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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 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

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

Societal Services

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


Construction and Infrastructure

Replacing freshwater use with rainwater, fogwater, seawater, etc.

Alternative water use

Using renewable energy like solar, wind, etc. or renewable fuels like biomass, etc.

Renewable energy, fuels

Activities to clean, decorate, and restore products back to working condition for original or new purposes

Refurbishment, remanufacturing, renovation

Designing products so they use as little materials, water, energy, etc. as possible during use

Design for resource efficiency

Other

Integrate principles of circularity into primary, secondary and tertiary curriculum and conduct workplace trainings

 Education and Curriculum

Extra-curricular education

Living labs

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


Strengthen and advance knowledge

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

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 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

The demand for transport is rising globally—but current modes are heavily material- and fossil-fuels-intensive. Emissions from the transport system could grow by 60% by 2050, and transport is the number-one user of oil worldwide. GHG emissions result not only in warming global temperatures, but also in ocean acidification, which has severe consequences for entire ecosystems and further destabilises our climate. The transport system also drives land-use change and biodiversity loss through the development of infrastructure—also releasing harmful pollutants into the ocean. Key circular solutions:

- Embrace and enable car-free lifestyles
- Invest in high-quality public transport
- Rethink unnecessary air travel
- Electrify remaining vehicles

🚌 Mobility Systems

Governments

Buildings house all production activities, and also are where people spend the majority of their time. Consequently ‘buildings’ consume  resources, namely energy and water, and produce large amounts of waste. 

The use phase of buildings represents the largest resource flows during their lifecycle. Optimised operations for different types of buildings—such as offices, industrial and commercial facilities or houses—can reduce energy, water and waste consumption, as well as operating costs, and enhance the wellbeing of users. 

Local governments can support Information and communication technology (ICT) innovation for the circular management of building operations for instance, by adopting new technologies, digital services and systems that can help with the monitoring and evaluation of (water and energy) efficiency. At the local level, policy can also set new building standards that can scale up net-zero waste, energy and water buildings. Then, the uptake of  ‘green contracts’—agreements that require the contractor to develop and implement a site management plan and favour certain types of resources—can also stimulate circular operations by legally ingraining circularity in the relationship between building owners, operators and users.


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🏢⚡  Optimised facility management

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

     www.barcelona.cat              Català             

Barcelona

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Municipality of Barcelona

Fàbrica del Sol is an environmental education facility promoted by the Ecology, Urban Planning and Mobility Area of Barcelona City Council. The facility was rehabilitated using environmental measures such as "the use of rainwater, an indoor vertical garden, a geothermal heat pump, a pergola and a partition wall with photovoltaic panels, as well as natural ventilation. The facility acts as a demonstration building and offers a number of additional awareness-raising services and resources, including consultation services on urban ecology, a material loan service and a number of other activities for visitors. [1]

Fabrica del Sol: Environmental education facility in Barcelona, Spain

Impact on the health and happiness of human populations

Well-being

Reduced green house gas emissions released into the biosphere

Reduce Emissions (SDG13)

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

Water and Sewage

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

Replace freshwater with less impactful alternatives and enact water efficiency measures

Regenerative water

Engage with the local community where facilities or offices are located

Community collaboration

Enacting measures that optimise water use

Water efficiency

Participating in government programmes that support and advance the circular economy

Government programmes

Efficiency and effectiveness of water supply services must be secured by minimising the leaks, through a combination of leak detection techniques, pipes maintenance and reparation and water audits. Leak minimisation can be enhanced through the use of sensor technologies.

Minimise leaks

Measures to drain accumulating rainwater from rooftops, roads or other public surfaces and channel it into containers for multipurpose use. These include watering plants and crops, as an input into manufacturing processes, the establishment of public water features, or the introduction back into plumbing systems, Uses may include the application of filtration and treatment systems when needed. 

Manage rainwater

Develop infrastructure to support sustainable lifestyles

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.

Prioritise renewable resources 

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

Increase efficiency and promote local economic growth by shortening supply chains and connecting local producers to consumers.


