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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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Policy 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 social fabric of the community and well-being of the individuals and families.

Social Impact

Impact on the health and happiness of human populations

Well-being

Reduced green house gas emissions released into the biosphere

Reduce Emissions (SDG13)

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

Collecting waste from households and businesses by means of refuse bins, wheeled bins, containers, etc., and providing treatment, incineration, materials recovery and reclamation, and disposal of hazardous and non-hazardous waste

Waste Management

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 the same industry

Valorise waste streams - closed loop

Reuse, repurpose, and recycle waste streams within other industries

Valorise waste streams - open loop

'Manage' influences the use and function of physical and material elements within the urban environment. 

Manage

Build countries consume 13% of the global material footprint, while they account for almost 50% of the population. 

Examples include countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia such as: 
- Bangladesh
- Ethiopia
- Nigeria
- Pakistan
- The Philippines
- Some small island states, ...

Minimal contribution to the overshoot of planetary boundaries: these countries contribute 20% of land use change, 30% of
freshwater use, 23% of phosphorus emissions to soil, and 11% of nitrogen emissions.

To find out what country profile your country belongs to, explore [this interactive story](https://circularity-gap.world) and search for your country on the final map.

Build

Local government

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

Ensure that household and business waste is collected and appropriately sorted (by type, label, etc.) to allow for maximum recovery of value.


Collect and sort waste to facilitate recovery

Process waste into valuable industrial inputs or consumer products; distribute processed waste to users.

Process waste and ensure its re-entry into industry at its highest value

Manufactured goods, such as vehicles, textiles, appliances and equipment and their associated production processes are big employers but:
- production processes often rely on fossil fuels and currently drive one-third of the overshoot on the climate change planetary boundary due to its GHG production, 
- material- and energy-intensive industrial activities are linked to deforestation and drive 15% on both the land use and freshwater planetary boundaries, 
- manufacturing goods results in substantial amounts of hazardous industrial waste and leaks chemicals into the environment.

Here, circular solutions must tackle the full value chain, but material demand must also shrink: this will necessitate a societal shift to favouring sufficiency over excess and reducing consumption to sustainable levels. Our four key solutions for manufactured goods are:
- Mainstream industrial symbiosis and efficiency : Achieve process improvements, scrap diversion and reduction in yield losses through greater industrial symbiosis and efficiency. Foster tighter collaboration within and between industries to deliver powerful material and emissions savings.
- Extend the lifetime of machinery, equipment, and goods: Maximise the lifetime of goods that serve our daily needs to bring a number of environmental benefits. 
- Buy what's needed: Reduce the number of purchases of common electronic goods, appliances, and other equipment to sufficiency levels. 
- Eschew fast fashion in favour of sustainable textiles: Drastically reduce new clothing purchases. All used clothing should go on to be repaired, reused or, if needed, recycled appropriately. Prioritise natural and local textile manufacturing, as well as higher-quality and more durable garments. 




