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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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Starter Kit collection

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

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

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

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

Latin America Collection

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Business case

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

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

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

Societal Services

Providing public and private education and support services at any level or for any profession, and governmental and public administration services, including judicial, regulatory, and legislative activities, taxation, defence, public order and safety, immigration services, foreign affairs and the administration of government programmes

Education and Government Services

Collecting waste from households and businesses by means of refuse bins, wheeled bins, containers, etc., and providing treatment, incineration, materials recovery and reclamation, and disposal of hazardous and non-hazardous waste

Waste Management

Producing electronics products for businesses and consumers, including cellular phones, personal computers, printers, servers, electronic computer components and peripherals, TVs, audio equipment, as well as household appliances, such as refrigerators, washing machines, etc.

Electronics and Appliances

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

Stretch the lifetime

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

Give products and parts another life after their end-of-use

Maximise lifetime of products after use

Engage with the government on circular policies and programmes

Government collaboration

Engage with the local community where facilities or offices are located

Community collaboration

Initiatives with disadvantaged communities, minorities, people distanced from the labour market

Give-back programmes

Make collected and sorted recyclables available for use by citizens, small businesses up to large scale industrial processes. 

Use recyclables

Solutions at all stages of the Electronics Value Chain

Zero Waste Electronics

Other

'Inform' increases the overall levels of awareness and builds the necessary skills and knowledge around the circular economy to foster long-term change.

Inform

Encourage workplace training

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

Manage

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

Incentivise

 Direct Financial Support

Incubator and investment programmes

Asset Management

Maintenance to extend useful life

Grow countries globally account for 55% of all raw material extraction and 52% of the material footprint, while housing around 37% of the global population.

These are larger Southeast Asian countries and countries in Latin America and Northern Africa, as well as those with an economy in transition in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia.

Examples include :
- China
- Indonesia
- Brazil
- Mexico
- Vietnam
- Myanmar
- Egypt, ...

Large contribution to the overshoot of planetary boundaries—largely due to the consumptions of local materials in higher-
income (Shift) countries: these countries contribute 50% of climate change, 62% of nitrogen, 60% of phosphorus, 53% of freshwater use and 42% of land use change.

To find out what country profile your country belongs to, explore [this interactive story](https://circularity-gap.world) and search for your country on the final map.

Grow

Use longer and more often by extending and intensifying use of existing resources, products, spaces and infrastructure

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Reuse

Maintain and repair city-owned spaces and infrastructure to increase longevity, and support opportunities for residents to do the same for privately owned items and property

Support reuse, repair, remanufacturing, maintenance of existing resources, products, spaces & infrastructure

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

Governments

**Reduce inequality within and among countries**

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Before the pandemic, the incomes of the bottom 40% of the population grew faster than the national average in a majority of countries. The impacts of the pandemic and uneven recoveries in different regions of the world threaten to reverse that trend and further worsen global inequality. 
Record numbers are being forced to flee conflicts and economic hardship. By mid-2022, one in 251 people worldwide was a refugee, the highest proportion ever documented. 

This goal's target includes: 
- progressively achieve and sustain income growth of the bottom 40 percent of the population at a rate higher than the national average;
- empower and promote the social, economic and political inclusion of all, irrespective of age, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion or economic or other status; 
- ensure equal opportunity and reduce inequalities of outcome, including by eliminating discriminatory laws, policies and practices and promoting appropriate legislation, policies and action in this regard;
- adopt policies, especially fiscal, wage and social protection policies, and progressively achieve greater equality;
- improve the regulation and monitoring of global financial markets and institutions and strengthen the implementation of such regulations;
- ensure enhanced representation and voice for developing countries in decision-making in global international economic and financial institutions in order to deliver more effective, credible, accountable and legitimate institutions;
- facilitate orderly, safe, regular and responsible migration and mobility of people, including through the implementation of planned and well-managed migration policies;
- implement the principle of special and differential treatment for developing countries, in particular least developed countries, in accordance with World Trade Organization agreements;
- encourage official development assistance and financial flows, including foreign direct investment, to States where the need is greatest, in particular least developed countries, African countries, small island developing States, and landlocked developing countries, in accordance with their national plans and programmes;
- reduce to less than 3 percent the transaction costs of migrant remittances and eliminate remittance corridors with costs higher than 5 percent.

