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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 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

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

Increase Awareness

Impact on the health and happiness of human populations

Well-being

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

Save Water (SDG6)

Societal Services

Providing water and sewage services, including water collection and distribution, water treatment systems and sewage treatment facilities

Water and Sewage

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

Prioritise regenerative resources

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

Replace freshwater with less impactful alternatives and enact water efficiency measures

Regenerative water

Engage with the government on circular policies and programmes

Government collaboration

Employ technologies to gather and analyse data to provide insights on resource use

Data and insights

Enacting measures that optimise water use

Water efficiency

Installing sensors to gather data from products and services to identify, enable and/or implement circular strategies (eg. effective resource use & logistics planning, circular business models & design)

Sensors, monitoring systems

'Inform' increases the overall levels of awareness and builds the necessary skills and knowledge around the circular economy to foster long-term change.

Inform

Data, knowledge & information sharing

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

Manage

Infrastructure

Develop infrastructure to support sustainable lifestyles

Visions and Ambitions

Metrics and indicators to measure progress

Govern the Transition

Institutional design to enable circularity

 Convene Towards Action

Advocate for circular change

'Incentivise' sends market signals and support to businesses, citizens and governments to promote certain activities.

Incentivise

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

Includes a variety of actions (e.g. campaigns, information sharing, public events) that encourage city residents and visitors to build sustainable practices into their daily lives

Enable sustainable lifestyles

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

Communities

Governments

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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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

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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            Strategic Outcomes SO1 Reduced GHG emission, SO2 Creation of green jobs, SO3 Increased access to sustainable services    Start Date Q1  Mar 1 2019   End Date q1 Mar 31 2021   Funding Source Earmarked   Actual Budget (USD) 309,053   Budget Percentage 68%   Actual Expenditure (USD) 209,669   Status Active   GGGI Share (USD) 0   Poverty and Gender Policy Markers poverty, gender   Name of Client (Lead/Prime implementer if GGGI is part of a consortium)    Participating Organization (Funding/donor) Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation   Name of consortium members, if any               Senegal has been experiencing rapid urbanization for the past few decades. At present, 45% of the country’s 15.3 million citizens live in urban areas. The urban population is expected to grow a 2.5% per year, reaching 62% of the total population by 2025. Much of Senegal’s current urban growth is not accompanied by basic services, such as sanitation and domestic wastewater management. Strategic documents such as National Strategy Document called Plan Senegal Emergent (PSE), urban planning also does not well-integrate sanitation. For decades, the Government of Senegal has advocated for a centralized sewer system in urban centers. The sewer networks cover only a small part of the urban users – about 100 000 households across Senegal, with the vast majority residing in Dakar (85,000). The rest of the users have access to inadequate sanitation services and hygiene conditions. The increase in access rate is currently low and lower than expected, which is today a major concern. In rural areas, sanitation is largely autonomous and those with the access rate “appropriate” is low (26.2%). A third of rural households (31.3%) has no adequate sanitation and 53 % practice open defecation with a negative impact on public health and child mortality, as well as safety and security issues for the most vulnerable (women and children). The majority of latrines are “traditional” and funded directly by households. However, efforts to manage wastewater from non-sewered systems have been limited. Mobilizing additional concessional financing to fill the gap in rural areas particularly in the central part of the country, is the main challenge facing the development of the sub-sector.
During this Phase I, the project will focus on three main workstreams: policy, investment and knowledge sharing.In the policy workstream, GGGI foresees four outputs (Output 1, 2, 3 and 4): (1) to secure government commitment and endorsement to undertake policy interventions that help to create an enabling environment to attract finance for city-wide inclusive sanitation, (2) to secure endorsement of the implementation plan for one policy intervention, (3) to incorporate/embed sanitation in national plans/strategies for climate change, green growth and urban planning, and (4) to develop municipal green growth plans/strategies for each of the municipalities where the sanitation service is selected. In the project workstream, GGGI foresees one output (Output 5): (5) two investment projects for city-wide inclusive sanitation in the target cities, Kolda and Kaolack, for which investment commitment has been secured. · In the knowledge-sharing workstream, GGGI foresees two outputs (Output 6 &7): (6) a strategy developed to mainstream CWIS in other GGGI partner countries based on lessons learnt and (7) to develop sanitation-specific metrics that allow for building a strong business case for sanitation.   
       Impact: N/A
Outcome: N/A
Project Outputs completed in 2019: 
i. Green Growth Policies: N/A
ii. Green Investments: N/A
iii. Capacity Building and Knowledge Products: 

Total of 2 capacity building activities in the form of information sharing and technical workshop.
   
