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

Social 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 health and happiness of human populations

Well-being

Contribution to social parity, or impact on social disparity

Equality

Direct and indirect reduction in economic costs

Cost Savings

Impact on the ease of innovation, and facilitating uptake of innovations

Innovation

Scalability

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)

Extracting resources and processing them to produce materials for use bysociety

Materials and Fuels

Societal Services

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


Construction and Infrastructure

Providing public and private education and support services at any level or for any profession, and governmental and public administration services, including judicial, regulatory, and legislative activities, taxation, defence, public order and safety, immigration services, foreign affairs and the administration of government programmes

Education and Government Services

Producing building materials and finished and semi-finished building products for construction

Construction Materials and Products

Producing basic and specialty chemicals, inks, agricultural chemical such as fertilisers and pesticides, plastics including packaging, and rubber

Chemical and Plastic

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

Account for the systems perspective during the design process, to use the right materials, to design for appropriate lifetime and to design for extended future use

Design for the future

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

Designing to reduce waste during production and use

Design out waste

Designing to enable multiple uses and lifecycles of a product and its materials

Design for cyclability

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

Design for durability

Enacting measures that optimise material use such as 3D printing, etc.

Material efficiency

Using materials that can be easily reused or recycled after use

Reusable, recyclable materials and inputs

Designing products so they produce as little waste as possible during production

Design for minimal waste

Designing products to remove any barriers to recycling and enable easy recyclability

Design for recycling

Designing products to resist damage and wear, and serve a long and useful life.

Design for physical durability

'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

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

Policies

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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 United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is reviving the need for Benin to set up a factory to manufacture bricks from plastic waste. “If Benin could acquire the capacity to produce these bricks locally, it would enable it to reduce the deficit in school infrastructure, especially in the most disadvantaged areas, to contribute to poverty reduction by improving revenues of women and young people involved in the recycling of plastic waste and to fight against plastic pollution,” says Claudes Kamenga, UNICEF’s resident representative in Benin. This UN official was speaking on August 4, 2020 on the occasion of the inauguration of three classrooms built with recycled plastic bricks in Ladji primary school in Cotonou, Zoungo primary school in the commune of Ouinhi and Louho primary school in Porto-Novo.
To build these classrooms, UNICEF had to import the raw material from Colombia. Hence its recommendation, the second of its kind, for a Beninese factory producing recycled plastic bricks. First approached on this subject in December 2019, the Beninese government had examined Unicef’s proposal with great interest, and the Council of Ministers had agreed to carry out the project by adapting it to the Beninese context.
Ecological and economic benefits
In addition to plastic pollution control, the production and use of recycled plastic bricks has many economic advantages. Recycled plastic bricks are inexpensive, durable and easy to assemble. Their use for classroom construction requires only one week’s work using local labour, with no special qualification requirements. Unlike traditional classrooms, recycled plastic brick classrooms are 40% less expensive and do not require water or cement for assembly.
According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), recycled plastic bricks are considered a godsend for Benin, because the West African country does not have enough classrooms. In 2018, in the Atacora department in north-west Benin, the secondary education department had a deficit of 424 classrooms.
Côte d’Ivoire is the first African country to experiment with recycled plastic bricks. Launched in July 2019 with the support of UNICEF, this initiative will have enabled several thousand children to gain a place in school for the very first time in their lives.
Boris Ngounou


The project to build a brick manufacturing unit from plastic waste in Benin is gradually taking shape. The location of the site, which is to house the debris sorting and processing centre, has recently been unveiled. It is located in Agbalilamè Houègo, a village in the commune of Sèmè-Kpodji, in the Agblangandan district of south-eastern Benin.
The site of the brick-making unit was made available by the town hall of Sèmè-Kpodji, in the department of Ouémé. The land covers an area of 1000 m².
The future plant for sorting and processing plastic waste into bricks will be built by the Sèmè City Development Agency in Benin, with support from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). It will reduce the overflow of plastic waste on the country’s streets, produce cheaper, lighter and more environmentally friendly construction materials, etc. After Côte d’Ivoire, Benin will be the second country in Africa to host such a facility.
The role of the first brick manufacturing unit in Côte d’Ivoire
Construction work on Africa’s first modular plastic brick plant, based in Côte d’Ivoire, started in 2019. It was launched by UNICEF, in partnership with the Colombian social enterprise Conceptos Plasticos. “This plant will be at the forefront of intelligent and scalable solutions to address some of the key educational challenges facing children and communities in Africa,” said Henrietta Fore, Executive Director of UNICEF.
To date, the modular plastic bricks from this plant have already been used to build several classrooms. “One of the main challenges facing Ivorian schoolchildren is the lack of classrooms. Thanks to this project, in some areas, kindergarten children from poor neighbourhoods could attend classrooms with less than 100 other schoolchildren. Children who never thought there would be a place for them in school will also be able to learn and grow in a new and clean classroom,” said Aboubacar Kampo, UNICEF’s representative in Côte d’Ivoire.
Characteristics of recycled plastic bricks
The bricks are made entirely of plastic and are fire-resistant. They are 40% cheaper and 20% lighter than clay bricks. Recycled plastic bricks last hundreds of years longer than conventional building materials. They are also waterproof, well insulated and designed to withstand high winds.
According to UNICEF, Côte d’Ivoire needs 15,000 classrooms to meet the needs of children without learning opportunities. The centre for manufacturing bricks from plastic waste is expected to build 500 classrooms for more than 25,000 children over the next two years, with the possibility of increasing production beyond that. “Once fully operational, the plant will recycle 9,600 tonnes of plastic waste per year and provide a source of income for women living in poverty in a formalized recycling market,” says Henrietta Fore, UNICEF’s Executive Director.
The recycled plastic is collected from polluted areas in and around Abidjan, the capital of Côte d’Ivoire. More than 280 tonnes of plastic waste are produced every day in the capital and barely 5% is recycled. The rest is dumped in the landfills of low-income communities.
Inès Magoum


