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Starter Kit collection

Business 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 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 ease of innovation, and facilitating uptake of innovations

Innovation

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)

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

Biodiversity

Producing and providing business and consumer goods and services

Goods and Services

Producing indoor products for the home and office, such as furniture, including upholstery, carpets and wall-coverings, as well as cutlery, cookware, glassware, crystal, silverware, utensils, kitchenware and household specialties

Home and Office Furnishings

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

Use waste as a resource

Reuse, repurpose, and recycle waste streams within other industries

Valorise waste streams - open loop

Transforming waste products, materials for reuse within other industries

Open loop upcycling

VISION:
Raw materials are renewable, recyclable and safe, kept in continual circulation.

DETAIL:
Imagine a time when…the raw materials that are used to make things are sourced from existing products and regenerative agriculture, via carbon negative and climate neutral processes. Biodegradable raw materials are used for products with biodegradable end routes. Toxic chemicals have been washed out of the global materials pool, disposed of safely and replaced with beneficial alternatives. Virgin fibres made from fossil fuels have been banned, while secondary synthetic fibres, derived from what was already in the system, are kept in constant circulation as a resource. Circularity accounting methods, built on science-based metrics, help to manage a balanced system of resources, across all industries, and in line with the planet’s environmental limits.

Raw Materials and Planetary Boundaries

VISION:
Products and services are designed for multiple use and material value retention, with maximum positive impact.

DETAIL: 
Imagine a time when…products flow via optimal collection and distribution streams into reusable and repairable product platforms. Reuse and access models are dominant, and products are designed for multiple recirculation before biodegrading (if designed to do so), or being broken down into reusable raw materials for production. People only consume what they need. Production and consumption wastes have been fully eliminated and multifunctional, season-less and timeless fashions are the norm, yet still fulfil our human need for expression and creativity without constraint. All business models, organisations, governments and citizens play a role in maintaining a healthy, functioning circular ecosystem.

Products and Services

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

Archetypes

CE Materials

Impacts

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Industries

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Materials

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

Topics

Urban Opportunities

Whilst no two countries are the same, there are still obvious similarities between some of them, with discernible development patterns and parallels in evidence. Common problems and shared solutions help place unique country identities and individual issues in context.

Whilst this classification is far from clear-cut and exhibits some overlap, it does underline how the discourse on transitioning to a circular economy needs to account for both differences and commonalities, if we are to arrive at a more strategic and instructive analysis. It also allows to highlight a set of key themes that are likely to be central to the countries that fall under the respective profiles. 

Country profiles (Build, Grow, Shift)

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A framework to distinguish between different country profiles and their circular transition needs.

Browse case studies by type of implementing stakeholder.

Implementing stakeholders

It is 2050.  Full systems change has taken place. This wouldn’t have been possible without the immediate action and radical steps taken from 2020 onwards. Many targets had to be identified in the early 2020s and achieved by 2030 to ensure that the 2050 goal happened in full. A sense of urgency, turbo stakeholder collaboration, supportive government regulation and clear, data driven targets enabled the mindsets and systems change needed to transform to a fully circular textiles ecosystem.

A circular economics model underpins what we have created. It reflects and supports a living organism made up of makers, users and restorers, interacting across vibrant and interconnected networks. Checks and balances, alongside transparency and accountability, ensure a healthy system. Financial, environmental, and social metrics have the purpose of serving communities and the planet. There is shared ownership of profit and loss – across all three metrics – throughout the value chain.

This is what we’ve achieved over the last 30 years:

WCTD Themes

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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

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

Thematic Areas

City Stakeholders

Test Framework

Challenges

Based on the ongoing ISO standardisation process, a taxonomy has been defined under which to cluster indicators to measure circularity. 

ISO Taxonomy

If managed well, the transition to the circular economy will have multiple benefits for the labour market, including the opening up of job opportunities, raising job standards and reducing inequalities through a global redistribution of value. But a positive transition to circularity for work and workers must be underpinned by three pillars: upskilling the workforce, quality of work and inclusive job opportunities. Find out more and explore cases that illustrate these pillars below.

Circular Jobs Initiative Pillars

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A positive transition to circularity for work and workers must be underpinned by three core pillars.

This is a survey that dives into understanding the policy environment around specific circular solutions. 

The survey is divided into five sections, based on the five key elements of the Circular Cities Action Framework. 
Each section asks 2-3 questions to explore which policies may or may not be present within your city to support a transition towards a circular economy. 