Achieving SDG 10 requires concerted efforts to address the root causes of wage disparities and access to resources both within- and between-country inequality. 

Source : [https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal10](https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal10)

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10. Reduced inequalities

Reduce inequality within and among countries

**Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns**

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The world is seriously off track in its effort to halve per-capita food waste and losses by 2030.The COVID-19 pandemic has had significant impacts on consumption and production patterns, with disruptions to global supply chains and changes in consumer behaviour. 

Responsible consumption and production must be an integral part of the recovery from the pandemic. 
But the global economy also needs to speed up the decoupling of economic growth from resource use by maximizing the socio-economic benefits of resources while minimizing their negative impacts. 

Reporting on corporate sustainability has tripled since the beginning of the SDG period, but the private sector will need to significantly improve reporting on activities that contribute to the SDGs. 

This primarily entails environmentally sound management of "toxic chemicals" A substantial use of chemicals is essential to meet the social and economic goals of the world community, and these can be used with a high degree of safety when best practices are followed.  Gross chemical contamination, with grave damage to human health, genetic structures reproductive outcomes, and the environment, has been continuing within some of the world's most important industrial areas, and restoration will require major investment as well as the development of new techniques.
Effective control of the generation, storage, treatment, recycling and reuse, transport, recovery and disposal of hazardous wastes is another similar challenge. 
In addition,  solid wastes include all domestic refuse and non-hazardous wastes such as commercial and institutional wastes, street sweepings construction debris, and, in some countries, human wastes. As hazardous waste is frequently intermixed with other waste, this poses particular management challenges.
Finally, this target ensures that radioactive waste is safely managed, transported, stored and disposed of, with a view to protecting human health and the environment. 

To deliver SDG12, it is crucial to implement policies that support the shift to sustainable practices and decouple economic growth from resource use.

Sources: [https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal12](https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal12)
[https://sdgs.un.org/topics/chemicals-and-waste](https://sdgs.un.org/topics/chemicals-and-waste)

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12. Responsible consumption and production

Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns

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

Based on extensive interviews and desk research, this Report aims to show governments and industry leaders that if they want to turn theory into action and scale an economy that delivers on needs within the safe limits of the planet, they need to dismantle harmful entrenched processes and align enabling elements - policy, finance, and people

- Build circular expertise and skills: Ensure people are skilled and trained to ensure a just transition where opportunities and decent livelihoods are fairly distributed across and within societies.


People

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

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

Thematic Areas

City Stakeholders

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**These 17 Goals recognize that ending poverty and other deprivations must go hand-in-hand with strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth – all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests.**

The SDGs build on decades of work by countries and the UN, and especially on the Millennium Declaration adopted in September 2000 at UN Headquarters in New York which let to the elaboration of eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to reduce extreme poverty by 2015.

In 2015, the Paris Agreement was signed. A major blueprint came out of this: The Sustainable Development Goals: 17 overarching goals—and 169 targets—that governments are aiming to meet by 2030. Significant progress has been made in terms of poverty, health and inequality, but there's still a way to go. This is where the circular economy comes in: by circulating resources multiple times, the circular economy tackles issues of scarcity and allows all to access what they need—without overburdening the earth. If it's implemented in a holistic way—affording attention to social considerations and the fair distribution of resources— it also offers a pathway for achieving the SDGs; and the link between the two is ever-growing. To read more about the link between the SDGs and the circular economy, click [here](https://www.circle-economy.com/blogs/how-the-circular-economy-can-help-us-reach-the-sustainable-development-goals).

It is the Division for Sustainable Development Goals (DSDG) in the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) which provides substantive support and capacity-building for the SDGs and their related thematic issues. TheDSDG plays a key role in the evaluation of UN systemwide implementation of the 2030 Agenda and in advocacy and outreach activities relating to the SDGs. In order to make the 2030 Agenda a reality, broad ownership of the SDGs must translate into a strong commitment by all stakeholders to implement the global goals. DSDG aims to help facilitate this engagement.
Alongside this, the annual High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development serves as the central UN platform for the follow-up and review of the SDGs.
In addition, the UN Secretary-General presents an annual SDG Progress report, which is developed in cooperation with the UN System, and based on the global indicator framework and data produced by national statistical systems and information collected at the regional level.

