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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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Circular food systems entail that the food is produced regeneratively and, where appropriate, locally. Food and packaging waste are designed out entirely, while healthy, low-impact diets are promoted and easy to access. 

[Circle Economy](https://www.circle-economy.com/) is a not-for-profit organisation working to accelerate the circular transition. Through the *Circularity Gap Reporting Initiative*, our mission is to deliver an annual global Circularity Metric that measures the state of the world economy and identifies key levers to transition to global circularity. With nature as our guide, we work alongside cross-sector stakeholders from academia, businesses, NGOs and governments to provide a powerful combination of practical and scalable interventions that transform circular opportunities into realities. 

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Circular Food

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Limes and lemons - Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Policy case

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

Jobs

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 agricultural products and processing them into food and beverageproducts for consumption

Agri/Food

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

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

Manage

Infrastructure

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

Mobilise

 Convene Towards Action

Voluntary agreements around circular ambitions

Develop infrastructure to support resource cycling

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

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


Design and regulate for separation and recovery

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

The circular potential of organic wastes is dependent on the quality and low contamination rate of the residual stream that is collected. Food and organic wastes are difficult to sort and separate post-collection, and as such, collecting organic wastes through a mixed collection are often limited to incineration or landfill. Therefore, collecting organic wastes through a separate collection system is key to unlock potential high-value management practices, for example, composting and anaerobic digestion.

Due to the strong influence over the operation of local waste management systems, local governments have a key role in the provision of separate organic waste collection systems throughout the city. Collections systems can vary to suit the specific characteristics of particular neighbourhoods and areas of a city. For example, areas with detached homes have more space for bins, while for apartments with less space, a communal receptacle may be more appropriate. Communication campaigns can help to raise awareness and encourage participation of residents to separate their organic wastes. 


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🍏  Separate organic waste collection infrastructure

Managing municipal food wastes at scale may require complex and costly infrastructures to collect, transport and process these residual materials. Large-scale composting facilities are challenging to place and zone appropriately in space-scarce cities.

Community-based initiatives, for example, community composting, can provide a localised solution to managing urban food wastes. Community composting initiatives are small(er)-scale solutions that are distributed throughout the city, located close to the sources of food waste, reducing the need for complex logistics and collection systems. Community composting schemes can take a variety of forms, for example, in-vessel composting (IVC), as well as vermicomposting (which utilises insects to break down organic materials). Community composting initiatives can generate valuable by-products for use in (urban) agriculture, in gardens and in parks, as well as support community building. 

Local governments can support the development and implementation of community composting schemes through the provision of equipment and infrastructure, for example,  composting boxes. The formation of public-civic partnerships can help formulate the relationships and validate the valuable role such activities can play in the management of organic waste streams. Awareness raising can be facilitated through collaboration with schools. 