You are not alone! Each question provides some practical examples from cities around the world that have adopted a certain policy to support their transition. This can help to compare with your city - is your city doing something similar?

The survey answers should be based on your current knowledge, and not illicit additional research - ! Please make use of the Not sure option as appropriate.


Ganbatte Cities Policy Tracker [Food]

Ganbatte Cities - Policy tracker policy instruments

Policy Tracker - TEST

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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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A view from UNSW's SMaRT drone of a circuit board.Credit:UNSWUNSW's SMaRT centre estimates that a tonne of mobile phones (about 6000 handsets) contains 130 kilograms of copper, 3.5 kilograms of silver, 340 grams of gold and 140 grams of palladium. That adds up to tens of thousands of dollars worth of metal alloy.Professor Sahajwalla's prototype uses precision high-temperature reactions to produce alloys from the waste circuit boards, while also destroying toxins. Then a drone identifies the target metals from crushed e-waste and a robot extracts them before they are taken to the furnace.Professor Sahajwalla's tyre recycling process has already saved more than two million tyres from landfill.Credit:Tamara DeanShe said that the micro-factories could be run regionally in Australia, uniting networks of local councils with not-for-profit recycling companies and local businesses.Mobile phone recycler, MobileMuster, estimates 25.5 million obsolete phones are littering Australian homes and workplaces.MobileMuster estimates more than 95 per cent of materials in mobile phones can be recovered and returned to the supply chain.Worldwide, the United Nations Environment Program estimates the trillion-dollar electronics industry generated 42 million tonnes of obsolete equipment in 2014. It said this e-waste contained nearly $70 billion worth of embedded resources."The world urgently needs a safe, low-cost recycling solution for e-waste," Professor Sahajwalla said. "Our approach is to enable local communities to transform e-waste into valuable metal alloys."She doesn't know when this latest invention of hers will go commercial but said there is already one interested industry partner.MobileMuster is the recycling program of Australia's mobile phone industry. It estimates more than 95 per cent of materials in mobile phones can be recovered and returned to the supply chain.It has more than 3300 public drop off points around the country including all major mobile phone retailers. They can also be posted for free by picking up a reply-paid satchel from Australia Post outlets. Spyro Kalos, the manager of MobileMuster's recycling program, said: "It is great to see that UNSW is researching and investigating micro-recycling factories. There is great potential here for this technology to be used in developing markets where there is a lack of recycling infrastructure."Professor Sahajwalla said: "We already understand the value of sourcing energy from the sun. Similarly we can source valuable materials from our waste."Find out more:

