CAT Africa

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This collection comes from the <a href="https://www.circle-economy.com/circular-jobs-initiative/" target="_blank">Circular Jobs Initiative</a>, an initiative of Circle Economy.

The workforce is an essential lever for transforming our economy from linear to circular. The Circular Jobs Initiative aims to maximise the employment opportunities offered by the circular economy. It provides practical support and insights to businesses and governments that want to adopt circular strategies that have a positive social impact.The Circular Jobs Initiative works through three focus areas: 

- Upskilling the workforce

- Quality of work

- Inclusive job opportunities 

CJI has defined circular jobs as any occupation that directly involves or indirectly supports one of the strategies of the circular economy. It distinguishes between three types of circular jobs: core, enabling and indirectly circular jobs.

**Core circular jobs** are all jobs that ensure the closure of raw material cycles, including jobs in repair, renewable energy, waste and resource management. 

**‍Enabling circular jobs** are jobs that remove barriers for and enable the acceleration and upscaling of core circular activities, including jobs that arise in leasing, education, design and digital technology. 

**Indirectly circular jobs** are jobs that occur in other sectors that do not play a direct role in furthering the transition to the circular economy but can still adopt circular strategies. They include jobs that provide services to core circular strategies, including jobs in information services, logistics and the public sector.

The Knowledge Hub Collection includes examples of circular jobs, publications, reports, case studies and policies different organisations, governments and businesses are already using to advocate for a person-centred circular economy. 

Visit the <a href="https://www.circle-economy.com/circular-jobs-initiative/" target="_blank">Circular Jobs Initiative</a>

Visit the <a href="http://jobsmonitor.circle-economy.com/" target="_blank">Circular Jobs Monitor</a>

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Circular Jobs Initiative

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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 increased knowledge and understanding as a result of the case study

Increase Awareness

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

Jobs

Impact on the health and happiness of human populations

Well-being

Contribution to social parity, or impact on social disparity

Equality

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

Efficiency gains on operations or transactions either through cultural or technological shifts

Productivity

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

Innovation

Reduced green house gas emissions released into the biosphere

Reduce Emissions (SDG13)

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

Reduce Material Consumption (SDG12)

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

Reduce Energy Consumption

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

Transportation and Logistics

Providing air, water, rail, and land transportation for passengers, such as airlines, airports, ferries, cruise-ships, tour boat operators, marine ports, railways, train stations, tour bus operators, vehicle rental, and taxi companies, travel agencies and related services

Passenger Transport Services

Ensure renewable, reusable, non-toxic resources are utilised as materials and energy in an efficient way

Prioritise regenerative resources

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

Regenerative materials

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

Using bio-based materials such as bioplastics, mushroom-based materials, etc.

Alternative bio-based materials and inputs

Designing products that can easily breakdown and degrade in the environment

Design for bio-degradability

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

Design for physical durability

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

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

Impacts

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Industries

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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

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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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  Bernice Dapaah launched Ghana Bamboo Bikes Initiative as a way to create local jobs and promote low-carbon transport. More than half of its employees are women and for every bike sold, one is given to a schoolchild to help that child save time getting to school. 

 Bernice Dapaah calls bamboo “a miracle plant”, because it grows so fast and absorbs carbon. But it can also work wonders for children’s education and women’s employment – as she’s discovered.

 Bamboo is abundant in her native Ghana, where she runs a social enterprise that employs women to transform it into bicycles which are exported all over the world.
  Cycling is well known as being a low-carbon form of transport – but Dapaah is making it even more sustainable. 

 For every bamboo plant that is cut down to make a bike, Ghana Bamboo Bikes Initiative plants 10 more. Bamboo is stronger than steel in terms of tensile strength and is a cheaper, more sustainable material. It also takes less electricity to make a bamboo bike than a metal one. And the frame is completely recyclable.
      These are the world's most bicycle-friendly cities.   Image: Statista      “The reason we use bamboo to manufacture bicycles is because it’s found abundantly in Ghana and this is not a material we’re going to import,” says Dapaah, one of the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders. 