Africa

Seme-Kpodji

Benin

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Sèmè City Development Agency 

United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)

A waste sorting and a processing plant to transform plastic waste into bricks was built in Agbalilamè Houègo, a village in the commune of Sèmè-Kpodji, in the Agblangandan district of south-eastern Benin. These bricks are made entirely of recycled plastic and are 40% cheaper and 20% lighter compared to clay bricks. Additionally, they are waterproof, fire resistant, well insulated and designed to withstand high winds. After Côte d’Ivoire, Benin will be the second country in Africa to host such a facility.

Transforming plastic waste into eco-bricks 

CAT Africa

Reduced use of virgin materials and/or an increase of the use of secondary and bio-based materials

Reduce Material Consumption (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

 Convene Towards Action

Advocate for circular change

 Too much plastic and not enough schools are scourges of modern life many countries face. Now a factory in West Africa will try to tackle both by transforming old flip-flops and car tyres into bricks to build classrooms.

 The factory in Ivory Coast will be the first of its kind in Africa and aims to produce enough plastic bricks to build 500 classrooms across the country by 2021, funded by the UN children's fund UNICEF and a Colombian social enterprise.

 With millions of tonnes of plastic ending up in landfills and oceans each year, engineers and architects are coming up with novel ways to make use of the durable commodity.

 Shipbuilders on Kenya's Lamu island have built traditional boats from recycled plastic and in Malawi, houses are built with dirt packed into plastic sacks to help preserve the country's fast disappearing forests.
      Children and teachers in a preschool built using plastic bricks in Gonzagueville, a suburban of Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire.      Now, plastic garbage is being used to build schools.

 "It works like Lego," said UNICEF's head of communication in Ivory Coast, Sophie Chavanel.

 The interlocking bricks - cheaper and lighter than many conventional building materials - require no cement, are fire retardant and stay cool in hot weather, she said.

 It will cost an estimated $14,500 to build each plastic-brick classroom, and they are badly needed.

 Less than one in two adults can read and 15,000 classrooms are required to accommodate the number of children who currently have no place to learn, according to UNICEF.

 Most existing schools are built from mud brick, which erode in the sun and rain.
  A legion of local women who make a living collecting plastic waste will supply the factory in Abidjan.

 "By turning plastic pollution into an opportunity, we want to help lift women out of poverty and leave a better world for children," said Isabel Cristina Gamez, CEO of Conceptos Plasticos, the plastic recycling company building the factory.

 Africa was estimated to have 4.4 million metric tonnes of mismanaged plastic waste in 2010, a figure scientists warned could rise to 10.5 million tonnes in 2025 if nothing is done. Globally, it was an estimated 32 million tonnes.

 But plastic waste is increasingly being used by entrepreneurs, said Alain Elong, an engineer in Cameroon who set up his own collection and recycling facility, RED-PLAST, in 2012.

 "We have started making floor tiles out of recycled plastic waste," he said, adding that the tiles can also be used to pave roads where there is no asphalt.

   A weekly update of what’s on the Global Agenda   


        In an innovative partnership, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and a Colombian social enterprise announced on Monday that it had broken ground on a first-of-its-kind factory to convert plastic waste in Côte d'Ivoire into modular, easy-to-assemble, low-cost plastic bricks for classrooms in the West African country.

