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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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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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Policy case

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

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)

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 and providing business and consumer goods and services

Goods and Services

Providing specialist services to support consumers, businesses, andgovernments

Professional Services

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

Circular Economy in school programmes

Data, knowledge & information sharing

Conduct research

Implement innovation programmes

Incubator and investment programmes

Awareness raising events

 Develop research, structure knowledge, encourage innovation networks and disseminate findings with integrity


Strengthen and advance knowledge

Manufactured goods, such as vehicles, textiles, appliances and equipment and their associated production processes are big employers but:
- production processes often rely on fossil fuels and currently drive one-third of the overshoot on the climate change planetary boundary due to its GHG production, 
- material- and energy-intensive industrial activities are linked to deforestation and drive 15% on both the land use and freshwater planetary boundaries, 
- manufacturing goods results in substantial amounts of hazardous industrial waste and leaks chemicals into the environment.

Here, circular solutions must tackle the full value chain, but material demand must also shrink: this will necessitate a societal shift to favouring sufficiency over excess and reducing consumption to sustainable levels. Our four key solutions for manufactured goods are:
- Mainstream industrial symbiosis and efficiency : Achieve process improvements, scrap diversion and reduction in yield losses through greater industrial symbiosis and efficiency. Foster tighter collaboration within and between industries to deliver powerful material and emissions savings.
- Extend the lifetime of machinery, equipment, and goods: Maximise the lifetime of goods that serve our daily needs to bring a number of environmental benefits. 
- Buy what's needed: Reduce the number of purchases of common electronic goods, appliances, and other equipment to sufficiency levels. 
- Eschew fast fashion in favour of sustainable textiles: Drastically reduce new clothing purchases. All used clothing should go on to be repaired, reused or, if needed, recycled appropriately. Prioritise natural and local textile manufacturing, as well as higher-quality and more durable garments. 




👕📱 Consumer Goods

Businesses

Communities

Urban dwellers around the world have become increasingly reliant on the consumption of fast-moving consumer goods that are designed to be cheap to buy and easily disposable. There is, nevertheless, an opportunity to support the development of sustainable alternatives for a range of consumer goods, from packaging to cosmetics to clothing that use renewable and recovered materials.

Local and sustainable producer ecosystems are networks of local entrepreneurs and initiatives that innovate sustainable products and services. These ecosystems could be established in physical locations, such as a maker-space, and can support the innovation of ideas and products that use locally sustainable and abundant materials (such as renewable or residual materials). 

Local governments can support the creation of local and sustainable producer ecosystems by providing rent-free access to the facilities and locations for entrepreneurs and initiatives that are developing circular economy innovations. Local governments can also engage in dialogue with participants of local spaces to understand and overcome the barriers towards a local circular economy, and could even connect initiatives with residual material streams.


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👕📱  Local and sustainable producer ecosystem

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 2018, Veolia, through its Foundation, and Empow’Her opened L’Oasis in the heart of Niamey, the capital of Niger. This space is dedicated to women’s entrepreneurship and raising awareness on sustainable development issues. To extend this promising experience, Veolia is partnering with The MakerSpace Foundation to launch a “Baobab” which will be devoted to promoting the circular economy and the economic empowerment of disadvantaged communities in Durban, South Africa.
This new third place’s objective is to promote a sustainable lifestyle and practices, through awareness and education programmes, and to support local economic development by promoting the emergence of low environmental impact solutions and the creation of green jobs. To develop this economic, environmental, social, and solidarity-based model, based on the observation that reusing and recycling waste create jobs, Baobab is working to develop skills in these areas. Online programmes Pending the premises’ opening to the public, scheduled for December 2020, Internet users can already participate in one of the training programmes offered on Baobab’s website, entitled ‘Upcycling the future’. The Plasticpreneur recycling studio offers training in designing new products from plastic waste. This programme includes learning about recycling processes and using machines for the small-scale production of upcycled items and supports product development and business creation. The Plasticpreneur studio is a good illustration of Baobab’s ambitions, the idea being to give learners the tools to allow them to start their own plastic waste recovery business. The My Lil'Pumpkin programme aims to teach school children the principles of sustainability while developing their problem-solving skills and initiative through hands-on workshops, events, and DIY activities included in the school curriculum. Finally, the Zero Waste awareness programme brings together the population, businesses, communities, etc. around the 5R (Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Repair) principles in order to minimise waste production. Baobab will shortly be organising a number of events (conferences, debates, workshops, etc.) with a view to sharing knowledge and good practices. CREDITS: Main picture © Veolia / Noémie Rosset