Veena Sahajwalla picks her way through the family rubbish bins, plundering them before they get out the door. She keeps a collection of rubbish in her house. Her car is full of garbage that she takes to work. She gets excited at landfill dumps, at all the good stuff she finds. "She's obsessed with waste," says her husband, Rama Mahapatra.But it is not waste to her, even if she is known as the Waste Queen. Professor Sahajwalla is a revolutionary, an inventor who sees rubbish as an opportunity. "Waste is really one of those untapped resources just waiting to be harnessed," she says.For Professor Sahajwalla, an empty chip packet is not just an empty chip packet, it is lined with aluminium, and she can use that. It also handily helps her "feel a bit less guilty" about eating chips, her regular weekend indulgence. Professor Sahajwalla says it's time to be "bold and brave" to tackle Australia's mounting waste issues.(Australian Story: Anthony Frisina )Kicking through the rubbish in her heels at Kimbriki Resource Recovery Centre, in Sydney's Northern Beaches, she picks up a discarded plastic chair and a plant pot. "All of this," she says with her disarming grin. "This polypropylene can be re-manufactured right here in Australia."Download the ABC News app for all the latest.Professor Sahajwalla has an impressive list of titles after her name: scientist, engineer, director of the UNSW Sydney SMaRT Centre, Eureka Prize winner. She is a whirlwind of ideas and energy. A magnetic personality on a mission.All those unwanted things, all the 67 million tonnes of waste that go into landfill every year are bringing us to a tipping point — "a waste crisis"."For far too long everyone just assumed we could just use stuff and throw it away," she says.But we can't just keep digging bigger and bigger holes for landfill. These tiles are the result of years of experimentation at UNSW have been dubbed 'green ceramics'.(Australian Story: Anthony Frisina)Late last year, Australia took a step towards addressing the effects of the "waste crisis", passing legislation banning the export of unprocessed waste overseas. Professor Sahajwalla says now is the time to address new ways of re-purposing our waste."We can no longer assume that we'll pack it off and send it somewhere overseas and it then becomes somebody else's problem," she says. "To put it quite bluntly, we're going to have to take responsibility for our own stuff."Professor Sahajwalla's eye is always on the future. Her innovative thinking has led to the idea of "green ceramics" — products made from technology that is set to revolutionise manufacturing and the way we furnish our homes.She can see a world where instead of cutting marble from mountains in Italy, people can use tiles made from glass bottles combined with second-hand clothes to tile bathrooms and kitchens. The "designer-look" tiles and furnishings have been installed in a new apartment to show the possibilities of green ceramics.(Supplied: Mirvac)The 'caffeinated problem solver'Fuelled by coffee and the bananas she carries in her handbag, Professor Sahajwalla is a ball of energy, driven, tireless, constantly taking calls — as anyone who finds themselves in her gravitational pull will discover — nutting out possible solutions to the problems thrown at her.It is a process that takes her from rubbish dumps to science labs to manufacturing plants and corporate boardrooms. "She completely steps out of the box to solve the problem," her husband says.If we can use re-purposed waste materials instead of taking mineral resources out of the ground it is, Professor Sahajwalla says, "a double-whammy and a slam dunk".6,000 kilograms of fashion and textile waste are dumped every 10 minutesOnly 20 per cent of Australian household plastic waste is recycled.17 billion bottles and cans are used each year but less than half are recycledIn one day Australians waste enough bottles and cans to stretch over 4,000km — the length of AustraliaSource: ABC War on Waste Twenty years ago, she did just that. This diminutive scientist invented a way to extract carbon from old tyres to go into the steel making process to replace coke and coal."People were too reliant on traditional coal and coke, no one was really looking at alternatives," she says. She called it green steel and millions of old tyres have since been diverted from landfill. It was this success that launched her as a scientist superstar, recognised globally. "It is a once in a 100-year revolution the way in which steel is made," said Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering CEO Kylie Walker. "Her invention was groundbreaking." Since then, Professor Sahajwalla has taken the idea of re-purposing waste further and further; from steel mills into people's homes. Because when it came to chucking things out, she says: "We need to be bold and brave and think big."A CSIRO report released in January revealed that Australia could add $1 billion to its annual GDP by switching to an economy that focuses on re-purposing waste materials.A childhood of recycling in actionProfessor Sahajwalla grew up in Mumbai, where many people still did not have the luxury of being able to buy new things. "There is no such thing as waste; everything had a value, and everything had potential," she says.As a kid she would walk around the streets seeing recycling in action. "I'd see people working, repairing shoes, guys carting stuff around like television sets, all kinds of heavy things on their heads that they might have picked up," she says."Even today there is a big part of the economy that operates off repairing things. It was fascinating for me."It is really what inspired me to take on engineering as a field of study."Her father was a civil engineer, her mother a paediatrician who travelled long distances on public transport to go to work."My mother continues to be an amazing role model," Professor Sahajwalla says."For her anything is possible. Do what you love but do it at your very best and be your best."Professor Sahajwalla was a studious child, encouraged "to be curious about things" preferring studying at home to going out with friends. She was the only woman in her metallurgy class at the Indian Institute of Technology. "I was probably quite unusual in pursuing my love for science and engineering. That was OK because I was quite comfortable in my shoes." On average, every Australian uses 53 kilograms of plastic a year. It's one of the issues Professor Sahajwalla hopes can be curbed in the future.(Australian Story: Jennifer Feller)Isolating though it was, she graduated top of her class. "Some of the male colleagues, I'm sure, were not entirely delighted," she says.Professor Sahajwalla met her husband in Vancouver, where they were both studying metallurgical engineering at the University of British Columbia. Back then, her relentless recycling verged on being problematic. "There was a potential clash because I was absolutely a clean freak," he remembers. "But she was kind of a little bit messy because she just wanted to keep reusing things and I wanted to throw things out."When she finished her PhD, Professor Sahajwalla followed her now-husband to Australia. "I started my career here with CSIRO and eventually came to UNSW."There she began working on what would become green steel. The next generation, she says, will hopefully eliminate coal from the process of making steel. Invited to join ABC's The New Inventors, her vivacity and enthusiasm shone. It was an experience she described as "exciting and thrilling", if a "bit scary" to start with.In 2005, Professor Sahajwalla won the Eureka prize, the pinnacle of scientific achievement in Australia. It would be just one of many awards in Australia and overseas.Now she was able to get the funding to help start the UNSW Centre for Sustainable Materials Research and Technology (SMaRT) where she and a team of 30 passionate young engineers and scientists started their research experimenting with waste materials."Keeping up with Veena is the challenge," says Anirban Ghose, an engineer who has worked with her for five years. "It's from one idea to the next. She's a caffeinated problem solver."We've had these mad trips where we've gone to India for two-and-a-half weeks and visited 11 different cities and she has been presenting every day."Glass and second-hand clothes become designer tiles This splashback is made from 'green ceramics' which come from the unlikely combination of re-purposed glass and textiles.(Supplied: Mirvac)Every year tonnes of clothes get thrown away along with mountains of glass. After years of experimenting, Professor Sahajwalla and her team have combined textiles and glass to produce tiles — coined "green ceramics"— that "have this amazing designer-type look".Now they have designed a series of machines, named a "micro factory",  that can be used outside the lab to produce similar products. "We are reimagining what manufacturing could look like in the future," she says.After years of reaching out to the building industry, in 2019 Professor Sahajwalla finally received a call from construction giant Mirvac, which could see the potential in her idea. Mattress recycler Andrew Douglas had looked around the world for solutions to his mattress waste when he met Veena.(Australian Story: Anthony Frisina)National residential marketing director Natasha Ryko says the building and construction industry contributes 60 per cent of waste in Australia which equates to about 41 million tonnes a year. "We needed to come up with a sustainability initiative for a particular project," she says.Professor Sahajwalla and her team were commissioned to make a dining table using waste glass and textile and a side table made from corflute banners collected on campus.Then she was asked to work on  their latest development and something much more ambitious. "We've now actually put in another range and it's gone into flooring, walling applications, and really all kinds of very creative applications," she saysShe said seeing the products in a real-world setting was a "goosebumps moment"."We have never seen anything like what Veena has been doing," Mirvac CEO and managing director Susan Lloyd-Hurwitz says. "It is really pioneering. We were just blown away."Re-imagining manufacturingProfessor Sahajwalla's mother was right. For her daughter, anything was possible. Now, she is launching the first commercially operating "micro factory" in one of the rural communities, where she thinks a big part of its future lies.As production begins in a small shed at Cootamundra, NSW, Professor Sahajwalla can see her vision being realised. After eight years of trials and research it was an emotional moment when she flicked the switch to get it running earlier this month. "A moment," she says, "of fear and wonder. It's the first step but a very big one." Andrew Douglas and UNSW SMarRTCentre engineer Keith Monaghan start up the micro factory for the first time.(Australian Story: Anthony Frisina)The micro factory is operated by Andrew Douglas, a long-time collaborator, who was running a small recycling business looking for ways to recycle old mattresses and tyres when they met. "I've been on a global search looking for a solution for mattress waste and Veena's idea to develop a micro factory and look at proper end use for the textile was like nothing I'd seen before, so I was very keen to get involved," he says.Professor Sahajwalla hopes the micro factory model will be adopted across Australia, particularly in the regions, to deal with all kinds of problematic waste.She is confident Australia can achieve a "zero-waste economy"."When we start to see a future where people are going out and asking for resources and materials that come from waste streams then I think we would see that we are at the cusp of that change," she says.Watch Australian Story's The Tipping Point on Youtube or iview.