   
“This factory will be at the cutting edge of smart, scalable solutions for some of the major education challenges that Africa’s children and communities face,” said UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore. “Its potential is threefold: more classrooms for children in Côte d’Ivoire, reduced plastic waste in the environment, and additional income avenues for the most vulnerable families.”
Côte d'Ivoire needs 15,000 classrooms to provide children with a place to learn. 
Partnering with plastic and rubber waste recylcing  company Conceptos Plasticos, UNICEF is using recycled plastic collected from polluted areas in and around Abidjan to build 500 classrooms for more than 25,000 children over the next two years, with the potential to increase production beyond.  
“One of the major challenges facing Ivorian school children is a lack of classrooms,” said UNICEF Representative Aboubacar Kampo, who has championed the project from its inception. 
Classrooms either don’t exist or are overcrowded, making learning a challenging and unpleasant experience.
“In certain areas, for the first-time, kindergartners from poor neighborhoods would be able to attend classrooms with less than 100 other students”, he elaborated. “Children who never thought there would be a place for them at school will be able to learn and thrive in a new and clean classroom.”
While more than 280 tons of plastic waste are produced every day in Abidjan alone, only about five per cent is recycled. The rest ends up mostly in low-income communities’ landfill sites in. 
Plastic waste pollution exacerbates existing hygiene and sanitation challenges
And improper waste management is responsible for 60 per cent of malaria, diarrhea and pneumonia cases in children – diseases that are among the leading causes of death for Ivorian children.
The bricks will be made from 100 per cent plastic and are fire resistant. They are 40 per cent cheaper, 20 per cent lighter and will last hundreds of years longer than conventional building materials. They are also waterproof, well insulated and designed to resist heavy wind.
 

   
 Become a formalized recycling market. 
 Recycle 9,600 tons of plastic waste a year. 
 Provide a source of income to women living in poverty in.  


   “Sometimes, embedded deep within our most pressing challenges are promising opportunities,” said Ms. Fore.
To date, nine classrooms have been built in Gonzagueville, Divo and Toumodi using plastic bricks made in Colombia, demonstrating the viability of the construction methods and materials.
“By turning plastic pollution into an opportunity, we want to help lift women out of poverty and leave a better world for children”, said Isabel Cristina Gamez, Co-Founder and CEO of Conceptos Plasticos.
     Alongside investment to build in Côte d’Ivoire, plans are also under way to scale this project to other countries in the region, and potentially beyond. West and central Africa accounts for one-third of the world’s primary school age children and one-fifth of lower secondary age children who are out of school.
“This project is more than just a waste management and education infrastructure project; it is a functioning metaphor—the growing challenge of plastic waste turned into literal building blocks for a future generation of children”, concluded the UNICEF chief.

  
  Children and teachers in preschool are very happy with their new classes in Gonzagueville, a suburban of Abidjan, the capital of Côte d'Ivoire.

 

     
       


Ivory Coast

Abidjan

Bogotá

Conceptos Plasticos

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Colombian social enterprise, Conceptos Plasticos, had broken ground on a first-of-its-kind factory to convert the plastic waste in Côte d'Ivoire into modular, easy-to-assemble, low-cost plastic bricks for classrooms. The factory has the capacity to transform more than 9,000 tons of recovered plastic into building material for more than 600 classrooms.

Smart, scalable eco-brick schools made out of plastic for children in Ivory Coast

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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 increased knowledge and understanding as a result of the case study

Increase Awareness

Reduced green house gas emissions released into the biosphere

Reduce Emissions (SDG13)

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

Save Water (SDG6)

Reduced use of fossil fuel energy sources and/or increased use of renewable energy

Reduce Energy Consumption

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

Use digital, online platforms and technologies that provide insights to track and optimise resource use, strengthen connections between supply chain actors, and enable the implementation of circular models



Incorporate digital technology

Industry peers to industry peer collaboration to create joint value and identify synergies

Industry collaboration

Employ online platforms to connect and improve information sharing between stakeholders

Digital platforms

Working together with stakeholders and parties in other unrelated industries to implement circular economy strategies and opportunities

Cross-industry projects, pilots

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

Guidance, dialogue with industry stakeholders

Working together with industry peers to engage in business activities or exploratory projects that advance the circular economy

Joint industry ventures, projects, pilots

Developing or utilising online platforms to enable circular economy opportunities through information, product or service offering

Online platforms

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

Manage

Infrastructure

Roadmaps and strategies and targets

 Spatial Planning

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

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Rethink

Do better with less by using and supporting infrastructure, processes and products that are designed to minimize material, water and energy use and waste generation from production to end of use


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Reduce

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

Facilitate cross-collaboration by engaging city departments, industries and businesses on ambitious, closed-loop circular projects.

