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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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Business case

Impact on increased knowledge and understanding as a result of the case study

Increase Awareness

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)

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

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

Agriculture

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

Use waste as a resource

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

Regenerative materials

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

Using <a href="https://echa.europa.eu/information-on-chemicals" target="_blank">materials that are not toxic or hazardous</a>.

Non-toxic materials and inputs

'Mobilise' sets the direction of and builds momentum towards long-term change, while also determining how this direction is determined and governed.

Mobilise

Visions and Ambitions

Roadmaps and strategies and targets

Redesign systems to lay the foundation for circular activities and enable the transition to a circular economy 

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Rethink

High-level changes to policy and practice (such as taxation systems, investment and procurement guidelines and criteria) that disincentivize activities that perpetuate linear economic systems, as well as vision-setting (goals, roadmaps) to catalyze
action on circularity across the city

Eliminate linear incentives and set goals and incentives for circularity

Managing municipal food wastes at scale may require complex and costly infrastructures to collect, transport and process these residual materials. Large-scale composting facilities are challenging to place and zone appropriately in space-scarce cities.

Community-based initiatives, for example, community composting, can provide a localised solution to managing urban food wastes. Community composting initiatives are small(er)-scale solutions that are distributed throughout the city, located close to the sources of food waste, reducing the need for complex logistics and collection systems. Community composting schemes can take a variety of forms, for example, in-vessel composting (IVC), as well as vermicomposting (which utilises insects to break down organic materials). Community composting initiatives can generate valuable by-products for use in (urban) agriculture, in gardens and in parks, as well as support community building. 

Local governments can support the development and implementation of community composting schemes through the provision of equipment and infrastructure, for example,  composting boxes. The formation of public-civic partnerships can help formulate the relationships and validate the valuable role such activities can play in the management of organic waste streams. Awareness raising can be facilitated through collaboration with schools. 


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🍏  Community composting

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

Governments

When organic wastes are landfilled, the value and nutrients are lost and irrecoverable. Landfilling also causes additional environmental pressure, for example, the decomposition of food and organic waste in landfills emits greenhouse gases into the climate. Reducing the space required for landfills creates opportunities for better use. 

Local governments have an important role to play in the elimination of the landfilling of organic wastes. Municipalities with the legislative authority to do so can introduce legislation that bans organic wastes from being landfilled and fines non-compliance.

Municipalities can ensure that municipal organic wastes are collected and diverted from landfill by mandating certain processing techniques, for example, composting or anaerobic digestion. 
 


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🍏  Phase out landfilling of organic waste

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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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

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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65% of Quezon City’s electric consumption is for streetlights.
The city government adopted a plan to increase energy efficiency, under a World Bank-sponsored programme.
Growing 2,8-million Quezon City updated its Land Use Plan to balance urban development with the preservation of its green spaces.

The night sky in Quezon City is dotted by blue, orange and white lights that surround the bay of Manila. These streetlights will now be more efficient and consume less energy.
A dynamic and growing city, belonging among other cities to Metro Manila, the national capital of the Philippines, Quezon City is the most populated city in the country. Having been the national capital for almost three decades, Quezon City is also the site of many government offices, including the Batasang Pambansa Complex, which is the seat of the House of Representatives.
The city is one of the beneficiaries of World Bank’s three-year Carbon Financing Capacity Building Programme (CFCB) in Emerging Cities of the South and in ECOS (Ecology, Economy and Social Responsibility). The aim of the programme is to assist cities in industrialized and developing countries to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and to adapt to the effects of climate change.
As part of a comprehensive attempt to drive sustainable urban development, the local government has chosen as its CFCB project “Energy Efficiency from Streetlighting”. Streetlights constitute almost 65% of the city’s annual electric consumption with an average monthly billing of $615,000. The administration plans to establish baseline data on energy efficiency and emission reduction from the use of LED technologies, reducing electric consumption (which means less costs and less CO2 emissions).
Quezon’s administration acknowledges that balancing urban development with the preservation of green spaces and improvement of quality of life is a crucial challenge for a 2.8-million-people city. With this idea in mind, the city government updated its Comprehensive Land Use Plan, adopting the modern trend towards balanced, mixed-use communities and recognizing the need to maintain environmentally protected zones especially around the city’s reservoir. Local ordinances were also passed, prescribing standards for the design, construction and retrofitting of buildings in the city, and requiring all new buildings and housing construction in Quezon City to devote at least 30% of their roof area to plants and trees. It also launched an improved waste management and reduction plan, aiming at cutting in half solid waste, the only major city in the Philippines to adopt this measure. Part of the waste is now helping produce clean energy, thanks to the biogas plant located in Payatas. The Biogas Emissions Reduction Project was also registered with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) as the country’s first Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). With revenues from carbon credits, the city government is funding socio-economic and livelihood programs for the Payatas community.
Due to its exposure to tropical cyclones and flooding, Quezon City and Metro Manila as a whole are threatened by climate change. Typhoon Glenda, in 2014, was the last to wreak havoc, causing death and destruction. Floods are becoming a familiar sight in this area, which prompted the local authority to earmark $3,4 million for flood control. The 21 projects include improvement of drainage systems, construction of ripraps, retaining walls and box culverts.