👕📱 Consumer Goods

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

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

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

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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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 One of the most pronounced effects of a changing climate is the increase in extreme weather and other  natural disasters such as hurricanes and wildfires. These disasters are not spread evenly: of the 30 countries most affected by changing weather, 26 are least developed countries.  To put it another way, 423 million people living in extreme poverty are considered likely to experience the impacts of a changing climate. The tragic events of hurricane Matthew in Haiti are just the most recent example. The need to develop disaster resilience is now core to development programs working with the poor. When it comes to electricity access, centralized energy grids are often the first to fail when a disaster hits - they are vulnerable to any break in a chain which transmits large amounts of power across a wide area. A centralized system is filled with ‘choke points.’ Outages during disasters hamper recovery efforts and mean whole communities can be left without power. Decentralized generation has a role to play in increasing resilience to disasters – in all countries, not just those with energy access challenges. Decentralization means that the entire network is not interrupted when one weak point fails. A grid linked mini-grid, for example, can disconnect and continue to operate uninterrupted, or at a household level a solar home system or solar lantern can be safeguarded relatively easily by the householder, weathering the storm. Resilience to disaster includes recovery speed: decentralized generation means that re-building efforts can focus on the highest priorities, for example quickly rebuilding a hospital’s mini-grid. In contrast a centralized grid requires resurrecting the entire network in order to power essential services. Decentralized is modular and fast; central grids are large and slow. Private ownership of mini-grids, by communities, entrepreneurs or companies, also means that there is a local trained workforce on hand to restore power more quickly when disaster strikes. Our partner, Sigora International, operates a ‘microutility’ (a group of connected mini-grids) in Haiti. When Hurricane Matthew landed it left 5,000 customers without power. But due to a large workforce of local technicians Sigora was able to restore power in 55 hours – long before the rest of the country. “Micro-grids clustered to form a larger network allow us to both achieve economies of scale and maintain multiple independent points of failure. Each micro-grid has emergency generation that gets activated in the event of a natural disaster The combination of multiple points of failure, on-call staff and having a company-wide hurricane outage plan allowed us to have our grid completely repaired and to fully restore power to all our customers with 55 hours,” said Sigora International founder Andy Bodgan. Those who have contributed the least to climate change will increasingly pay the highest price. Energy planners have a responsibility to ensure electricity access is resilient in the face of this new reality through the use of decentralized generation.  

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Nairobi

Nairobi City County

<p>Nairobi, Kenya’s City County Sub-Sector of Environment and Forestry, which tackles city’s waste management, has implemented a plan for improved integrated solid waste management. The plan involves eight programmes, including a collection and transportation plan, a 3R and intermediate treatment plan and a public participation promotion plan. The latter two focus on engaging citizens, emphasising their role in successful solid waste management and encouraging them to segregate their waste. Part of the plan includes an awareness campaign running on the slogan, ‘well managed waste is a resource’, which will aim to discourage illegal dumping. The programme will be initiated in one pilot area of the city and all eventually expand to other areas of the city.&nbsp;</p>

Nairobi’s integrated solid waste management plan


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Circular food systems entail that the food is produced regeneratively and, where appropriate, locally. Food and packaging waste are designed out entirely, while healthy, low-impact diets are promoted and easy to access. 

[Circle Economy](https://www.circle-economy.com/) is a not-for-profit organisation working to accelerate the circular transition. Through the *Circularity Gap Reporting Initiative*, our mission is to deliver an annual global Circularity Metric that measures the state of the world economy and identifies key levers to transition to global circularity. With nature as our guide, we work alongside cross-sector stakeholders from academia, businesses, NGOs and governments to provide a powerful combination of practical and scalable interventions that transform circular opportunities into realities. 

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Circular Food

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Limes and lemons - Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Impact on the quantity or quality of jobs, and shifts in the labour market

Jobs

Direct and indirect effects that increase revenues or the potential for new revenues, for example from new products, customer segments, partnerships or business models

Revenue Potential

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

Agriculture

Work together throughout the supply chain, internally within organisations and with the public sector and communities to increase transparency and create joint value

Team up to create joint value

Engaging in discussions with industry stakeholders to share circular economy best practices and push the industry towards greater circularity

Guidance, dialogue with industry stakeholders

'Regulate' changes the rules of the systems to achieve compliance through enforcement. 


Regulate

Legislation

Review and update regulation

**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.

Promote solutions inspired and supported by nature

The food system nourishes populations and employs 50% of the global workforce, but:
- it currently drives a quarter of the overshoot on the climate change planetary boundary due to its greenhouse gas (GHG) production, 
- animal farming alone uses over one-quarter of all land, equivalent to the size of the Americas,
- nearly a quarter of freshwater resources are lost due to rampant food waste, and
- it is the single largest driver of biodiversity loss.

A circular food system must address the whole value chain, from production to consumption to waste management. The four key solutions for the food system are:
- Put healthier, satiating foods first: Prioritise satiating and healthy foods with a lower environmental impact—ideally shifting calories from meat, fish, and dairy towards cereals, fruits, vegetables, and nuts.
- Go local, seasonal, and organic: Prioritise the production and consumption of local, seasonal, and organic produce (sometimes in combination with GMO to reduce pests and disease loss on crops), which can lead to a significantly reduced need for chemical inputs, fuels, and processing services that contribute to environmental impacts.
- Mainstream regenerative agriculture: Scale up agricultural practices that regenerate ecosystems, recirculate nutrients and sequester carbon by design. 
- End avoidable food waste: Minimise food loss and valorise waste following the food waste hierarchy along the supply chain and at the consumer level through better management of transport and storage, more refrigeration and smart planning, and technology at the consumer and food service levels.



