Business case

Impact on the health and happiness of human populations

Well-being

Reduced use and withdrawal of water and rate of recycling and reuse of water

Save Water (SDG6)

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

Biodiversity

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

Agriculture

Ensure renewable, reusable, non-toxic resources are utilised as materials and energy in an efficient way

Prioritise regenerative resources

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

Use waste as a resource

Replace freshwater with less impactful alternatives and enact water efficiency measures

Regenerative water

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

Alternative water use

Regenerate strategies phase out hazardous or toxic materials and processes and substitute them with regenerative biomass resources. A circular economy aims to mimic natural cycles—by shifting to more regenerative farming practices, for example—while also maximising the share of circular biomass that enters the economy. Regeneration can happen both at the systems level (by designing regenerative processes) as well as at the product level (by switching synthetic to organic fertilisers, for example).

Regenerate

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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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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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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 Building upon previous work of the International Resource Panel on Decoupling Natural Resource Use and Environmental Impacts from Economic Growth, this report examines the potential for decoupling at the city level. As the majority of the world’s population now lives in cities, and cities are where most resource consumption takes place, both the pressures and potential to find ways to reconcile economic growth, wellbeing and the sustainable use of natural resources will be greatest in cities. 
Analysing the role of cities as spatial nodes where the major resource flows connect as goods, services and waste, the report’s focus is how infrastructure directs material flows and, therefore, resource use, productivity and efficiency in an urban context. It makes the case for examining cities from a material flow perspective, while also placing the city within the broader system of flows that make it possible for it to function. 
The report also highlights the way that the design, construction and operation of energy, waste, water, sanitation and transport infrastructures create a socio-technical environment that shapes the “way of life” of citizens and how they procure, use and dispose of the resources they require. Its approach is innovative in that it frames infrastructure networks as socio-technical systems, examining pressures for change within cities that go beyond technical considerations.  The importance of intermediaries as the dominant agents for change is emphasized, as well as the fact that social processes and dynamics need to be understood and integrated into any assessment of urban infrastructure interventions and the reconfiguration of resource flows. 
A set of 30 case studies provide examples of innovative approaches to sustainable infrastructure change across a broad range of urban contexts that could inspire leaders of other cities to embrace similar creative solutions. Of course, innovations in and of themselves do not suffice if they are not integrated into larger strategic visions for the city, and as each city is unique, interventions need to be tailored to the set of challenges and opportunities present in each case.
• UNEP (2013) City-Level Decoupling: Urban resource flows and the governance of infrastructure transitions. A Report of the Working Group on Cities of the International Resource Panel. Swilling M., Robinson B., Marvin S. and Hodson M. Page 2                 Through a combination of resource efficiency, climate mitigation, carbon removal, and biodiversity protection policies, this report finds that it is feasible and possible to grow...          Through a combination of resource efficiency, climate mitigation, carbon removal, and biodiversity protection policies, this report finds that it is feasible and possible to grow...           We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to shift future urbanization on to a more environmentally sustainable and socially just path. The Weight of Cities suggests a new approach to...          We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to shift future urbanization on to a more environmentally sustainable and socially just path. The Weight of Cities suggests a new approach to...           Better and more efficient production and use of natural resources can be one of the most cost-efficient and effective ways to reduce impacts on the environment (including pollution)...          Better and more efficient production and use of natural resources can be one of the most cost-efficient and effective ways to reduce impacts on the environment (including pollution)...           Most resource consumption takes place in cities. How a city is designed shapes how its inhabitants use transport, energy and water, and dispose of waste. The challenge is to build...          Most resource consumption takes place in cities. How a city is designed shapes how its inhabitants use transport, energy and water, and dispose of waste. The challenge is to build...           This report gives a scientific assessment of which global environmental problems present the biggest challenges, and weighs up the impacts of various economic activities to identify...          This report gives a scientific assessment of which global environmental problems present the biggest challenges, and weighs up the impacts of various economic activities to identify...         

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Accra

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International Water Management Institute and the Resource Centres on Urban Agriculture and Food Security

This consists of 15 member-groups including NGOs, CSOs, the University of Ghana, farmers associations and, crucially, governmental departments of planning, the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, and the Accra Metropolitan Assembly

 Accra Working Group on Urban and Peri-Urban Agriculture (AWGUPA)

"Against a background of water scarcity, urban farmers in Accra lacking access to clean piped water to irrigate their crops, or unable to afford to use the water available, have been turning to wastewater as a solution. Accra’s expanding metropolitan population is putting greater demand on the water supply, leading authorities to declare it illegal to used piped water for irrigation without paying a surcharge. As a result, farmers and their forebears who in many cases have cultivated their plots for over 50 years have been filtering water out of the waste stream. Adopting this practice has enabled them to maintain their livelihoods and their own sustenance, and to contribute to the greater food security of local communities and by implication the city itself. With clean water difficult to come by, wastewater has a vital enabling role in urban agriculture practice, which itself is the building-block for a value chain of related employment activities in the informal sector" Text by Matthew Wood-Hill in https://www.resourcepanel.org/file/323/download?token=oYh3a-SH