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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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Article / Report

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

Ecological Impact

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

Reduce Material Consumption (SDG12)

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

Producing building materials and providing services to create residential and non-residential infrastructure and real estate


Construction and Infrastructure

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

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

Use waste as a resource

Use digital, online platforms and technologies that provide insights to track and optimise resource use, strengthen connections between supply chain actors, and enable the implementation of circular models



Incorporate digital technology

Reuse, repurpose, and recycle waste streams within the same industry

Valorise waste streams - closed loop

Employ technologies to gather and analyse data to provide insights on resource use

Data and insights

Employ online platforms to connect and improve information sharing between stakeholders

Digital platforms

Using waste materials that have been processed and recycled to produce new products within the same industry

Using closed loop recycled materials

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

Developing or utilising online platforms to enable circular economy opportunities through information, product or service offering

Online platforms

When designing and procuring for a new building, source recycled and secondary materials and parts. Prepare parts and materials from decommissioned buildings to be used again and release them into the market for re-use. 

Trade secondary materials

Other

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

Inform

Data, knowledge & information sharing

Increase standardised data collection

Research and facilitate new technological developments to aid the transition to a circular economy.

Research and Development

Conduct research

 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

Incorporate extended use in project planning phases; create or update city policies to allow for extended use.


Design and regulate for separation and recovery

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

Governments

Currently, most Construction and Demolition (C&D) waste is mixed and used for backfilling or sent to landfill. Some of it is incinerated or downcycled into products of much lower value. This has become a pressing issue in many urban areas due to the sheer volume of C&D waste, which often is the biggest proportion of the waste stream. However, the built environment in cities is already a “mine” from which to recover valuable materials from the existing building stocks. 

Improving separation of different materials at demolition sites and establishing or improving facilities for reuse and recovery of C&D waste allows for value to be retained within the local economy, reducing the burden of urban C&D waste management and helping cities achieve a more resource-efficient urbanisation. By recovering building components from buildings that are to be demolished, fewer new components need to be produced, and fewer raw materials need to be extracted. This reduces environmental impacts and emissions at each step of the value chain, from extraction to transportation and manufacturing. 

Cities can influence the type of waste management infrastructures developed within the city’s borders, as well as how different facilities throughout the city connect to one another. They can invest and support in developing infrastructure, both physical and digital, that can facilitate the closing of material and energy loops throughout the urban built environment. This can take the form of C&D recycling facilities, facilities for reconditioning of deconstructed building elements, and material and component marketplaces to collect and recover disassembled pre-used building components and material. Finally, they can invest and facilitate research to map the building stock aiding in identification of recovery opportunities and adequate demolition practices.


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🏢  Construction and demolition waste reuse and recycling

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

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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    exploring Amsterdam's 'urban mine'
Conclusion & results
Overall, most assumption were found to remain valid, although the validity of some assumptions could not be indicated, specifically due to the lack of access to roof spaces. However, five assumptions were found to be in need of revision, these are briefly listed in this chapter together with associated revision recommendations.
1. Buildings before 1900 were found to not include steel in the load-bearingstructureConstruction year data from the BAG register is available, which could providean indication of the metal content of the load bearing structure. Inclusion of theconstruction year in the dataset, combined with a with a lower steel score forbuildings built before 1900, should be considered.
2. Apartments smaller than 75m2 were found not to have a separate toilet andbathroom, instead the toilet was present in the bathroomThe assumed amenities of the 55 - 75m2 standard apartment could be changed toone kitchen and a bathroom with toilet. The impact on the metal content shouldbe researched and adapted when change is found to be significant.
3. Recently completed buildings were found not to be included in the databaseIt should be ensured that the database is kept up to date in order to account forthese recently completed building.
4. Some buildings with a non-residential function were found to (temporarily)accommodate a residential functionTo account for all residential buildings, a clear distinction needs to be madebetween the residential function and use of the building. Although the currentlyused BAG function distinction might very well be adequate, research on therelevance of including buildings used for residential purposes, but with otherfunctions according to the BAG register is recommended. This research shouldaccount for the metal concentration in these buildings versus the amount ofthese buildings in Amsterdam.
5. Some buildings were found to use electric cooking appliances rather than gasThe absence of gas connections in the kitchen is likely to lower the copper contentof the building. Because policy objectives increasingly aim to disconnect fromthe gas infrastructure (ECN, 2016), it is recommended to research its impact onthe amount of copper in buildings to be able to accurately estimate the coppercontent in the future.
Download the publication.
Go to the projectsite.
 Partners:
Leiden University, Institute of Environmental Sciences: Ester van der Voet, Ruben Huele
Waag Society: Job Spierings, Ruben Huele
AMS Institute / Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment: Ellen van Bueren, Alexander Koutamanis, Boukje van Reijn
Metabolic: Anna Krotova
Industrial Ecology students: Luuk Gremmen, Sho Lin
Project leader / contact:
Ruben Huele, <a>urbmines@xs4all.nl</a>  PUMA is a project from the AMS research programme which focuses on exploring Amsterdam's 'urban mine'. The concept of 'urban mining' has not been clearly defined up to now. It is even less clear what an urban mining system should look like. Which factors are important and what roles can they play in an urban mining system? What incentives are there for setting up such a system? What obstacles will be encountered and how can they be removed? How these choices are made also depends on whether we regard urban mining as a local initiative or something that has to be tackled at a higher scale, in other words at national, European or even global level. It is also important whether we believe that governments should be responsible or that this is primarily a task for companies. The PUMA consortium consists of researchers from Leiden University, Delft University of Technology, the Waag Society and Metabolic that is carrying out research into this.
 The project was running from 14 January 2016 to 31 December 2016 and involves the development of a geological map of Amsterdam showing the presence and availability of certain metals (iron, copper and aluminium), with a focus on the built environment. A second goal is to explore the possibilities for extracting the metals from this urban mine.
 The project is a joint research of TU Delft, Waag Society, CML Leiden University, and Metabolic.
 The researchers intend to take this idea further in other, larger projects, funded for example by the EU Horizon 2020 program or the KIC Raw Materials.
   http://www.ams-institute.org/solution/puma/     You need to log-in or register to leave a comment.      More projects  

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Amsterdam

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Metabolic’s overarching mission is to transition the global economy to a fundamentally sustainable state.

A new economic model is necessary: one that ensures the wellbeing of all people and allows organizations to thrive without transgressing the safe boundaries of the earth’s natural systems.  And we don’t have much time. Metabolic advises governments, businesses, and NGOs on how to adapt to a fast-changing global context, while creating disruptive solutions that can dramatically shift how the economy functions. We crunch data, provide strategies and tools, build pilots, and create new ventures that develop scalable solutions to critical problems. Core to achieving our mission is the transition to an economy that is regenerative and ‘circular’ by design.

Metabolic 

 CML Leiden University

 Waag Society

Amsterdam Smart City 

AMS Institute

 Delft University of Technology

<p>The majority of metals are consumed within the construction sector. Metals are not only difficult to extract from the ground, but are also more easily recyclable, making the metals in buildings a prime target for recycling. Although these metals - the "urban mine" - are used widely, their recycling is not very systematic. The PUMA project has successfully researched the prevalence of three metals (copper, iron, and aluminium) in Amsterdam, and created a geological map (urban mining database) of urban mining potentials in the city. This helps the wider implementation of urban mining, and has inspired similar studies in Utrecht and Amersfoort.</p>