 The concept of green manufacturing is something that we’ve developed at the SMaRT Centre at UNSW Australia. The whole idea is to think about materials being produced by using waste and end‐of‐life products as raw materials and the concept of green manufacturing as value-adding. Originally in partnership with OneSteel, the SMaRT Centre developed a process to make green alloys, using end‐of‐life rubber tyres and waste plastic as an alternative to coking coal. Now working with industry partner Molycop, many millions of passenger vehicle tyres have been diverted from landfill in Australia, and the technology has now been commercialised here and overseas in countries including South Korea, Thailand, the UK and Norway. We have shown that the technology of polymer injection into steel making is successful on a commercial scale and that has huge beneficial outcomes for the manufacturing industry as a whole, while at the same time demonstrating the successful translation of research into industry. At the SMaRT Centre, we take a holistic approach to manufacturing. Our aim is to take our research which is making real-world impact and to disseminate those ‘green social technologies’ to enhance sustainable economic growth – particularly in regional areas of Australia and developing nations internationally. When we define social or green products it’s coming out of the engineering and scientific principles. Green Steel - next generation technology We want to make products using waste that add value to the world and at the same time are safe and sustainable. The SMaRT Centre is now carrying out new research into using waste bio-resources like coffee grounds, plastics and rubbers and their application in steel making under its SMaRT@UNSW Green Steel next generation "Polymer Injection Technology" work. This includes not just using more wastes with the aim of one day replacing the need for coke and coal in electric arc furnace (EAF) steel making, but using waste resources as a source of the vital steel making ingredient of hydrogen for an overall more efficient process requiring less energy. Here is a March 2022 announcement in relation to three scientific papers revealing new Green Steel next gen breakthroughs. Here is an October 2021 announcement in relation to new Green Steel next gen research and development work. Here is 'Story 1' from February 2022 on new Green Steel next gen research and development work by Create Magazine. Here is 'Story 2' from February 2022 on new Green Steel next gen research and development work by Create Magazine. Latest Green Steel posts on this website The below content tiles reference key highlights along the Green Steel journey.          