To read more information: [https://sdgs.un.org/goals](https://sdgs.un.org/goals)

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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AT A GLANCE 
THE INITIATIVE 
The Computer Reconditioning Centre (CRC) 
is an integral element of the city of Belo 
Horizonte™s digital inclusion, skills development 
and waste reduction e˜orts. In this electronics 
remanufacturing facility, citizens from low income 
communities receive extensive training to restore 
donated post-use IT equipment into full working 
condition. This refurbished equipment goes on to 
support over 300 ‚digital inclusion sites™ operated 
by the city, where Belo Horizonte locals have free 
access to computers and internet as well as varied 
training opportunities in basic digital literacy. The 
CRC is run by Prodabel, the city™s information and 
technology provider, as part of the ‚
Computadores 
para Inclusão
™ (Computers for Inclusion) Federal 
Government initiative that establishes local 
partnerships to set up similar centres around the 
country.
TIME FRAME 
The Belo Horizonte CRC was launched in 2008 as 
an enabling component of the city™s pre-existing 
BH Digital programme. It became one of the ˚rst 
local chapters of the Federal Computadores para 
Inclusão initiative.
Ten years on and the Belo Horizonte CRC 
continues to be an exemplar component of the 
Computadores para Inclusão network and the 
backbone to Belo Horizonte™s skills development, 
waste diversion and digital inclusion e˜orts, the 
latter having earned Belo Horizonte the title of 
Brazil™s most digitally advanced city in 2011.
 LEAD POLICY LEVERS
ROADMAPS AND 
STRATEGIES
CONVENING AND 
PARTNERING
AWARENESS 
RAISING
CAPACITY BUILDING
FINANCIAL 
 SUPPORT 
FOCUS AREAS
The initiative focuses on the electronics sector as a 
priority area for achieving its social inclusion, skill 
development and waste diversion ambitions.
FINANCEThe CRC operation is largely funded by the 
Brazilian Federal Government, under the 
Computadores para Inclusão programme. Every 
two years, the Ministry of Science, Technology, 
Innovation and Communications (MCTIC), issues 
a public call for new programme applicants or 
funding requests. Since its establishment, the 
Belo Horizonte CRC has signed multiple funding 
agreements with MCTIC to guarantee the 
initiative™s continuity. Federal grant funding has 
totalled approximately BRL 2.4 million. 
The City of Belo Horizonte has also invested 
resources in the operation, including the provision 
of an 897m
2 building o˜ered by the Municipal 
Secretariat of Education to house the facility. 
BELO 
HORIZONTE
COMPUTER 
RECONDITIONING 
CENTRECombining resource 
recovery, skills training, and 
digital inclusionGOVERNANCE
 Prodabel - Empresa de
 informática e informação 
 do município de Belo Horizonte S.A
POPULATION
 2.5 millionGDP 88 billion BRLDENSITY 7,167 per KM
2For more see
 Policy Levers
CORE TEAM AND PARTICIPANTS 
A core team of eight people from the Digital 
Inclusion department are responsible for 
overseeing the programme. These include a 
director, a superintendent, a learning manager 
and a representative in charge of overseeing 
remanufacturing activities and the digital inclusion 
sites, in addition to four Prodabel o˛cers.
The team is aided by public bodies and NGOs that 
donate physical spaces and resources to set up 
and operate digital inclusion sites, as well as CRC 
monitors and other contributors to its capacity 
building o˜ering.
The computer remanufacturing training 
programme, held at the CRC, is mostly directed 
at young (16-24) Belo Horizonte locals from low 
income communities that are looking to acquire 
new skills for ˚rst employment. At the same 
time, the digital inclusion sites based in public 
and private buildings particularly in low-income 
areas, are open to citizens of all ages in search of 
digital literacy, with aims to democratise access to 
information and facilitate tasks such as submitting 
online job applications and paying bills.
OUTCOMES TO DATE 
In the ˚rst years of the Belo Horizonte CRC since 
its 2008 launch: Ł7,000 post-use IT products (CPUs, monitors, 
printers) were restored in the ˚rst nine 
years of the initiative and o˜ered to digital 
inclusion sites and similar initiatives
 Ł15,000kg of post-use electronics have been 
diverted from land˚ll every year on average, 
since 2008, thanks to this initiative. This 
adds up to 165,000kg by 2018.
 Ł10,446 citizens have been trained in 
basic technological skills, environmental 
education, and computer remanufacturing 
to date
 ŁBelo Horizonte was recognised as Brazil™s 
