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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 increased knowledge and understanding as a result of the case study

Increase Awareness

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)

Societal Services

Other

Extra-curricular education

Conduct research

Roadmaps and strategies and targets

Develop circular criteria for public procurement of assets

Develop infrastructure to support resource cycling

Tradable permits

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

Governments

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

Urban Opportunities

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

Copenhagen

Municipality of Copenhagen

The Resources and Waste Plan 2018 is a statutory management document that is produced every four years for initiatives covering households, businesses and public institutions.Its main objectives are to reduce waste, increase recycling rates, and remove plastic waste from the City of Copenhagen’s incineration stream (City of Copenhagen 2012o). Copenhageners should: generate less waste, increase direct reuse, recycle more and incinerate less.Resource Consciousness Procurement consists of deposit-refund schemes for packaging and requirements in procurement policies to prevent waste.SYDHAVN RECYCLING CENTRE is a centre for innovation, knowledge, and green growth in the resource and waste field. The recycling activities of the centre work as a laboratory for new measures with focus on waste as a resource.

Copenhagen's Resources and Waste Plan 2018

Impact on the health and happiness of human populations

Well-being

Impact on the ease of innovation, and facilitating uptake of innovations

Innovation

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

Save Water (SDG6)

Reduced use of fossil fuel energy sources and/or increased use of renewable energy

Reduce Energy Consumption

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

Biodiversity

Producing agricultural products and processing them into food and beverageproducts for consumption

Agri/Food

Extracting resources and processing them to produce materials for use bysociety

Materials and Fuels

Producing transporation equipment and providing services for thetransportation of goods and people

Transportation and Logistics

Producing and providing business and consumer goods and services

Goods and Services

Producing building materials and providing services to create residential and non-residential infrastructure and real estate


Construction and Infrastructure

Industry peers to industry peer collaboration to create joint value and identify synergies

Industry collaboration

Biogas produced by the anaerobic digestion of organic solid waste can be used as an energy source for cooking, lighting and generate electricity, replacing thus other fuels. Moreover, the treatment of organic waste alleviates the solid waste crisis in urban and peri-urban area if the developing world.


Use biogas

Locally produced food has to travel shorter, which means less fuel is consumed and less greenhouse gases are generated. Moreover, buying locally produced food helps local farmers and markets and creates more jobs in the local businesses. 


Produce locally

Encourage workplace training

Research and facilitate new technological developments to aid the transition to a circular economy.

Research and Development

Living labs

Facilitate cross-collaboration by engaging city departments, industries and businesses on ambitious, closed-loop circular projects.

Support closed-loop systems and cross-sectoral synergies

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 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

The built environment, including housing, commercial buildings, and the necessary infrastructure for mobility, is essential for our livelihoods, but:
- the extraction of minerals used to produce construction materials is responsible for a quarter of global land use change,
- approximately 40% of global GHG emissions can be attributed to buildings’ construction, use and demolition, and
- construction and demolition processes drive nearly one-third of all material consumption. 

Making the built environment more circular must prioritise a heavy reduction in material use—while also closing the loop on materials and bringing secondary and renewable material choices to the fore. Our four key solutions for the built environment are:
- Make the most of what already exists: Make the most of existing materials by reusing, repurposing, upgrading and renovating following circular approaches. Where new builds are needed, use secondary materials and be as efficient as possible with urban planning solutions that follow circular design principles so that buildings can be reused, repurposed, and easily disassembled in the future.
- Be as energy efficient as possible: From the design phase, utilise circular strategies to create material- and energy efficient buildings. Couple these designs with a rollout of clean energy solutions, and prioritise energy-efficient appliances and retrofitting. 
- Utilise secondary materials: Maximise the high-value reuse of buildings and components where possible. Ideally, enable the utilisation of construction and demolition outputs and ensure that as much of it as possible is recycled to avoid the need for virgin materials, such as sand and gravel.
- Prioritise circular materials and approaches: Transition to using renewable wood, timber or cross-laminated timber instead of steel and concrete, or move to other locally available materials. Utilise mainstream modular construction and prioritise lightweight frames and structures to reduce cement and steel use, as well as green roofs where possible.