🍏 Food Systems

Communities

Governments

Biodiversity is fundamental to maintain the variety of crops and livestock needed to support and preserve ecosystem services that sustain our food system and wellbeing. As cities densify and expand in size, they typically encroach on surrounding biodiverse areas, leading to the progressive degradation of ecosystem services. In turn, this pushes away urban food systems that are dependent on material inputs often sourced outside the urban region. 

Edible green infrastructures are solutions that reimagine cities as productive sources of food, can boost local biodiversity as well as foster social cohesion. These infrastructures can take a variety of forms and are inspired by nature, for example, planting edible trees and plants throughout a city which are free to pick for residents.

Local governments can promote investments in edible green infrastructures (strategically planned multi-scale networks of different kinds of urban green and blue spaces) to create new biodiverse and productive spaces within the urban region, as well as rehabilitating polluted lands to improve soil health and productivity. Urban and spatial planning can also be used to permit these infrastructures, as well as enable residents to create their own. What is more, such solutions can be integrated within urban planning projects, for example, rain gardens and rain barrels, to reduce urban stormwater runoff and risk of floodings while redirecting and reusing urban rain and stormwater to supply urban farmers.


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🍏  Edible green infrastructures

City Stakeholders

 
 
 

Open AccessPerspective  by
 1,* and  2,*   


1
School of Arts, University of Gloucestershire, Cheltenham GL50 4AZ, UK


2
Faculty of Economics, University of Gdansk, 81-824 Sopot, Poland


*
Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed. 




Agriculture 2020, 10(8), 358; https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture10080358


Received: 2 June 2020 / Revised: 9 August 2020 / Accepted: 13 August 2020 / Published: 14 August 2020
 
 

Ten identified edible green infrastructure (EGI)-related urban regeneration case studies within the Campania region, Italy, are explored in relation to local community development, involvement, and education. Urban space and agriculture are promoted as sustainably planned networks for edible food components and structures. Within an urban ecosystem, city planners are actively promoting urban agriculture after an increase in the availability of unused land. Advantages for public health include stress reduction and physical activity, as well as sustainability of urban gardens by way of far-sighted urban planning. Case studies within the Campania region illustrate EGI know-hows and awareness, and they elucidate upon a number of beneficial reasons for its implementation. Within the Campania region, all five provinces showed positive impacts when using EGI for urban regeneration and well-being. Recent developments from the COVID-19 pandemic are reinforcing a rethink of food security and food supply chains.
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Keywords: 
urban agriculture; ecosystem services; social agriculture; allotment gardens; Italy
 urban agriculture; ecosystem services; social agriculture; allotment gardens; Italy
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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited









Share and Cite  
MDPI and ACS Style

Russo, A.; Cirella, G.T. Edible Green Infrastructure for Urban Regeneration and Food Security: Case Studies from the Campania Region. Agriculture 2020, 10, 358.
https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture10080358


AMA Style

Russo A, Cirella GT. Edible Green Infrastructure for Urban Regeneration and Food Security: Case Studies from the Campania Region. Agriculture. 2020; 10(8):358.
https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture10080358

Chicago/Turabian Style

Russo, Alessio, and Giuseppe T. Cirella 2020. "Edible Green Infrastructure for Urban Regeneration and Food Security: Case Studies from the Campania Region" Agriculture 10, no. 8: 358.
https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture10080358
 
 


Article Metrics  

 



Nairobi District

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<p>"In 2015, the Nairobi City County government developed and implemented the Urban Agriculture Promotion and Regulation Act, acknowledging the potential of urban agriculture for food and nutrition security. The Act provides regulation on land and water access, food safety, environment conservation and organic waste management; and includes standards for urban agriculture."</p>