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🍏  Community composting

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

Communities

Governments

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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In Brazil, Latin America’s largest country in terms of population, the City of Sao Paulo is committed to recycle organics. In 2015, the City embarked on a journey towards separate collection of organics, thus enabling the production of high-quality compost.Modern municipal solid waste (MSW) management aims to reduce the amounts of waste disposed to minimise environmental burden. Separate collection and recycling of organic waste can significantly contribute to achieve targets of mitigating short-lived climate pollutants (SLPC) like methane emissions and reducing leachate. In cities that send MSW mainly unsorted to landfills (or dumpsites), the reduction of organic waste through composting represents a key element in waste management, with the additional capability of producing organic fertilisers and renewable fuelsOrganic Waste in Sao PauloSao Paulo is a metropolitan city with almost 12 million inhabitants. The MSW management practice currently comprises collection, transportation, and final disposal without any pre-treatment into two sanitary landfills with biogas capture. But even with a state of art landfill design, incorporating capture of biogas, substantial amounts of methane will still escape to the atmosphere and contribute to global warming.In 2014, less than 2 per cent of MSW was separately collected and recycled.The potential for organics recycling is there: while in EU cities organic waste represents 25-35 per cent of all MSW, in the case of Sao Paulo the amount comprises 51 per cent, or 6,600 tons per day. Thus, diverting organic waste from disposal can help Sao Paulo in achieving significant recycling rates and reducing SLCPs. Furthermore, these amounts of organics could potentially be transformed into approximately 700,000 tons of compost or 290 million cubic metres of biogas annually. This amount would be sufficient for the needs for cooking and heating for about 500,000 households.The Strategy for Organic WasteThe City’s 2012 Master Plan for MSW, Planes de gestión integral de residuos sólidos (PGIRS), specifically aims to reduce waste disposal by enhancing separate collection and recycling. The strategy for the diversion of organic waste was developed considering three main pillars that need to interact efficiently:Prioritise separate collection of organic waste that, once collected, will be sent to recycling at biological treatment plants; the PGIRS aims to gather up to 70 per cent of all organic waste producedGradual realisation of treatment and recycling facilities for organic waste, including composting and mechanical biological treatment (MBT) facilitiesOverarching and continuous communication activities to raise awareness about the importance of organic wasteThere are significant challenges when implementing such an ambitious strategy. They include the lack of participation in separate collection, the “NIMBY” effect local authorities face when searching for locations for composting facilities, and the need to raise awareness about the role and the importance of recycling organic waste among the population. Let’s see what Sao Paulo is doing to put the strategy into practise.From Strategy to PractiseAs a first step, the City launched the Composta Sao Paulo initiative to promote home-composting on a voluntary basis. The initiative has been immensely successful: by 2015, about 5,000 families practiced home-composting regularly, and today more than 10,000 participate in the online platform for Paulistanos,people who compost at home.The second steps focused on students. There are about 1,100 municipal schools in Sao Paulo; working on and talking about waste management in schools is an excellent way to teach young citizens about the possibilities to prevent waste generation and to recycle. An initiative addresses the recycling of organic waste at schools; the online platform Escolas Mais Orgânicas was launched to acquire data about organic waste management and to enable exchange among the participating schools. Based on these results, in 2016 a handbook on home-composting in schools was realised to support teachers in Sao Paulo who intend to practise composting.As a next step,Sao Paulo opted to collect organic waste from large producers and to recycle organics at local, small-scale, low tech composting facilities. There are almost 900 street markets, 69 parks, 3,900 squares and green areas in Sao Paulo that produce up to 120,000 tons of organic waste per year. Thus, in 2015, the City started to collect fruit, vegetable, and green waste at street markets located in the Lapa District.Meat, fish, and cooked food are excluded from collection and treatment to avoid odour emission and potential problems during the composting process, which relies on a low-tech approach without forced ventilation or mechanical turning devices. Organic waste is collected using compostable plastic bags, preventing compost from contamination of otherwise commonly used conventional plastics which only breaks down into smaller pieces physically. Organic waste from the City’s green spaces, delivered by the public maintenance services, are also accepted.During the same time, the first pilot-plant for composting organic waste was realised in Lapa. The effectiveness of the initiative and the good quality of the compost produced at the Lapa facility lead to the creation of 5 more facilities currently in place, recycling about 15,000 tons of organic waste each year. By 2020, the number will rise to 17 plants.Windrow composting in Sao Paulo © Marco RicciLessons Learned, Next Steps to be Taken The experience of Sao Paulo confirms that a clean “feedstock” is needed for obtaining high-quality compost, a product that can be marketed and re-used as organic fertiliser. Collecting organic waste separately at source represents the first step and plays a pivotal role in reducing contamination of organic waste through plastics, glass, and other non-degradable materials.The decision to realise small-scale composting facilities first allows for the local population to get closer to the production of compost. Composting plants thus act as permanent awareness initiatives; facilities are regularly visited by schools, local authorities, and people interested in gardening and compost use. Today, the facility at Lapa also hosts a plant nursery.The strategy for Sao Paulo includes the realisation of a set of medium to large-scale composting (or biogas) facilities in the near future, so to manage larger amounts of organic waste. A pilot scheme for collecting organic waste at households has been prepared in 2016 and is planned to be implemented in the near future.In the long term, these measures will significantly mitigate environmental impacts of current MSW management. As shown in Sao Paulo, all revolutions start with small initiatives that are able to change our daily habits.

São Paulo

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City of Sao Paulo

"In 2015, the city of Sao Paulo began rolling out programs to reduce organic waste. What started as a small, voluntary home composting initiative grew to include thousands of families. At the same time, the city began composting organic waste at small, lowtech facilities and a larger pilot composting plant. The initiative proved so successful that more than five new plants have opened, which together process around 15,000 tons of waste annually and employ local residents." (Source: ICLEI, 2021, City Practitioners Handbook: Circular Food Systems)

Collective composting scheme - Sao Paulo

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Rampant material extraction is pushing the ecosystems of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) to their limits. Over 11% of global raw materials are extracted within the region, yet it represents only about 8% of the world's population.

[*The Circularity Gap Report* (CGR) Latin America and the Caribbean](https://www.circularity-gap.world/lac), a first of its kind, demonstrates how the region can leverage the circular economy to tackle systemic inefficiencies in satisfying societal needs, conserve its unique natural wealth, and improve its people’s well-being.

To devise pathways for a circular transition, the report analysed the sectors where circular interventions could yield the most positive impact—environmentally, economically, and socially. This entails shifting to a circular food system, building a circular built environment, advancing circular manufacturing, transforming the energy system, reducing waste generation, and improve waste cycling.

