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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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CAT Africa

Business case

Impact on the availability of resources as well as their effect on living organisms, ecosystems, and components of the environment.

Ecological Impact

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)

Producing transporation equipment and providing services for thetransportation of goods and people

Transportation and Logistics

Providing air, water, rail, and land transportation and related services for the distribution of goods, such as air freight, air courier and logistics services, maritime freight, marine courier and logistics services, rail freight, rail courier and logistics services, land freight, land courier and logistics services, including package and mail delivery and customs agents, as well as storage and warehouse facilities

Logistics Services

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

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

Recover waste energy or generate fuels and energy from waste streams

Energy recovery from waste

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

Design for cyclability

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

Design for recycling

'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

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


Regulate

 Regulation

Environmental assessment & permits

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

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

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

Slow strategies aim to keep materials in use for as long as possible, for example through design for durability and repairability. A more circular economy is also a slower one: materials, components, and products—and even buildings and infrastructure—that we lock in stocks are made to last. This will lower material demand in the long run, in essence also serving to narrow resource flows.

Slow

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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     Ecoslops has an innovative technology, enabling the processing of oil residues into valuable new products (new fuels and light bitumen).           Ecoslops is the cleantech that brings oil into circular economy. Its first industrial-scale processing unit has been operational since June 2015 in the port of Sinès, Portugal. Ecoslops technology is based on: • perfect control of the collection, processing and refining processes of slops and sludges from maritime transport • a major innovation that combines treatment of oil residues and refining techniques applied to marine litter With its integrated and innovative approach, Ecoslops offers port infrastructure, waste collectors - maritime and terrestrial- and ship-owners a cost-effective, environmentally friendly solution that complies with international and European regulations regarding the collection and processing of slops. In this respect, Ecoslops has concluded several commercial agreements, notably with European shipowners and collectors. The hydrocarbon residue reprocessing unit is the heart of the Ecoslops technology. It is a major innovation in the sector. Thanks to its refining process, Ecoslops transforms collected slops into a perfectly usable fuel (Naphta - Diesel Oil - Fuel Oil). The Ecoslops industrial site is the first in the world to produce new fuels that comply with international standards. Ecoslops technology is also compliant with international standards for gaseous emissions and liquid and solid emissions. Ecoslops technology is based on several steps fully integrated:      … Hydrocarbons, water and sediments separation    In order to guarantee an optimized distillation, the slops are heated, decanted and centrifuged to separate the water, the hydrocarbons and the sediments before the distillation process. This step allows Ecoslops to produce new fuel and light bitumen with 98% yield.   Simplified drawing of how a slops treatment unit works      … the P2R column     the unit of hydrocarbon waste treatment: heart of Ecoslops’ technology   Ecoslops made a significant breakthrough by combining a number of sophisticated refining techniques into one micro-refining unit, compared to traditional refining units producing oil. This innovation was made possible due to the advanced refining processes used in a sized reduced treatment unit compared to usual fuel refining plants and technology and specifically developed engineering that makes these processes applicable to slops recycling. After the water and sediment have been removed, the slops are sent to the P2R vacuum distillation column. The slops are heated to 400°C, which, under vacuum conditions, causes most hydrocarbons to vaporize. At the end of the distillation, several types of fuels are produced.  The P2R column has a hydrocarbon fraction treatment capacity of 100 tons per day.

     Ghana's Port of Terma is boosting its recycling efforts with a compact micro-refining unit which regenerates oil waste into petroleum products. Ecoslops has signed a fourth letter of intent for a Mini P2R. This agreement, signed with the company Marine Bunker Ltd. (MBL), relates to the implementation of a unit in Ghana’s Port of Terma.“It covers comprehensive services including the sale of a Mini P2R, local integration, the training of operators and multi-year technical support. It comes in addition to a local installation set up by MBL to collect (on-shore and off-shore) and treat oily waste in Ghana and in Togo,” said Paris-based Ecoslops.The Mini P2R will allow to locally revalue this waste, as well as used lube oil, into new oil products. By allowing a second life to these wastes - which are harmful to health and the environment -it will help to effectively combat the pollution associated to the illegal dumping of these residues in rivers and oceans, as well as toxic air emissions from their incineration in the absence of treatment.Ecoslops signed an agreement with Aqua Flore, based at the Port of Agadir in Morocco, for the first industrial Mini-P2R unit at the beginning of 2020.In June 2020, the company signed a letter of intent with Valtech Energie for a Mini-P2R unit to be installed in the Port of Kribi, in Cameroon. This development was alongside a new installation set up by Valtech locally to collect and treat oily waste in Cameroon.       World-first 5G-controlled intermodal cranes to install at EWG terminal by Kuenz Read more    The world’s most advanced terminal-based Reefer monitoring solution is now available on Android! Read more    JCB is set to reduce production levels at UK factories due to anticipated component shortages from C... Read more    A new milestone for Kuenz. Norfolk Southern Railway has ordered six Kuenz Freeriders – 11 Wide and 1... Read more    The Polish company Centrum Logistyczno Inwestycyjne Poznań II Sp. z o.o. is going to extend its inte... Read more    The company Linz Service GmbH will reconstruct its Terminal in Linz, in the East of Austria, and awa... Read more    View all    

Africa

Ghana

Tema Metropolitan District

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Ghana Port and Harbour Authority 

Marine Bunker Ltd. (MBL)

Eco Slops

<p>Ghana's Port of Tema is boosting its recycling efforts with a compact micro-refining unit that regenerates oil waste into petroleum products. The Mini P2R will allow to locally revalue the waste, as well as used lube oil, into new oil products. By allowing a second life to these wastes it will help to effectively combat the pollution associated with the illegal dumping of these residues in rivers and oceans, as well as toxic air emissions from their incineration in the absence of treatment.</p>