   

      UNSW Sydney’s Sustainable Materials Research and Technology (SMaRT) Centre has won a prestigious award for its ground-breaking recycling research in collaboration with industry partners. The SMaRT Centre, led by founder Professor Veena Sahajwalla, was recognised for the invention of its ‘Green Steel’ technology in collaboration originally with One Steel and then with long-standing Newcastle-based steel maker MolyCop which is taking the technology across its global operations. More information   

      In this article, Professor Veena Sahajwalla explains the road to achieving the green steel breakthrough, other steel related research and how high-temperature reactions can be leveraged to revolutionise recycling science to reduce costs for today’s businesses and to create entirely new businesses and jobs while delivering environmental benefits. More information   

      ‘Green steel’ technology invented at UNSW has achieved a major milestone, with its use in Australia preventing more than two million waste rubber tyres from ending up in landfill. The discarded tyres – which would reach as high as the International Space Station if stacked one on top of each other – were used by OneSteel, an Arrium company, to manufacture steel in its Sydney and Melbourne facilities. More information   

      In this feature story by Waste Management Review, Professor Veena talks about how she was able to commercialise her Green Steel technology and gives an overview of her impressive academic career. More information   

      CPA's In the Black publication documents the achievements of Professor Veena, from Green Steel to her latest developments in microrecylcing science. In 2003, Sahajwalla invented polymer injection technology (PIT), known as green steel. An environmentally friendly and cost-effective process for using recycled rubber tyres, the technology has been licensed to steel makers globally, and Sahajwalla and her team are working with Newcastle-based steelmaker MolyCop, which plans to implement the technology across its global operations. More information   

  
 

 The SMaRT Centre has developed a Green Ceramics MICROfactorieTM at UNSW to not only conduct ongoing research and development on its ceramics technology and capability, but to advance its collaboration with industry and the community as part of its continuing work. The UNSW Green Ceramics MICROfactorieTM has developed ceramics that have been used in numerous industrial and community settings, and commercial and community MICROfactories are now either established or are being established by independent operators, some of which are highlighted below. The ceramics are used as kitchen benches, table tops, floor tiles, furnishings and for other applications. Highlights and applications for this 'waste to product' technology are found in the expandable links below, and in this 2021 ABC Australian Story show. For any industry and commercial enquiries please complete this form. SMaRT uses a variety of waste materials to produce a range of 'green' materials and products for the built environment, and the ceramics products are mainly made from types of waste glass and textiles that are traditionally not subject to recycling. This is due to issues such as contamination and material complexity. Other waste streams that can be used to create these ceramic, include waste wood and plastics. Essentially, these green ceramics are a new generation of high performance, non-toxic, engineered bio-composites, for use in buildings, as furniture and for various architectural and decorative applications.     Read more about the launch of the Green Ceramics and Plastics MICROfactoriesTM in 2019 by Federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley. The below video gives an overview of our Green Ceramics and MICROfactorieTM capability.  
 

Australia

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UNSW Sydney.

<p>UNSW professor Veena Sahajwalla introduced a new concept of Green Ceramic, where second-hand clothes and glass bottles are put together to make high-quality building products.</p>