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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

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)

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

Save Water (SDG6)

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

Providing electricity and gas services, including traditional and renewable energy generation, natural and manufactured gas and operating gas networks

Energy Utilities and Independent Power Producers

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

Water and Sewage

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

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

Develop infrastructure to support resource cycling

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

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

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

Residual organic and food wastes can offer a quasi-renewable and low-carbon source of energy. By processing organic wastes, often under high temperatures, pressures and in the absence of oxygen, organic wastes can be transformed into fuels, which can be used for heating, electricity generation, as well as transportation. A variety of technologies have been developed to generate biogas from organic materials, for example, anaerobic digestion. Such facilities can vary in scale from single units that can process the waste of a single building or neighbourhood, to large-scale facilities that can process the majority of the organic wastes generated from the entire city. 

Cities have a key role to support the utilisation of organic materials as biofuels due to their close oversight and influence on the urban waste management system. In particular, cities can support the financing of large-scale facilities to help to overcome the investment costs, as well as develop relationships with businesses to operate such facilities. 


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🍏  💧  Biogas from organic materials

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

Policies

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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

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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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                 We strongly believe that the living conditions of millions of people in non-sewered urban areas can be fundamentally improved. According to the World Health Organization the absence of proper sanitation and efficient working waste water treatment services is still causing over 842,000 deaths in low/middle income countries each year  - this fuels our desire to act.   At Safisana we see waste as a resource to create value. We have developed a circular business model for local waste treatment for governments, utilities and food processing industries. Our recycling plants turn organic waste and faecal sludge into high value products: renewable energy, organic fertilizer and irrigation water.   By adopting an holistic approach, we are able to offer governments, utilities and food processing industries a financially-affordable solution to manage their waste problems, and at the same time create highly sustainable multiple social, economic and environmental impacts to improve public health, climate, employment, food security/ safety scenarios for those communities who are ill-served by traditional utility provisions.                 Input  Based on the circular idea of waste as a resource, we collect both faecal and organic waste from urban areas, public toilets, food markets to food processing industries and slaughterhouses  and transport it to the Safisana recycling plant   Output  Through the process of fermentation of organic and faecal sludge it is transformed into organic fertilizer and biogas; with the biogas subsequently used to produce electricity. Electricity is then sold to local energy companies. Waste water is turned into clean irrigation water for use by local farmers, and together with Safisana produced organic fertiliser, provides year-round nutrient-rich supplements to increase vegetable yield                     Input  Based on the circular idea of waste as a resource, we collect both faecal and organic waste from urban areas, public toilets, food markets to food processing industries and slaughterhouses  and transport it to the Safisana recycling plant   Output  Through the process of fermentation of organic and faecal sludge it is transformed into organic fertilizer and biogas; with the biogas subsequently used to produce electricity. Electricity is then sold to local energy companies. Waste water is turned into clean irrigation water for use by local farmers, and together with Safisana produced organic fertiliser, provides year-round nutrient-rich supplements to increase vegetable yield                    Our recycling plant is a cost-efficient, fully serviced all-in-one solution for sustainable treatment of wastewater, solid waste, and faecal sludge management. Our holistic model provides end-to-end services, ranging from lease contracts and concessions to operate as a full utility service, to tailored contracts on the basis of DBFOT.         Our circular model offers wastewater and food processing industries a low-cost solution for residual waste and wastewater, that meets Sustainable Development Goals and corporate social responsibility policies.         Our model offers options to improve the direct living environment of local communities in non-sewered, urban areas. One recycling plant can  serve large communities, generating social, economic and environmental impact.﻿              Tonnes organic waste treated per year         Tonnes of faecal wastetreated per year         MwH or renewable energy produced per year         Kg of organic fertiliser produced per year                  Aart van den BeukelManaging Director and Founder of Safisana                      Aart van den BeukelManaging Director and Founder of Safisana Chair Board Safisana Holding         In 2017 we opened the first Safisana recycling plant in Ashaiman, Ghana, serving a settlement of 250,000 people in the Greater Accra Area. The plant was commissioned by the Local Municipality together with the National Ministries of Energy and Agriculture and succeeded in establishing the first waste to energy plant in West Africa. The Ashaiman plant has steadily built up its expertise to now demonstrate proof of concept, and clearly manifesting the advantages of the Safisana waste to resource business model. Today the Ashaiman facility has grown into an economically stable locally managed company – run by a team of 28 locally trained specialists. We now have a readymade blueprint for replication!       If you are reading this, it is because your browser does not support the HTML5 video element.               If you are reading this, it is because your browser does not support the HTML5 video element.        Like a stone that produces an expanding ripple in the water, our goal is to create a global impact with local solutions. It is our mission to roll out a global network of locally embedded Safisana businesses. Safisana’s circular business approach is modular and scalable, and is able to serve communities larger than 100 thousand people in non-sewered urban areas anywhere around the world, with the following SDG impacts.               #localsolutionsglobalimpact               

Ashaiman

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Municipality of Ashaiman

<p>The Ashaiman Municipality in Ghana works with Safisana, a circular economy business. Safisana&nbsp;collects sewage from public toilet blocks and organic waste, from which it generates biogas and compost for an on-site seedling nursery. The partnership has multiple benefits: underused waste streams are turned into valuable assets and the municipality’s energy generation and sanitation burdens are reduced.</p>

Ashaiman Municipality tackles waste treatment in partnership with Safisana 

Reuse, repurpose, and recycle waste streams within other industries

Valorise waste streams - open loop

Transforming waste products, materials for reuse within other industries

Open loop upcycling

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

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

Governments

Thematic Areas

City Stakeholders

                This is the Safisana recycling plant, located in Ashaiman, a densely populated settlement in the Greater Accra Area, serving over 250,000 inhabitants, 90 percent of whom lives below the poverty line. Commissioned by the Municipality of Ashaiman and the Ghanese National Ministeries of Energy and Agriculture, and financed primarily by the AfDB and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the plant opened its doors in 2017. It was the result of a long journey that had started back in 2010 and that had brought us on the sometimes bumpy road of trial and error. With the circular economy being firmly still in the theoretic phase, we invested in our relationships with the critical partners, and we learnt what was needed to achieve a truly local approach. Today the Ashaiman facility has grown into an economically stable locally managed company – run by a team of 28 highly skilled local specialists, and a ready-made blueprint for replication.          To date the recycling plant has improved the lives of thousands of people living and working in Ashaiman, generating social, economic, and environmental benefits for the local community as a whole. Improved sanitation services and waste collection have led to a cleaner and healthier living and working environment. The production of clean energy, nutrient-rich soil (fertiliser) as well as clean irrigation water has lowered carbon footprint and improved food security and safety. In addition, the plant generates direct employment for local staff as well as for related local businesses such as energy companies, waste collecting companies, toilet operators, and local farmers.             tonnes faecal wastetreated per year         tonnes of organic wastetreated per year         MwH energy produced per year                            Miss Agyeiwaa,  Food Vendor atlocal Ashaiman Food Market            Mr. Kwaku YahayaToilet Operator                     Kwabena Ampadu Otu - DanquahFormer Director of Renewable Energy at the Energy Commission                    If you are reading this, it is because your browser does not support the HTML5 video element.                    

African Development Bank

Ghanese National Ministeries of Energy and Agriculture

<p>The Safisana recycling plant in Ashaiman collects sewage from public toilet blocks and organic waste, from which it generates biogas and compost for an on-site seedling nursery. The plant has been commissioned by the Municipality of Ashaiman and the Ghanese National Ministeries of Energy and Agriculture, and financed primarily by the AfDB and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.</p>