Durban

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Veolia

The MakerSpace Foundation

Baobab

In the city of Durban, a cooperation between The MakerSpace Foundation and Veolia opened a third maker-place dedicated to the circular economy. The objective of this place is to promote a sustainable lifestyle and practices, through awareness and education programmes, and to support local economic development by promoting the emergence of low environmental impact solutions and the creation of green jobs.One of the training programmes offered by&nbsp;Baobab is called "Upcycling the future", which invites to form a community, develop solutions to reduce waste and create green jobs. Another program called "the Plasticpreneur recycling studio" offers training in designing new products from plastic waste. This programme includes learning about recycling processes and using machines for the small-scale production of upcycled items and supports product development and business creation.

"Baobab", a space dedicated to local and sustainable producers in Durban


Business case

Direct and indirect reduction in economic costs

Cost Savings

Contributing to the improvement of biodiversity including species diversity, total number of protected species, and ecosystem health

Biodiversity

Producing and providing services that utilise the creative talent of individuals to generate intellectual property, including movies and television shows, music, live performances, advertising, marketing or public relations services, newspapers, magazines and books, and commercial printing services

Creative Services

Producing textile and leather products and processing them into apparel and accessories

Fashion and Textiles

Utilise waste streams as a source of secondary resources and recover waste for reuse and recycling

Use waste as a resource

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

VISION:
Raw materials are renewable, recyclable and safe, kept in continual circulation.

DETAIL:
Imagine a time when…the raw materials that are used to make things are sourced from existing products and regenerative agriculture, via carbon negative and climate neutral processes. Biodegradable raw materials are used for products with biodegradable end routes. Toxic chemicals have been washed out of the global materials pool, disposed of safely and replaced with beneficial alternatives. Virgin fibres made from fossil fuels have been banned, while secondary synthetic fibres, derived from what was already in the system, are kept in constant circulation as a resource. Circularity accounting methods, built on science-based metrics, help to manage a balanced system of resources, across all industries, and in line with the planet’s environmental limits.

Raw Materials and Planetary Boundaries

VISION:
Products and services are designed for multiple use and material value retention, with maximum positive impact.

DETAIL: 
Imagine a time when…products flow via optimal collection and distribution streams into reusable and repairable product platforms. Reuse and access models are dominant, and products are designed for multiple recirculation before biodegrading (if designed to do so), or being broken down into reusable raw materials for production. People only consume what they need. Production and consumption wastes have been fully eliminated and multifunctional, season-less and timeless fashions are the norm, yet still fulfil our human need for expression and creativity without constraint. All business models, organisations, governments and citizens play a role in maintaining a healthy, functioning circular ecosystem.

Products and Services

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

It is 2050.  Full systems change has taken place. This wouldn’t have been possible without the immediate action and radical steps taken from 2020 onwards. Many targets had to be identified in the early 2020s and achieved by 2030 to ensure that the 2050 goal happened in full. A sense of urgency, turbo stakeholder collaboration, supportive government regulation and clear, data driven targets enabled the mindsets and systems change needed to transform to a fully circular textiles ecosystem.

A circular economics model underpins what we have created. It reflects and supports a living organism made up of makers, users and restorers, interacting across vibrant and interconnected networks. Checks and balances, alongside transparency and accountability, ensure a healthy system. Financial, environmental, and social metrics have the purpose of serving communities and the planet. There is shared ownership of profit and loss – across all three metrics – throughout the value chain.

This is what we’ve achieved over the last 30 years:

WCTD Themes

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La belleza y la sustentabilidad son los pilares sobre los que se apoya Baobab, la firma colombiana de trajes de baño y resortwear que articula la preservación y protección del medioambiente a través de un modelo circular, sin prescindir del estilo. Inspirada en la naturaleza y en enaltecer el cuerpo a través de prendas elegantes y minimalistas, Baobab se afirma desde su ética y responsabilidad ambiental.Con el avance de la tecnología textil y la aparición de nuevos (y mejores) recursos, cada vez son más las marcas que incorporan a sus colecciones telas sustentables, creadas a partir del reciclado de productos preexistentes. Sabemos que los trajes de baño son un problema para el medioambiente, dado que la licra es una tela sintética compleja para degradar por la cantidad de partículas de microplástico que liberan en el agua. Afortunadamente, los trajes de baño sostenibles florecen en Latinoamérica. Eso se debe a que las marcas están cada vez más abiertas a adaptar sus colecciones incorporando materiales reciclados, como el Econyl, una tela que se obtiene a partir del reciclaje de redes de pesca que son descartadas en el mar.Con aires minimalistas, los trajes de baño de Baobab son sustentables.Cortesía BaobabTambién habla de su compromiso y responsabilidad ambiental, del deseo de ser agentes de cambio y de aportar su granito de arena, buscando tener un impacto positivo sobre el planeta para luchar contra la inmensa crisis climática que está atravesando el mundo entero. Todo esto, además, sin perder de vista el estilo, la belleza, la calidad y el confort, características muy necesarias en los trajes de baño.¿Cuáles son los pilares que hacen de Baobab una marca sustentable?Baobab se define como una marca regenerativa. Su modelo y visión circular de la sustentabilidad le permiten organizarse en diferentes puntos para reducir el impacto que tiene cada prenda que es realizada. Cada traje de baño es realizado utilizando econyl, un textil tecnológico que se obtiene a partir del reciclaje de la fibra de nylon proveniente de redes de pesca recuperadas del océano. Estas redes de pesca son basura marítima, toneladas y toneladas de basura descartada que es recuperada para darle un nuevo y auspicioso uso.El packaging es un coco reutilizado.Cortesía BaobabAdemás del uso de textiles reciclados, Baobab en sus inicios, por el año 2016, comenzó con una iniciativa de plantar árboles por cada traje de baño vendido. En cada colección se van asociando con diferentes proyectos de reforestación, que suelen ser fundaciones certificadas que trabajan con comunidades locales. Al día de hoy, ya llevan plantados más de 5000 árboles en distintas regiones de Colombia.Y como si faltara algo, cada traje de baño es entregado en bolsas biodegradables, hechas a partir de cocos en desuso. Su política zero-waste los lleva a reutilizar, de manera inteligente e innovadora, elementos que tienen al alcance de la mano, como estos frutos característicos del Caribe.Baobab es la marca colombiana de trajes de baño sustentables.Cortesía BaobabEl compromiso de Baobab con la conservación del ecosistema marinoPara su última colección llamada Delirio de Mar, elevaron la apuesta de la sustentabilidad, creando una alianza con Corales de Paz. Esta organización sin fines de lucro –creada por el biólogo marino Phanor H. Montoy– se especializa en la conservación internacional de los ecosistemas marinos tropicales. El fin detrás de esta asociación es aumentar la escala de restauración del coral a nivel internacional. Quienes hayan visto el documental Chasing Coral conocen de la importancia de los arrecifes de corales como agentes reguladores de la temperatura del planeta, y es por eso que su conservación y restauración es tan importante.La idea detrás de esta iniciativa es similar a aquella de la reforestación: con cada traje de baño vendido, se podrán rehabilitar una cierta cantidad de metros cuadrados de arrecife de coral de la isla de San Andrés, en Colombia. Al momento, la meta es la de limpiar 256 m2 de arrecife, aunque esperan que este número se duplique hacia fin de año.This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.

       
 THEN NOW THEN
Sustainability has always been BAOBAB's core. Since our first collection we established a donation and restoration program, planting one tree for every swimsuit purchased on behalf of the client. 
NOW
Until now (2022) we have planted 8000 trees, and ameliorated the donation program to restore Coral Reefs in San Andres Island, Colombia in alliance with Corales de Paz Organization. Until now we have rehabilitated around 500 m2 of coral reef. LOGISTICS
THEN
Supplies and clothing pieces were sent to and from manufacturers in disposable plastic bags. 
NOW
Now, we use tote bags we made from fabric scraps & biodegradable bags made with corn.  DESIGN PROCESS
THEN
Collections were designed from references & new designs.
Patronage outsourcing. 
NOW
Collections are being designed from fabrics. As we have a lot of fabrics in different colors and textures, from previous collections, we are reducing waste by re-using old fabrics to contribute to a circular economy. 
Inhouse patronage to optimize spaces in the sewing patters, reducing waste.
 
FABRIC SCRAPS
THEN
Disposal of fabric scraps
NOW
Donation and re-use of fabric scraps through our CASCADE Project.
 
SILICA BAGS
THEN
We bought silica bags for international shipments.
NOW
At our flagship store in Bogotá, we receive silica bags to recycle them and eventually buy less.
  
   

Bogotá

BAOBAB is a Colombian swimwear brand that focuses its attention on restoring nature and embracing the value of biodiversity. Sustainability as its identity and priority can be found throughout every element and every circular process of the brand.&nbsp;