       Project Manager: Abdoulaye FAYE
Romain Brille, Mamadou KONATE, Ale Sy, Nathalie Andre, Ramatoulaye Camara, Amadou Lamine Fa   
            Sustainable Energy Cross Cutting      Start Date Q1 May 20 2019    Funding Source    Actual Budget (USD) 6,797   Status Active   Thematic Area   Sustainable Energy Cross Cutting       View 
  
           Green Growth Index 2020: Measuring performance in achieving SDG targets   
     
         

Senegal

Kaolack

Kolda

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Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI)

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Senegal’s current urban growth is not accompanied by basic services, such as sanitation and domestic wastewater management. A third of rural households (31.3%) has no adequate sanitation which causes a negative impact on public health and child mortality, as well as safety and security issues for the most vulnerable.&nbsp;The project of GGGI will focus on policy, investment and knowledge sharing by targeting incorporate/embed sanitation in national plans/strategies for climate change, green growth and urban planning, to develop municipal green growth plans/strategies and to develop sanitation-specific metrics that allow for building a strong business case for sanitation.In the two focus cities of Kolda and Kaolack, the project aims to secure investment for a city-wide inclusive sanitation system.

Promoting city-wide inclusive sanitation in Senegal rural cities

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

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 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

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

Public-private partnerships

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

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

Ensure that household and business waste is collected and appropriately sorted (by type, label, etc.) to allow for maximum recovery of value.


Collect and sort waste to facilitate recovery

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 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

Businesses

Water system refers to the water supply network for storing and supplying water for use by the community.

One of the greatest challenges of a city is to provide its inhabitants with safe, clean water from a limited fresh water supply. Improving the city’s water infrastructure efficiency, such as minimising leakages, reduces the strain put on the limited supply, which in turn, helps to ensure inhabitants gain access to clean and affordable water.

The water infrastructure of a city typically consists of components such as surface water diversions, wells, pumps, transmission pipes and canals, treatment and storage facilities, and distribution network elements (Burian et al.). Options for improving the efficiency of the system include investing in water loss reduction systems, creating and following a regular maintenance program, and better matching water supply and demand (Global Water Partnership).

Cities can improve the efficiency of their water system infrastructure by conducting a water audit, in which all water flows are traced and losses in the system are identified to map where the most efficiency improvements can be gained. Alongside this, asset management can be used to create a short-term and long-term strategy of investing in new equipment, refurbishing existing equipment and developing maintenance programmes to ensure infrastructure is as efficient as possible, and leaks are minimised. Such management programmes create financial transparency amongst all stakeholders and provide useful long-term planning for larger infrastructure changes (US EPA)

💧 Water Systems

Much of the wastewater generated by homes, industries, and businesses must be treated before it is released back into the environment. This is because it contains nutrients and other substances that can be harmful to the environment and human health, as well as to aquatic fauna and flora. These nutrients can cause oxygen depletion in water bodies, beach closures and contamination of drinking water. However, if the nutrients are recovered, they can often be put to beneficial use. 

For instance, biorefineries use wastewater as a source of raw materials, generating products of value from waste nutrients and simultaneously producing clean water for reuse or discharge. Nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus can be converted into environmentally friendly fertilisers, and used for ecological restoration and agricultural purposes. Biosolids from wastewater can be used as fuel for heating, replacing fossil fuels and reducing the amount of biosolids sent to landfill. 

Local governments have an important role to play in providing pipes, water management and treatment infrastructure to ensure that water is safely handled. They can also play a role in monitoring privately run facilities to ensure compliance with environmental performance standards. Finally, cities can connect stakeholders to match supply and demand for non-potable water, energy and nutrients recovered from wastewater.


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💧  Recovery of nutrients and chemicals from wastewater and sludge

An estimated 80% of wastewater is discharged into the environment without treatment (UN), threatening aquatic wildlife, quality of groundwater and surface water resources, and human health. To avoid these negative effects, it is important to improve wastewater collection and treatment from both households and industries. 

Cities can help achieve this goal by improving wastewater transport and treatment infrastructure, adopting laws and regulations for wastewater treatment discharge, and offer financial incentives for businesses and industries to improve pollution controls over their effluents and advance treatment technologies. 

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💧 Improving wastewater treatment infrastructure

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

Thematic Areas

  Circular Economy: Tapping the Power of Wastewa...  Wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) consume large amounts of energy, estimated at between 1% and 3% of global energy output. State-of-the-art facilities consume ...  

Dakar

ONAS

The Janicki Omniprocessor pilot project in Dakar, Senegal, successfully built a public-private partnership among the national sewage company and local businesses to establish a privately owned truck fleet to collect fecal sludge for processing in the Janicki Omniprocessor. The Omniprocessor reprocesses the sludge into inputs for agriculture and construction while also yielding energy and clean water.