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The Circularity Gap Report: Friesland is a joint initiative led by Circulair Friesland, the Province of Friesland, and Circle Economy to track Friesland’s progress toward a more circular economy while also serving as a model for other regions. As the organizations behind this dashboard, we aim to provide structured indicators to measure key aspects of circularity—such as resource efficiency, waste reduction, and circular jobs—alongside on-the-ground case studies that highlight innovative local initiatives. This approach helps policymakers, businesses, and communities assess progress, address challenges, and accelerate Friesland’s transition to a circular economy. In doing so, Friesland is working toward meeting the national goal of reducing primary resource use by 50% by 2030 and achieving a fully circular economy in the Netherlands by 2050.

Beyond Friesland, this dashboard is designed as a replicable tool that can be implemented in other regions worldwide. By fostering comprehensive comparisons, it enables knowledge sharing and collaboration, allowing regions to learn from one another and scale successful strategies. In addition to tracking current trends, the monitor offers forward-looking recommendations to drive circular development—both within Friesland and beyond—helping to create a more sustainable global economy.

This case study collection supports the dashboard, in showcasing circular economy projects and initiatives already occurring in the region.

CGR Friesland

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Business case

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


Construction and Infrastructure

Utilise bio-based, reusable, non-toxic and non-critical materials

Regenerative materials

Upgrade, repair, and maintenance while in-use

Maximise lifetime of products in-use

Deliver products through business models that ensure maximum value

Product business models

Designing products that are made to last and to ensure longer use

Design for durability

**Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable**

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The pandemic has caused major shifts in migration patterns, including huge movements of people in and out of urban areas. Furthermore, climate change and conflicts tend to have disproportionate impacts on cities. These factors mean that the world is far from achieving the goal of sustainable cities.  
In many developing countries, slum populations have been growing, putting at risk the target of adequate housing for all by 2030. Since 2015, the number of countries with national disaster risk reduction strategies has more than doubled. 

Cities are hubs for ideas, commerce, culture, science, productivity, and social, human and economic development. Urban planning, transport systems, water, sanitation, waste management, disaster risk reduction, access to information, education and capacity-building are all relevant issues to sustainable urban development.

This target entails multiple essential concepts such as disaster risk reduction (DRR) and sustainable transport.

To achieve SDG 11, efforts must focus on strengthening capacities for planning for urban development, improving access to public transportation, and enhancing waste management. 

Sources: [https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal11](https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal11)
[https://sdgs.un.org/topics/sustainable-cities-and-human-settlements](https://sdgs.un.org/topics/sustainable-cities-and-human-settlements)


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11. Sustainable cities and communities

Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable

Slow strategies aim to keep materials in use for as long as possible, for example through design for durability and repairability. A more circular economy is also a slower one: materials, components, and products—and even buildings and infrastructure—that we lock in stocks are made to last. This will lower material demand in the long run, in essence also serving to narrow resource flows.

Slow

Narrow strategies reduce material and energy use. Currently, material use is highly inefficient and ineffective; we can deliver similar social outcomes by using much less and phasing out fossil fuels, for example. This doesn’t mean being worse off, but rather focusing on using materials efficiently: think in terms of riding a bike instead of driving a car, eating less meat, and living in a space that suits your needs. Using less is a core tenet of the circular economy—yet currently, the threshold for sustainable consumption, 8 tonnes per person, is being surpassed by 1.5 times. 

Narrow

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

Industries

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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

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**These 17 Goals recognize that ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth – all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests.**

The SDGs build on decades of work by countries and the UN, and especially on the Millennium Declaration adopted in September 2000 at UN Headquarters in New York which let to the elaboration of eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to reduce extreme poverty by 2015.

In 2015, the Paris Agreement was signed. A major blueprint came out of this: The Sustainable Development Goals: 17 overarching goals—and 169 targets—that governments are aiming to meet by 2030. Significant progress has been made in terms of poverty, health and inequality, but there's still a way to go. This is where the circular economy comes in: by circulating resources multiple times, the circular economy tackles issues of scarcity and allows all to access what they need—without overburdening the earth. If it's implemented in a holistic way—affording attention to social considerations and the fair distribution of resources— it also offers a pathway for achieving the SDGs; and the link between the two is ever-growing. To read more about the link between the SDGs and the circular economy, click [here](https://www.circle-economy.com/blogs/how-the-circular-economy-can-help-us-reach-the-sustainable-development-goals).

It is the Division for Sustainable Development Goals (DSDG) in the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) which provides substantive support and capacity-building for the SDGs and their related thematic issues. TheDSDG plays a key role in the evaluation of UN systemwide implementation of the 2030 Agenda and in advocacy and outreach activities relating to the SDGs. In order to make the 2030 Agenda a reality, broad ownership of the SDGs must translate into a strong commitment by all stakeholders to implement the global goals. DSDG aims to help facilitate this engagement.
Alongside this, the annual High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development serves as the central UN platform for the follow-up and review of the SDGs.
In addition, the UN Secretary-General presents an annual SDG Progress report, which is developed in cooperation with the UN System, and based on the global indicator framework and data produced by national statistical systems and information collected at the regional level.

To read more information: [https://sdgs.un.org/goals](https://sdgs.un.org/goals)

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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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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Friesland

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Leva Wonen

<p>Leva provides sustainable, energy-efficient modular homes constructed with renewable and recycled materials. The company focuses on minimising waste, ensuring affordability, and integrating circular construction techniques. By designing adaptable and scalable housing solutions, Leva contributes to a more resource-efficient built environment while extending the lifespan of housing units.</p>