🏢 Built Environment

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

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

Businesses

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

Thematic Areas

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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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Smart City thinking challenges the status quo of managing cities. It requires political courage and a holistic approach to public management in order to create efficient solutions and sustainable growth. This can be achieved by involving businesses, knowledge institutions and citizens more deeply in creating smart urban solutions.Copenhagen Solutions Lab is the City of Copenhagen’s incubator for smart city initiatives. We work cross-sector with the City’s administration and in partnership with local and international companies and knowledge institutions to create and test new ideas, technologies and solutions to real urban challenges.Copenhagen, like many other large cities, suffers from massive problems with congestion and flash floods; this and the ambitious climate targets are reasons for the need to rethink how the city’s solutions are structured in new sustainable ways. We contribute to the overall goal of Copenhagen being a green, safe, clean and liveable city and we explore the ways the utilization of big data, new technologies and a digital infrastructure can help achieving this goal.Today we work with the following projects:Street Lab: Testarea for smart city technologies – such as air quality sensors, intelligent waste management and smart parking placed in the area between the Town Hall Square, H. C. Andersens Blvd. and Vester Voldgade.UNDERBROEN: Our new makerspace for creative citizens and people with different professional skills who want to work with 3D printers, lazer-cutters and modern digital technologies in a knowledge-sharing environment.IoT Platform for Cities (SELECT): EU-project with the goal of creating an IoT platform for European cities to enable large-scale co-creation, testing and validation of urban IoT apps and services.EnergyBlock: The project EnergyBlock investigates the potential for renewable energy production and storage in Fuglekvarteret (Nordvest) from a full sustainability perspective. The project also aims to create three social start-up companies, including; A roof-top greenhouse that will produce fresh herbs and vegetables to a rooftop restaurant on the neighbouring roof with a view over the district and Copenhagen.Open Data DK: We work together with four larger cities in Denmark to put Open Data on the national agenda. Open Data DK gathers data and make them publicly available for anyone to use – it being businesses, small entrepreneurs, public institutions or citizens.

The purpose of Copenhagen Solutions Lab (CSL) is to contribute in solving the municipality’s challenges (flooding, congestion, pollution, waste and other problems) that arise in areas with dense habitation, lots of traffic and a rising number of inhabitants. As the municipality’s smart city gateway, CSL helps companies, universities and start-ups to develop solutions to the city’s challenges and to test them in the municipality’s living labs.

Copenhagen Solutions Lab

Scalability

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

Water and Sewage

Producing building materials and finished and semi-finished building products for construction

Construction Materials and Products

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

Prioritise regenerative resources

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

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

Manage

'Regulate' changes the rules of the systems to achieve compliance through enforcement. 


Regulate

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

Incentivise

**Harmonize with nature** by promoting infrastructure, production systems and sourcing that allows natural ecosystems to thrive




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Regenerate

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

Prioritize solutions that use the power of functioning ecosystems as infrastructure to provide natural services to benefit society and the environment; consider nature-based replacements for grey infrastructure.

Promote solutions inspired and supported by nature

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

At the same time that global biodiversity loss has accelerated, humanity has become an urbanised species. And the trend towards urban living is set to continue: 80% of the world’s population will live in cities by 2050—by then, the equivalent to 9 billion people. Urban development has often progressed without regard to the ecosystems of which they are a part. Now the mass of human-made things, from pavements to apartments to phones, outweighs all natural biomass, such as our oceans, trees and animals.

Building with, as opposed to over, nature has long been perceived as more of a burden than an opportunity, but this is rapidly changing. Examples of Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) in cities span from simple concepts—permeable pavements to reduce flood risks or green roofs to improve biodiversity and energy efficiency—to practical actions, such a city manager installing trees and grass along steep slopes to prevent landslides, or an urban planner protecting or restoring a nearby forest or wetland that is crucial to the city’s water supply and quality. NBS can also be seen as an effective element to prevent the heat island effect and consequently reducing energy demand. NBS that follow the circularity concept, for example by recycling nutrients, are enablers of the circular transition and can be used as tools to build new resilient, circular urban ecosystems. Conversely, the circular economy creates favourable conditions to attract more investments for NBS scaling up. 

