (seaweed-crete, timber-crete, etc.). 

Local governments can promote the adoption of bio-based construction materials, for instance, by drawing up new tender criteria where bio-based products are part of new development projects, or by funding research and then regulating new cutting-edge materials that can substitute conventional construction materials.


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🏢  Bio-based construction materials

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

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

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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https://www.stefanoboeriarchitetti.net/en/project/vertical-forest/

Milan

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Stefano Boeri 

<p>Utilising regenerative materials, such as trees, to construct skyscrapers can support biodiversity, raise awareness and improve air quality in dense cities. In this example, we are looking at such an example in the City of Milan commissioned by Stefano Boeri. Stefano Boeri also is planning such a construction in the City of Nanjing.</p>