Support closed-loop systems and cross-sectoral synergies

Put enablers in place that allow circular businessesto grow, thrive and innovate (e.g. incubators, start-up funding, partnerships, innovation deals, business capacity building and testing groundsfor new business models).


Support circular and resource-efficient business innovations

Incorporate extended use in project planning phases; create or update city policies to allow for extended use.


Design and regulate for separation and recovery

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

Cities consume about 75% of global energy and emit between 50% and 60% of global greenhouse gases (UN-Habitat). To reduce the negative impact of their energy consumption, cities need to shift away from fossil fuels and move towards renewable energy sources. Such a shift will help cities work towards their climate change mitigation and adaptation action plans. Renewable energy technologies such as wind, water, solar, and geothermal can also help improve access to energy in vulnerable and marginalised neighbourhoods through, for example, decentralised, off-grid solutions.

Renewable energy technologies can harvest the energy in nature’s processes, such as wind, and solar radiation and geothermal heat, that can be replenished within a human lifespan. In contrast, fossil fuels are materials that are not replenished within a human lifespan and are combusted for energy, losing the fuel material and resulting in emissions.

Local governments can develop sustainable energy plans, considering different energy resources and requirements, to develop a robust strategy for the development of renewable energy technologies and infrastructure throughout the city. They can also institute specific legislation and tax systems to regulate energy production and consumption, incentivise research and development of cleaner, more efficient technologies. Via Power Purchase Agreements cities can buy renewable energy from green energy providers and fix the price in order to provide security to financial institutions to finance renewable energy infrastructure. Furthermore, increasing awareness and facilitating capacity-building on planning urban sustainable energy projects can help the uptake of clean energy across the city by different stakeholders—from citizens to businesses and institutions. Facilitating collaboration, then, will be crucial, since private companies operate most of the world’s energy systems.


⚡ Energy Systems

The built environment, including housing, commercial buildings, and the necessary infrastructure for mobility, is essential for our livelihoods, but:
- the extraction of minerals used to produce construction materials is responsible for a quarter of global land use change,
- approximately 40% of global GHG emissions can be attributed to buildings’ construction, use and demolition, and
- construction and demolition processes drive nearly one-third of all material consumption. 

Making the built environment more circular must prioritise a heavy reduction in material use—while also closing the loop on materials and bringing secondary and renewable material choices to the fore. Our four key solutions for the built environment are:
- Make the most of what already exists: Make the most of existing materials by reusing, repurposing, upgrading and renovating following circular approaches. Where new builds are needed, use secondary materials and be as efficient as possible with urban planning solutions that follow circular design principles so that buildings can be reused, repurposed, and easily disassembled in the future.
- Be as energy efficient as possible: From the design phase, utilise circular strategies to create material- and energy efficient buildings. Couple these designs with a rollout of clean energy solutions, and prioritise energy-efficient appliances and retrofitting. 
- Utilise secondary materials: Maximise the high-value reuse of buildings and components where possible. Ideally, enable the utilisation of construction and demolition outputs and ensure that as much of it as possible is recycled to avoid the need for virgin materials, such as sand and gravel.
- Prioritise circular materials and approaches: Transition to using renewable wood, timber or cross-laminated timber instead of steel and concrete, or move to other locally available materials. Utilise mainstream modular construction and prioritise lightweight frames and structures to reduce cement and steel use, as well as green roofs where possible.



🏢 Built Environment

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

The demand for transport is rising globally—but current modes are heavily material- and fossil-fuels-intensive. Emissions from the transport system could grow by 60% by 2050, and transport is the number-one user of oil worldwide. GHG emissions result not only in warming global temperatures, but also in ocean acidification, which has severe consequences for entire ecosystems and further destabilises our climate. The transport system also drives land-use change and biodiversity loss through the development of infrastructure—also releasing harmful pollutants into the ocean. Key circular solutions:

- Embrace and enable car-free lifestyles
- Invest in high-quality public transport
- Rethink unnecessary air travel
- Electrify remaining vehicles

🚌 Mobility Systems

Businesses

Communities

Governments

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

The government of Benin developed a strategy to create a new innovation hub in Sèmè City which is located in a peri-urban area between the economic capital of Benin, Cotonou, the administrative capital of Benin, Port-Novo, and the capital of Nigeria, Lagos. It is designed and developed as a sustainable smart city with state-of-the art learning, residential, commercial and recreational facilities. At the end of 2021, the ecocity will be in operation and will offer a unique environment for experimentation of innovative solutions and emerging technology in areas such as renewable energy, eco¬construction, mobility, waste management, circular economy or urban agriculture.&nbsp;provide citizens with new jobs and an innovation hub as an open-air laboratory with demonstrators of innovative solutions.