[Circle Economy](https://www.circle-economy.com/) is a global impact organisation with an international team of passionate experts based in Amsterdam. We empower industries, cities, and nations with practical and scalable solutions to put the circular economy into action. Our vision is an economic system that ensures the planet and all people can thrive. To avoid climate breakdown, our goal is to double global circularity by 2032. Through the Circularity Gap Reporting Initiative, our mission is to deliver Circularity Metrics that measure the state of the global and national economy and identify key levers to transition to circularity. 

Latin America Collection

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

Ecological Impact

Direct and indirect reduction in economic costs

Cost Savings

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

Reduced green house gas emissions released into the biosphere

Reduce Emissions (SDG13)

Societal Services

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

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

While resources are in-use, maintain, repair and upgrade them to maximise their lifetime and give them a second life through take back strategies when applicable

Stretch the lifetime

Reuse, repurpose, and recycle waste streams within other industries

Valorise waste streams - open loop

Using waste materials that have been processed and recycled to produce new products within other industries

Using open loop recycled materials

Participating in government programmes that support and advance the circular economy

Government programmes

Visions and Ambitions

Roadmaps and strategies and targets

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

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Rethink

High-level changes to policy and practice (such as taxation systems, investment and procurement guidelines and criteria) that disincentivize activities that perpetuate linear economic systems, as well as vision-setting (goals, roadmaps) to catalyze
action on circularity across the city

Eliminate linear incentives and set goals and incentives for circularity

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

When organic wastes are landfilled, the value and nutrients are lost and irrecoverable. Landfilling also causes additional environmental pressure, for example, the decomposition of food and organic waste in landfills emits greenhouse gases into the climate. Reducing the space required for landfills creates opportunities for better use. 

Local governments have an important role to play in the elimination of the landfilling of organic wastes. Municipalities with the legislative authority to do so can introduce legislation that bans organic wastes from being landfilled and fines non-compliance.

Municipalities can ensure that municipal organic wastes are collected and diverted from landfill by mandating certain processing techniques, for example, composting or anaerobic digestion. 
 


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🍏  Phase out landfilling of organic waste

                 This document has been realized as part of the second phase of the City Assistance Project offered to the Municipality of Sao Paulo (Brazil) under the framework of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition Municipal Solid Waste Initiative (CCAC MSWI). The project was implemented by ISWA, the International Solid Waste Association, with the local coordination of ABRELPE, the Brazilian Association of Public Cleaning and Special Waste Companies (ISWA’s National Member in Brazil). The first phase of the project was a city assessment and the establishment of an Action Plan for Sao Paulo, in line with Sao Paulo’s PGIRS (Plan for Integrated Management of Solid Waste) lasting from 2014 to 2033. The second phase of the project aims to provide technical and strategic guidance on how to pursue the Action Plan and build capacity in public communication and organic waste treatment plant operation. This strategy paper is an outcome of one of the activities in the second phase, namely for the Action “Define the strategy for organic waste diversion and help realize a pilot biowaste treatment plant” of the Action Plan. The idea of this activity came about after assessing the current Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) management activities in Sao Paulo and considering the targets and guidelines defined in Sao Paulo’s Master Plan for the City of Sao Paulo (Plano de Gestão Integrada de Resíduos Sólidos da Cidade de Sao Paulo - PGIRS). The Master Plan strongly emphasizes the role of diverting organic waste from disposal (currently into landfills) by means of reducing it at source (e.g. home-composting), separate collection at large producers and households and recycling by applying composting, anaerobic digestion and pretreatment with MBT (mechanic-biological treatment) technologies. Specifically, the PGIRS foresees the realization of composting/AD/MBT plants for a total treatment capacity of about 4.700 tons/day or 1,7 million tons/year. Sao Paulo needs strategic guidance on how to achieve those goals, so the aims of the strategic guidance are to develop:  A strategy for organic waste diversion including collection, treatment and recycling and their challenges and opportunities for Sao Paulo, namely this document; A technical guidance on the operation of organic waste treatment plants taking into consideration the existing legal framework. This deliverable constitutes another document.
 Data quoted in this paper are from the PDF version of the PGIRS and the Executive Summary of it (hard-copy) dated 2014. Existing Brazilian legislations and technical norms are described according to the existing status as at the end of January 2016.                  

South America

Brazil

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The International Solid Waste Association is an international network of waste professionals and experts from around the world whose mission is “To Promote and Develop Sustainable and Professional Waste Management Worldwide and the transition to a circular economy.”

International Solid Waste Association (ISWA)

Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC)

São Paulo, together with the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) and the International Solid Waste Association (ISWA), developed a strategy for organic waste diversion including collection, treatment and recycling. In particular, the strategy involves the distribution and training for the use of home-composters, and the expansion of separate collection of organic waste linked to existing recycling capacity.