 “It’s a new innovation. There were no existing bamboo bike builders in our country, so we were the first people trying to see how best we could utilize the abundant bamboo in Ghana.”
  Besides encouraging Ghanaians to swap vehicles for affordable bikes, Ghana Bamboo Bikes Initiative is helping students save time on walking to school so they have more time to learn.

 Each time they sell a bike, they donate a bike to a schoolchild in a rural community, who might otherwise have to walk for hours to get to school. 

 Dapaah knows how transformative a shorter journey to school can be to academic performance. She grew up living with her grandpa, a forester in a rural part of the country.

 “We had to walk three and a half hours every day before I could go to school. He later bought me a bike, so I finished senior high and wanted to go to university.”

 The experience inspired her to launch Ghana Bamboo Bikes Initiative with two other students at college. 

 “When we started this initiative, I looked back and said, when I was young, I had to walk miles before I could get to school, and sometimes if I was late, I was punished.

 “Why don’t we donate bikes for students to encourage them to study and so they can have enough time to be on books.”

 To date, they have sold more than 3,000 road, mountain and children’s bikes – and Dapaah says they plan to donate 10,000 bikes to schoolchildren over five years.
  The enterprise is also providing local jobs. It teaches young people to build bikes, particularly women and those in rural communities, where jobs can be scarce. More than 50% of people they have trained are women. 

 Dapaah says they want to boost the number of people they employ to 250 over the next five years and they are looking to partner with NGOs to build a childcare facility so mothers can continue to work.
  By promoting a cycling culture in Ghana, Dapaah says they’re also committed to reducing emissions in the transport sector and contributing to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. 

 “I love the idea of reusing bamboo to promote sustainable cycling. People want to go green, low-carbon, lean-energy efficient,” she says.
 

  


ABOUT US
We stand at the vanguard of green transportation by creating a client-driven, technologically-sensitive bamboo bicycles that are tailored to ever-changing transport needs and are responsive to the environment.
We design and build a range of bamboo bicycles/frames with a touch of craftsmanship and sensitivity to service durability. We believe sustainable cycling is a way of living and not just a catch phrase.



  

   
 

  South Africa’s buildings account for 40% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. 
South Africa’s buildings account for 40% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions. But the City of Johannesburg’s new draft green buildings policy aims to change that. The policy is driving the change to a more sustainable built environment through, for example, the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. The aim is to achieve low to net zero carbon for all new buildings  by 2030.  “Buildings have a relatively long lifespan of 40 to 120 years, and the building stock in cities is growing rapidly. Significant opportunities exist for decreasing emissions from buildings through reducing energy demand and then supplying remaining energy demand with energy generated from renewable energy sources, such as rooftop solar panels,” says the report. Although retrofitting buildings with new technologies, such as efficient lighting, can help to reduce energy demand, the actual design of a building can reduce the number of energy services required.  The draft policy details how residential development is the biggest contributor to Johannesburg’s carbon emissions and to the annual increase in carbon emissions. Buildings consume energy and water and are also waste producers. They are essential to tackling service-delivery problems if developed in a way that minimises resource consumption. Buildings whose water and power use do not comply with the regulations will be subject to fines and penalties. Liana Strydom, the  director of regional planning at the City of Johannesburg, said there is urgency in future-proofing the city’s buildings.   The policy had been developed in a partnership between Sustainable Energy Africa and Cape Town, Jo’burg, eThekwini and Tshwane. The cities signed the 2018 global net-zero carbon buildings declaration as part of a C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group South Africa Buildings Programme.  eThekwini recently had its draft green building policy approved by the council for public comment. 
 
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Africa

Ghana

Kumasi

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Ghana Bamboo Bike Initiative

<p>The female entrepreneur Bernice Dapaah launched the Ghana Bamboo Bikes Initiative to built sustainable and recyclable bikes which are made of bamboo. Furthermore, the initiative creates local jobs and offers a low-carbon transport alternative in Ghana. More than half of her workers are female, and with every bike sold, a schoolchild receives one to be able to attain school.</p>