most digitally advanced city in a 2011 ranking
 ŁThe initiative became a city priority 
with annual targets for 2018-2021 on 
remanufacturing, skills training and digital 
inclusion (see measuring progress)
 THE JOURNEYORIGINS 
In response to citizens™ demands for greater digital 
inclusion in the Belo Horizonte area, particularly 
in low income communities, the city government 
launched its BH Digital programme in 2005 to 
expand infrastructure in under-served areas of the 
city and provide digital literacy to all. The Digital 
Inclusion Department was created within Prodabel, 
the public-private city information and technology 
provider, to execute this strategy which included 
setting up digital inclusion sites around the city. 
Given the electronic and electrical equipment 
(EEE) waste landscape in Belo Horizonte, and 
a growing demand for post-use electronics 
treatment solutions, it was agreed that these sites 
should be equipped exclusively with refurbished 
computers. 
Once the need for a computer remanufacturing 
facility was con˚rmed, the project team applied 
for funding from the MCTIC™s Computadores 
para Inclusão programme, whose strategic aims 
are threefold: to foster digital inclusion in low 
income areas of large Brazilian cities; to build 
capacity among low income young Brazilians so 
that they have increased opportunities to enter 
the job market; and scaling up activities that keep 
electronics circulating in the economy in high-value 
uses and out of land˚ll. A proposal for the Belo 
Horizonte CRC was submitted by the Digital 
Inclusion team at Prodabel and approved by the 
MCTIC. The facility was set up in a space provided 
by the Municipal Secretariat for Education and 
operations commenced in April 2008.
THE 
PROCESS 
IT equipment donations by public and private 
institutions are intermediated by the MCTIC. 
Institutions who would like to make a donation 
must submit a detailed list of the equipment and 
its state to the Ministry of Planning. The Digital 
Inclusion Department at the MCTIC then indicates 
whether there is an interest from one of the 
CRCs and directs the IT equipment donations 
accordingly. Private individuals can donate IT 
equipment directly to a local CRC. Belo Horizonte 
locals must contact Prodabel via telephone or 
email to organise a collection visit. On the agreed 
date, Prodabel employees assess the products in 
situ and select the items that can be used in the 
CRC (such as computers, printers and keyboards) 
which are then transported back to the facility. In 
the past, private IT equipment donations had to 
be deposited at Prodabel™s o˛ces, but since 2018 
the company has been operating a door-to-door 
collection system using rental vans. An increase 
in donations is expected in this new model, 
which makes the overall donation process more 
convenient.
Once donated IT equipment reaches the CRC, it is 
assessed and grouped into two categories based 
on whether they are suitable for remanufacturing. 
Those submitted to the remanufacturing process 
are either restored to working condition or used for 
spare parts. Approximately one-third of the total 
volume of donations leaves the CRC as restored 
IT equipment. The entire process is conducted by 
technicians in training and overseen by instructors.
Restored equipment is grouped into ‚donation kits™ 
and o˜ered to either Prodabel-run digital inclusion 
sites or other registered institutions (such as public 
schools and libraries). Parts and materials that 
cannot be used in the remanufacturing processes 
are auctioned o˜ by the city of Belo Horizonte to 
registered companies which then direct them to 
recycling. The city feeds the revenues generated 
back into the CRC training programme.
MILESTONES
The Belo Horizonte CRC began its operations in 
April 2008. Later that year, in December, a launch 
event was hosted by the Secretary of Logistics 
and Information Technology (SLTI) at the Ministry 
of Planning. Prodabel™s President and Digital 
Inclusion Director, various municipal authorities, 
and representatives from other CRCs were among 
the event™s attendees.
In 2010, the city of Belo Horizonte signed an 
agreement with MCTIC worth BRL 371,000 in 
government funding to guarantee the continuity 
and enhancement of its digital inclusion initiatives, 
including the CRC. It expired in late 2012, and 
government funding for the CRC has since been 
renewed twice.
In addition to the continued ministerial support 
in programme funding, two important milestones 
have reinforced the initiative™s growing relevance, 
both at city-level and nationwide. In 2005, with the 
establishment of the Digital Inclusion Department 