Cities can promote these solutions by developing heat-deflecting green infrastructure on buildings and in public spaces, prioritising their development on top of existing or new grey infrastructure, such as a park on top of a parking garage, or an urban garden on top of a school. Cities can also subsidise projects and technologies at both a commercial and household level, including nature-based solutions in their climate and energy plans, as well as increasing awareness of the issue and the available solutions.



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🏢💧⚡ Nature-based solutions for the urban built environment

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).

BACKGROUND
Procurer
Tyrnävä municipality
Object of procurement
A new school based on the life-cycle model. The contract covers maintenance and upkeep for 20 years, after which the municipality may buy the facilities in accordance with the contract.
The new building comprises 4,300 m2 of primary school facilities, a 1,700 m2 sports hall as well as 500 m2 of special education facilities.
Value of procurement
The value was approximately EUR 14.8 million in the investment stage and approximately EUR 6.7 million in the maintenance stage. When realised, the project was the biggest investment of the Tyrnävä municipality.
Objective of procurement
The objective of the procurement was a learning environment in accordance with the new curriculum, open and adaptable facilities as well as a whole that is low-cost throughout its life-cycle. A key objective was to make area savings, which required flexible and space-efficient facilities. Other goals included the use of renewable energy and energy-efficiency. The targets set for the usability of the facilities included health and safety as well as a fresh way of thinking about the use of space.
Parties and operators participating in procurement
All of the construction parties, the municipality, teachers and students participated in the planning and implementation of the procurement. The design of the school started together with the teachers and students. The progress of the procurement was directed by a project team comprising local civil servants and elected officials. Essential points were to manage the whole to which the designer, user, builder and controller contributed and to create partnerships between the different operators and the municipality and, on the other hand, the supplier and its networks.
Procurement procedure
Competitive negotiation procedure. The procurement model was a combination of the life-cycle model and an alliance.
Procurement – background
The new school is a response both to Tyrnävä’s growing population and the need for a contemporary learning environment. The ecological aspect was introduced to the construction project via the municipal strategy, the key objectives of which are sustainability and renewable energy solutions. As a member of the Carbon Neutral Municipalities (HINKU) network, Tyrnävä is committed to ambitious climate emission reduction targets. The realisation of the procurement objectives was supported by Tyrnävä’s good and open-minded decision-making culture.
PROCUREMENT PROCESS
Procurement preparations and market dialogue
Several operators took part in the design of the school from the outset. The preparations involved early market dialogue and functionality planning events held with the teachers, students and elected officials. The school staff, children and municipality’s views were widely taken into consideration in the design and development of the school. There were lively conversations with the users. Mutual development, open dialogue and trust throughout the project were the factors that determined the success of the project.
Requirements and benchmarks of object of procurement
The targets and requirements set for the municipality’s school project focused on overcoming educational challenges instead of the conventional way of acquiring more space. The key design requirements included new ways of using space, energy and material solutions, implementation methods, special education innovations, new technologies, an educational Living Lab for companies as well as mutual design. The entire building’s life-cycle costs were taken into account in the costs.
Contract period
The Rantarousti school was built as a turnkey contract, which includes a 20-year cooperation agreement with the municipality. The investment stage includes the demolition of the old buildings; excavation work; structural work; heating, plumbing, ventilation and electrical work; yard fittings and equipment; technical and textile work equipment; loose furniture and AV equipment; geothermal heat and solar heat accumulation systems. The maintenance stage includes building maintenance, upkeep, property management, outdoor area maintenance, furniture and equipment care, security services as well as cleaning, lobby and porter services.
Challenges
The challenges facing the project included things such as the schedule, the situation and development of the financial market, the integration of the freedom of design and the users’ wishes, the need for external experts as well as the potential shortage of providers.
Benefits/results/effects
The building is almost 1,300 m2 smaller than the size specified in the Finnish National Agency for Education’s guide regarding the estimated size of a school building. The smaller footprint decreased the construction-time costs by roughly EUR 3 million and will, in the long term, also reduce the building’s maintenance and heating costs.
From the aspect of reducing the environmental effects, the key factors in addition to the space solutions were geothermal heat, solar energy as well as the selected materials. The materials were selected specifically with an eye to life-cycle sustainability. For instance, the surface materials are both sustainable and easily replaceable. Wood was used, for example, in the façade and the roof structures.
Thanks to modern architectural engineering, the school has a high indoor air quality, which is primary controlled by CO2 and temperature sensors. The buildings are accessible, with automatic lighting. Temperature, electricity and water consumption and noise levels at the school are constantly monitored by the central NCC unit in Espoo. The company feeds the data back to the school, which uses it in teaching via the My School app.
The building has no corridors, class rooms, partition walls, dining hall, teacher’s desks or practically any waste space. Furthermore, shoes are banned inside the building. The design solutions support a new way of learning in an open learning environment.
The teacher’s role at the school has also changed with the increase of joint learning, and in some things, the students are able to help each other. The teacher’s role is to coordinate and provide individual support. The school has also adopted the use of joint teachers.
Lessons learned
“An absolutely massive plus in the project was that it enabled us to establish great partnerships between the operators, within the municipality as well as with the suppliers.” Marjukka Manninen (municipal manager of Tyrnävä during the project)
Method sharing
The Rantarousti school is a good example of how to build a learning environment of the future in an ecologically sound and resource-efficient way. It will act as a great reference point for designing new ways of using space. The Rantarousti school received MuniFin’s green loan for the investment.
 