“The recent string of typhoons and storms has caused the death of many of our citizens, mostly living along the banks of our rivers” said Herbert Bautista, mayor of Quezon City and chairperson of ICLEI South-East Asia. “The best part of our efforts is now focused on protecting our citizens by being prepared to adverse weather conditions driven by climate change and doing our part to ensure climate change is kept under control”

Homes and businesses, natural resources and landscapes, in Quezon City as elsewhere, will be at risk if no agreement is reached between developed and developing countries on how to tackle climate change and who should bear the costs of reducing emissions and mitigating increasing climate instability.
Quezon City is an ICLEI Member and is reporting its carbon emission reduction targets and progress on the carbonn Climate Registry.
 Photo: Jun Acullador, 2008, Araneta Center
  

Dar es Salaam

Tanzania

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Dar es Salaam Government

 Climate & Clean Air Coalition 

<p>A framework created by the International Solid Waste Association to develop a strategy on organic waste management—notably how to diverty organic waste from landfill—in Dar es Salaam.</p>

Strategy to rethink the Organic Waste Management in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

 Baseline Survey on Solid Waste Generation and Management in Mabibo and Makuburi Wards This baseline study report was commissioned by ISWA and carried out by BORDA in cooperation with Nipe Fagio as a part of the Phase II City Assistance of the CCAC Waste Initiative. BORDA and the Youth Ambassadors of Nipe Fagio implemented a program by the name of ’Cleanest Mtaa program’ aiming at awareness creation in communities about solid waste management. Mtaa is Swahili for neighbourhood or in this case sub-wards. It was carried in Makuburi and Mabibo, two of the thirty-four wards of Kinondoni Municipality in Dar es Salaam city. Strategy on Organic Waste Management The International Solid Waste Association (ISWA) is a key partner in the Municipal Solid Waste Initiative of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) and has been involved in improving the solid waste management system in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. One of the main actions focussed on organic waste management and short-lived climate pollutant (SLCP) mitigation through the diversion of organic waste from the landfill. In this framework, ISWA contracted WASTE to propose a strategy on organic waste management in Dar es Salaam. This document “A green city is our home! - Strategy on Organic Waste Management in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania” has been prepared by Michele Giavini and Sophie van den Berg (WASTE). Many thanks go to Alexander Fecher (Dar es Salaam City Council/CIM), Kata Tisza (ISWA) and Paul Stegmann (ISWA) for their important contributions to this report. Capacity Building Workshop on Climate Finance and Strategy on How to Seek Funding and Attract Further Carbon Offsetting Projects. On Tuesday, April 25th, 2017, the International Solid Waste Association, on behalf of the CCAC Waste Initiative, organized a training on financing solid waste management. The training took place at the facilities of BORDA, the Bremen Overseas Research and Development Association, in Mikocheni, Dar es Salaam. The training was organized by Kata Tisza and Paul Stegmann from ISWA in cooperation with BORDA staff. The ISWA expert conducting the training was Ms. Reka Soos, from the Resources & Waste Advisory Group (RWA). The training was attended by 19 participants, among them representatives from four municipalities.  During the training, the DLAs received assistance to understand the importance and tools for proving credibility in order to attract new external investments (such as the carbon offsetting project of Hamburg in Kinondoni). Also, investigate options for obtaining potential revenues that may come from improving waste management practices and the sale of the eventually generated climate credits on international markets. A strategy on how to seek funding for policymakers was developed.  Support to Improve Waste Disposal Practices at Pugu Dumpsite and Assistance for Planning of the Construction of New Landfills. In August 2016, the International Solid Waste Association (ISWA), on behalf of the CCAC Waste Initiative,  conducted a 2.5-day capacity building event which focused on potential upgrades of operations at the Pugu Kinyamwezi dumpsite and on basic principles for the construction of sanitary landfills. The capacity building was held by two experts, Dr. Sahadat Hossain, professor of the University of Texas at Arlington and David Dugger, landfill manager of the City of Denton. The event was attended by 19 stakeholders from all sectors, including the local authorities, academia, NGOs and private companies. As a result of the capacity building, a document was created with the aim of providing an overview of the most important considerations for the construction of a sanitary landfill. The report is based on the content of the capacity building provided in August 2016 and on other documents written by ISWA experts and published by ISWA, such as the:  Guidelines for Construction and Operation Municipal Solid Waste Landfill in Tropical Country  A Roadmap for closing Waste Dumpsites, The World’s Most Polluted Places  International Guidelines for Sustainable Landfill Evaluation 3 (available in ANNEX I) and presentations of the ISWA World Congress 2013 sessions, held in Vienna, Austria. In addition,  ISWA commissioned a report, on behalf of the CCAC Waste Initiative, to explore the potential benefits of Pugu-based installations and operations for the separation and sorting of recyclables from 100,000 tons/year of household waste and for composting the organic fraction.
 Study on household-level behavior and pilot awareness raising campaign On behalf of the CCAC Waste Initiative, ISWA conducted a baseline study to understand household-level behaviour, in order to increase household participation in waste source separation for composting/recycling, and collect basic data on waste generation. ISWA also implemented a pilot awareness raising campaign in order to increase the amount of separately collected waste within an identified area (sub-ward) and improve the payment of refuse collection charges. Find out more on the Municipal Solid Waste Knowledge Platform. 

<p>A study on waste management and organic waste management in Mabibo and Makuburi wards that includes strategies for improvement as well as capacity building.</p>