in Prodabel, the city launched its Government 
Action Plan (PPAG), a four-year strategic plan 
for the city, which for the ˚rst time included 
speci˚c targets relating to the CRC operation, thus 
reinforcing its status as a city priority. This was 
reiterated several times, the most recent being in 
2017 for the 2018-2021 PPAG. Also in 2017, with 
aims to formally scale the initiative across Brazil, 
a proposal to transform the Computadores para 
Inclusão programme from a voluntary programme 
into a national policy for EEE was passed by the 
House of Representatives and 
submitted for 
approval by the Brazilian Senate.
 MEASURING PROGRESS 
The funding agreement with MCTIC is dependent 
upon CRCs meeting a set of basic criteria. These 
are monitored via quarterly reports submitted by 
Prodabel, who must also produce a ˚nal progress 
report at the end of the contract. Targets within 
each contract period include, (MCTIC):
 ŁA minimum of 100 young citizens trained in 
basic IT skills ŁA minimum of 100 young citizens trained in 
computer maintenance
 ŁRevitalising at least ten local digital inclusion 
sites
In addition, the City of Belo Horizonte has included 
the following annual targets for Prodabel in its 
2018-2021 Government Action Plan, (PPAG):
 ŁRemanufacturing at least 1,000 items in the 
CRCs per year until 2021
 ŁMaintaining the 302 existing digital inclusion 
sites until 2021
 ŁProviding 600,000 people with access 
to Telecentres in 2018; 650,000 in 2019; 
700,000 in 2020; and 750,000 in 2021
 ŁProviding IT training to at least 2,000 people 
every year
REFLECTIONS
Leveraging connections to build impactful 
initiatives.
 Cities™ powerful networks and 
unparalleled reach suggest that they are best 
placed to lead initiatives of this sort. With access 
to various city secretariats, technology businesses, 
entrepreneurship authorities and many more, 
city authorities can articulate robust action plans 
with relevant stakeholders while ensuring that 
all e˜orts are extended to communities in need. 
The successful Belo Horizonte CRC operation 
has prompted the MCTIC to revise programme 
guidelines allowing city governments to apply for 
the grant directly. The network of registered CRCs 
now includes another two city-led operations, 
located in João Pessoa and Curitiba.
Shaping mindsets is critical for creating lasting 
transformations.
 Prodabel and the City of Belo 
Horizonte as a whole acknowledge the need to 
incorporate circularity into professional training 
activities. This is an opportunity to educate young 
citizens and future professionals that are inclined 
to make the most of technology, products and 
materials to generate value in a circular economy 
rather than exacerbating today™s wasteful linear 
model.Adopting a multi-faceted approach to 
innovation.
 Belo Horizonte is already regarded as 
a national reference in terms of digital capabilities. 
The city has now raised its level of ambition, aiming 
to become a widely recognised smart city. A multi-
faceted approach that integrates innovation, social 
inclusion, and environmental considerations will be 
needed in order to achieve this.
Scaling the initiative will require a new 
level of commitment.
 Currently the CRCs are 
established and run on a voluntary basis and only 
three out of nine existing facilities are city-led. 
Outcomes to date have proven the relevance of 
the Computadores para Inclusão programme and 
transforming this into a national policy would be 
an important step towards scaling electronics 
remanufacturing and digital literacy in Brazil, Latin 
America™s top EEE waste generator. 
FOR MORE INFORMATION 
Website: 
www.prefeitura.pbh.gov.br
 Contact: 
crc.bhdigital@pbh.gov.br
 This case study is part of 
Circular economy in cities
, Ellen MacArthur Foundation


Belo Horizonte

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Municipality of Belo Horizonte

<p>Belo Horizonte’s Computer Reconditioning Centre (CRC) is a government-established electronics remanufacturing facility that reduces electronic waste and tackles youth unemployment.</p>

Computer reconditioning centre: combining resource recovery, skills training, and digital inclusion in Belo Horizonte

Belo Horizonte’s municipal Action Plan for Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction
(APGHGER) has established a Greenhouse Gas emissions reduction target of 20
percent by 2030. One of the most successful aspects of the APGHGER has been a
city-wide Certification Program in Environmental Sustainability, which
encourages companies to implement environmentally conscious technologies and
practices.

