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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

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

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)

Direct and indirect reduction in economic costs

Cost Savings

Ensure that infrastructure and built assets in the city are designed and upgraded to be as resource-efficient as possible.

Design infrastructure and the built environment for resource efficiency

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.

Prioritise renewable resources 

Roadmaps and strategies and targets

Communities

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

Develop infrastructure to support sustainable lifestyles

Providing residential and non-residential construction services, such as architectural, engineering, planning, real-estate, contracting, and inspection services

Construction and Real Estate Services

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

Governments

Businesses

**Harmonize with nature** by promoting infrastructure, production systems and sourcing that allows natural ecosystems to thrive




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Regenerate

Develop regenerative infrastructure

Impact on the health and happiness of human populations

Well-being

Engage with the government on circular policies and programmes

Government collaboration

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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The Government of Rwanda has the first funds for the implementation of its Kigali Green City project. The grant of 10 billion Rwandan francs (more than 9.6 million euros) is awarded by Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW), the German development agency.
The financing agreement was signed a few days ago in Kigali by German envoy Thomas Kurz and Uzziel Ndagijimana, the Rwandan Minister of Finance and Economic Planning. This is the first part of German funding for this important sustainable development project in Rwanda. Berlin plans to inject a further €20 million for the development of the Kigali Green City project.
A green city pilot project
About 16 km from the Rwandan capital, more precisely in Kinyinya, in the district of Gasabo, the government wants to build a green city on an area of 620 hectares. The sustainable city will consist of 1,749 housing units built on 18 hectares. The specificity of these dwellings lies in the fact that they will be supplied with electricity produced from renewable sources such as solar energy.
The houses will be connected to a wastewater and rainwater collection system. Effluent will be treated and reused. The Government of Rwanda is also planning to build commercial establishments and offices to accommodate “innovative green enterprises”. “Housing in the green city of Kigali will be affordable. The project aims to demonstrate that green building is a necessity, not a luxury, by working to change the stereotype that sustainability is expensive. Living in resource-efficient housing will significantly reduce electricity and water bills for a population that often spends up to 20% of its income on utilities,” the government says on the project’s platform.
The development of the ecological city of Kigali will require an investment of more than €1.3 billion from the Rwandan government. The implementation of the project has been entrusted to the Rwanda Green Fund (Fonerwa). It also receives support from the United Nations Green Climate Fund (GCF).
Jean Marie Takouleu


Rwanda

Kigali

Government of Rwanda

City of Kigali

Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau

The Rwandan government has received the first funds for their Kigali Green City project. The sustainable city will be comprised of 1,749 housing units spread over 18 hectares, all of which will be powered by renewable energy sources such as solar energy. A wastewater and rainwater collection system will also be installed in each home. The effluent will be treated then reused. Additionally, the plan entails building offices to house creative green businesses.

Resource efficiency and renewable resources for the development of a Green City in Kigali

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


Construction and Infrastructure

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

Mobilise

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

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

Biodiversity

Visions and Ambitions

Includes measures that protect and enhance ecosystems and biodiversity both within and beyond city boundaries, as well as actions to restore degraded ecosystems.


Protect and restore local ecosystems

Metrics and indicators to measure progress

City of Kigali launches Master Plan 2050Kigali, 4 September 2020 – The City of Kigali has today launched the 2050 Master Plan. This new vision expresses Kigali’s unique local identity and succinctly represents the aspirations and sense of ownership of Kigali city by its citizens to be an inclusive city for all. Key improvements in this Updated Masterplan are the Flexible Zoning Plan, which saw the review of the regulations behind each zone by shrinking the number of commercial zones from nine to three and the number of residential zones from seven to five. This Master Plan also focussed on mixed use developments in the City center – CBD which is largely mono-use today: it is dominated largely by office developments and retail business. Beyond the CBD, the city will also encourage private developers and building owners to consider regenerating their existing buildings, especially the older ones. Kigali Master Plan will enhance green growth. Planners aspire to strike the fine balance between rapid development and protecting the city’s greenery, biodiversity and heritage. The Master Plan put in place various strategies to adapt to the realities of climate change, particularly rising global temperatures and rising sea levels. It will mitigate flood risks, improve drainage infrastructure and, where possible, integrate them with other developments to optimise land use. This new concept has the population projection now at 3.8million, household size at 3.8, gross density at 5198 p/sqkm, and employment projection at 1.8m jobs. This new updated Kigali Master Plan 2050 is an upgrade to the 2013 version and will lead the economic and social growth of Kigali  for the next 30 years.You can learn more about the Master Plan by visiting this portal: https://masterplan2020.kigalicity.gov.rw/ 

The City of Kigali is planning to promote green growth along with economic and social improvements in the city by their Kigali Master Plan 2050. Planners are attempting to create a balance between rapid growth and the preservation of the city's greenery, biodiversity, and heritage. Various plans were put in motion as part of the Master Plan to respond to the realities of climate change to build the resilience of the city. Flood risks will be reduced, drainage systems will be improved, and other improvements will be integrated to optimize land usage. The plan doesn not directly link to circular economy, however it overlaps with the circular concepts of resource efficiency and regenerate to protect and restore local ecosystems.