More information (in Finnish):
Opettaja magazine 2018., click this link.
Torvinen, H., 2016. Case description: Rantarousti school procurement. To read, click this link.
Introduction of the Rantarousti school, 2017, click this link.
Watch a video animation of the Rantarousti school: 
 
 

Since 2010 Green Roofs in Copenhagen have become integrated in different guidelines such as the guidelines for Sustainability in constructions and Civil works, which mandates green roofs for all the Municipalities buildings. Green roofs are also a part of the city’s Strategy for Biodiversity. Today the City of Copenhagen has more than 40 green roofs, estimated to be a total of 200,000 square metres throughout the city. Among the rest, green roofs can absorb between 50 and 80% of the annual rainfall, and also contribute to reducing the temperature in buildings during the summer.

Including green production roofs as one of the measures of sustainable building rules

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Starter Kit collection

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

Impacts on the financial condition of a company, as well as the the economicconditions of its stakeholders and on economic systems at local, national, andglobal levels.

Economic Impact

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

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

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

Data and insights

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

Infrastructure

Develop infrastructure to support sustainable lifestyles

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

Mobilise

Govern the Transition

Institutional design to enable circularity

Participatory governance mechanisms

Innovation-oriented public procurement

 Public Procurement

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

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Rethink

Includes measures that protect and enhance ecosystems and biodiversity both within and beyond city boundaries, as well as actions to restore degraded ecosystems.


Protect and restore local ecosystems

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

The mobility choices and behaviours of residents and businesses can vary greatly depending on the structure and design of the city. A sprawling city covering large areas with wide highways and no bike lanes discourages cycling and increases dependence on private vehicles, which contribute significantly to resource demand and GHG emissions. Meanwhile, a more compact city with mixed use developments, accessible public transport and extensive and appealing pedestrian and cycle networks enables and encourages walking, cycling and other non-motorised, low-carbon forms of mobility. Combined with urban planning that incentivises higher densities along major public transport routes, transit-oriented development can help to slow the outward expansion of cities into the surrounding countryside. 

Compact city planning can help local communities build and create more efficient, safe and viable cities. This concept includes ideas such as the 15-minute city or ‘complete neighbourhoods’, whereby all of the basic needs and services of a resident can be accessed within 15 minutes by walking, cycling or public transport. This concept has also attracted attention as a way to reduce inequality by ensuring that all neighbourhoods have access to affordable mobility options.

Local governments can support the development of compact and low-carbon cities by integrating such concepts into the city’s urban plans, and ensuring that all residents are easily able to conduct their day-to-day lives using non-motorised or public transport. Cities can also ensure that necessary and facilitating infrastructure is provided, such as cycle lanes, pedestrianised areas and public transport options, to enable the shift away from dependency on personal vehicles.


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🚌  Compact city planning and development

To improve road use during different times of the day and levels of traffic, cities can make use of intelligent LED lights or other innovation, to better adapt to the road situation in real-time.