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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

Reduced green house gas emissions released into the biosphere

Reduce Emissions (SDG13)

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 recreational and cultural services, including hotels, resorts, casinos, sport and fitness centers, stadiums, golf courses and amusement parks, restaurants, bars, pubs, fast-food or take-out facilities, as well as libraries and museums

Hospitality and Tourism

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

Consider opportunities to create greater value and align incentives that build on the interaction between products and services

Rethink the business model

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

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

Develop infrastructure to support sustainable lifestyles

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

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Rethink

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

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

Governments

On average, mobility is responsible for around half of the energy that is consumed in cities (excluding industry), and with it, a large share of the greenhouse gas emissions that are generated in cities. At the same time, many mobility assets, such as private cars can remain parked for up to 92% of the day ([Ellen MacArthur Foundation](https://ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/circular-economy-opportunity-and-benefit-factsheets)). 

A combination of shared mobility options (such as public transport, bike and car sharing) and low-carbon mobility systems (such as walking and cycling) can significantly reduce the energy demand and associated emissions of moving people and goods in cities. If implemented effectively, these solutions can reduce the overall demand for vehicles by alleviating the need for personal car ownership, and consequently also reducing the extraction of virgin materials required for the production and fuelling of private vehicles.

Local governments can make low-carbon and shared mobility options a viable and preferred alternative to private vehicle use. They can improve the availability and accessibility of electric charging infrastructure for private electric vehicles. Moreover, cities can play a role in the connection and integration of different forms of shared mobility (such as bike sharing, public transport, and car sharing) through a city-wide or national online platform. Then, to discourage private car use, parking bays can be replaced with pocket parks, parking costs can be increased (in certain parts of the city), cycling lanes can be expanded, and car free zones or congestion charges introduced.


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🚌  Low-carbon and shared mobility systems

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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©EIB blog usageIn the 19th and 20th centuries many Canary Islanders emigrated to Cuba. As a result, Canarian customs have become Cuban traditions and vice versa. Cuban Spanish is very close to Canarian Spanish: for example, in both countries buses are known as guaguas.There are plenty of guaguas serving the most populated city of the Canary Islands, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. The city has historically developed along two natural bays, with a peninsula sprouting to the north-east. With time, the residential areas have settled on the surrounding hills, cut through by ravines. The geography makes design and planning for urban mobility a challenge.This summer the Las Palmas bus company Guaguas Municipales — which already provides the traditional guaguas — and the municipality will implement an ambitious project to tackle the challenge of moving people around the city. It’s called MetroGuagua.“With the current guaguas, it can take up to 50 minutes to go from Hoya de la Plata to Manuel Becerra,” says Augusto Hidalgo Macario, Mayor of Las Palmas, describing a trip through a busy section of the city. “With MetroGuagua, it will take 20 minutes, whether there is traffic or not. It is a mobility revolution, transforming the whole urban setting of the city.”The MetroGuagua project will provide a bus rapid transit system, comprising:a segregated 11.7 km double lane for buses,three bus stations,17 stops, one every 500 metres,17 hybrid-electrical buses carrying 4 500 passengers in a peak houra traffic management and control system at the junctions.With a EUR 50 million loan, the European Investment Bank backed half the total cost of the loan.New mobility conceptAligned to the main road axes of the lower part of the city and broadly parallel to the seashore, it will run from the southern fringes of the city at Hoya de la Plata, to the seaport in the north at Manuel Becerra, passing through the historical and commercial districts. 75% of daily journeys within the city take place in this area. Reliable transport infrastructure is crucial.“MetroGuagua is a high capacity solution,” says Mayor Hidalgo Macario. “It will be the first bus rapid transit system in Spain.”Augusto Hidalgo Macario, Mayor of Las Palmas de Gran CanariaLas Palmas has historically been highly dependent on private cars. “This is a revolutionary plan for a city where 67% is private car modal share. MetroGuagua will promote a modal shift from private to public, in the most cost-effective way,” says Doramas Jorge-Calderón, senior economist at the EIB. He was also born and grew up in Las Palmas.MetroGuagua will not only improve public mobility in the lower part of the city, but will also “enable the restructuring of the entire network, improving journeys and waiting times in the periphery,” adds Elena Campelo, the EIB engineer working on the project.The EIB loan is backed by the Investment Plan for Europe, the first such project in the Canary Islands. The Investment Plan’s EU budget guarantee crucially allows the Bank to take higher risksand lend to municipalities under conditions that wouldn’t otherwise have been possible. The EIB loan has facilitated the long-term financing on favourable conditions, both in terms of repayment periods — up to 20 years — and interest rates.“The loan was given to the bus company, which then passed on the favourable conditions to the municipality,” explains Hidalgo Macario. “The EIB loan was key in bringing the project forward and crowding in private sector resources.”Delivering benefits along the wayThe construction phase will start in July 2017, providing up to 1000 jobs, in a region with unemployment over 25%.After that, the project will cover the purchase of 17 low-floor articulated buses: hybrid or electric vehicles, depending on “what is available and best on the market at that moment,” says Hidalgo Macario.MetroGuagua works are expected to finish in 2021. The new bus transit will be:flexible: “The shape of the city naturally fits a dedicated fast lane which, exceptionally, can also be used for other transport modes. This wouldn’t be possible with a tram,” says Elena Campelo.fast and reliable: The new buses will go from the current 13km/h to 20km/h and will run every 5 minutes.cost-effective and implemented in a relatively short amount of time, especially compared to a tram or a metro.high-capacity and comfortable: Each bus will carry 170–190 passengers. In the lower part of the city, the bus transit alone will carry 14 million passengers each year, against the current 10 million.environmentally-friendly: The new buses are less polluting. A new bicycle lane will be created and the sidewalks bordering the new bus lanes will be widened.The MetroGuagua project qualifies for the financing under the Cleaner Transport Facility, a new initiative launched by the EIB and European Commission to assist investments in cleaner transport projects.“MetroGuagua will further enhance the vibrancy of our city and the quality of life of its citizens, young people first. My daughter will make the most out of it,” says Hidalgo Macario, smiling.Originally published at www.eib.org.

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

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Guaguas Municipales

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, an island city in Spain, established Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) as the backbone of its strategy to attract more citizens and tourists to public transport. The city also introduced a new 1-day and 3-day unlimited travel card for tourists by cooperating with the local hotels and expanded its bike sharing program.The MetroGuagua project will provide&nbsp;a bus rapid transit system, comprising a segregated 11.7 km double lane for buses, three bus stations, 17 stops, one every 500 metres, 17 hybrid-electrical buses carrying 4 500 passengers in a peak hour a traffic management and control system at the junctions.