Support local low-impact circular economies

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

Businesses

Communities

     www.barcelona.cat              English             

 BAGURSA, Barcelona’s municipal urban management company, has awarded RUBAU the development contract under the special infrastructures plan for the La Marina district of the Zona Franca, in Barcelona.
The works, with a budget of over 4 million euros, include the development of Calle Ascó (between Calle Arnés and Calle Motors), Calle Ciscó (between Calle de l’Acer and Calle Ascó), Calle Motors (between Calle de la Metal.lurgia and Calle Ascó) and works outside the development area at the corner of Calle Motors and Paseo de la Zona Franca. The aim is to link developed areas in Calle Motors and Calle Ulldecona and provide service links to the district’s future Parque Central.
The current developed area will be extended with new services: street lighting, sewers, water, sprinklers, gas and telecommunications. Noteworthy is a sustainable drainage system in which rainwater from pavements and roofs is conveyed to flower beds where it is stored and filtered into the ground. The project also includes civil works for a central hot and cold water system, which will provide the district with the latest smart city technology.
The works awarded to RUBAU are part of an urban renewal project that is being carried out in La Marina del Prat Vermell, one of the districts with the greatest potential in Barcelona. 

 CLIENT: BAGURSA
Barcelona (Spain)
The new Marina del Prat Vermell district, promoted by the modification to the Barcelona City Council general metropolitan plan, defines la transformation of the industrial land in the Marina del Prat Vermell in a progressive process over time that allows the temporary co-existence of new residential uses and economic activity, the current activities with the buildings that the project will conserve in later development.
The landscaping proposals are linked to the principle of sustainability to create a habitable district with a policy of use, energy management and respect for the environment.
The landscaping includes the implementation of dense systems of utilities – water, gas, electricity, lighting, telecommunications, irrigation, sewerage, sustainable drainage and pneumatic organic rubbish collection and reserves space for the installation of the heating and cooling system.
A sustainable drainage system (SUDS) is planned to collect rain water from the paved surfaces and roofs to an infiltration point under the green spaces instead of discharging it directly to the single sewerage system.
The Special Infrastructures Plan includes the implementation of streets, public transport, landscaping of streets and green areas as well as the deployment of all the utilities for the new district in which the construction of almost 11,000 new homes is planned. 

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La Marina del Prat Vermell is a new neighbourhood under development in Barcelona, Spain that is structured to include sustainable practices. The central feature of the neighbourhood will be a large greenspace of 20,000 square metres, which will include five interconnected spaces with multiple functions; the park will act to both purify the air and be a haven for residents to meet, play and rest. The project has a budget of over four million euros and will see the creation of more than ten thousand new homes.&nbsp;

Marina del Prat Vermell project in Barcelona, Spain

Impact on the availability of resources as well as their effect on living organisms, ecosystems, and components of the environment.

Ecological Impact

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)

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

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

Prioritise regenerative resources

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

Use waste as a resource

Work together throughout the supply chain, internally within organisations and with the public sector and communities to increase transparency and create joint value

Team up to create joint value

Replace energy sources with less impactful alternatives and enact energy efficiency measures

Regenerative energy

Reuse, repurpose, and recycle waste streams within other industries

Valorise waste streams - open loop

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

Industry collaboration

Collection programmes that process products and parts for reuse or recycling within the same industry

Closed loop collection

Collection programmes that process products and parts for reuse or recycling within other industries

Open loop collection

Putting in place purchasing guidelines for procurement departments and evaluating suppliers on circular economy principles

Circular procurement

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

Manage

Infrastructure

 Public Procurement

Develop circular criteria for public procurement of assets

Develop infrastructure to support resource cycling

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




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Regenerate

Eliminate waste by maximizing the recovery of resources at the end of the use phase so that they can be reintroduced into production processes


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Recover

Ensure that household and business waste is collected and appropriately sorted (by type, label, etc.) to allow for maximum recovery of value.


Collect and sort waste to facilitate recovery

The circular potential of organic wastes is dependent on the quality and low contamination rate of the residual stream that is collected. Food and organic wastes are difficult to sort and separate post-collection, and as such, collecting organic wastes through a mixed collection are often limited to incineration or landfill. Therefore, collecting organic wastes through a separate collection system is key to unlock potential high-value management practices, for example, composting and anaerobic digestion.

Due to the strong influence over the operation of local waste management systems, local governments have a key role in the provision of separate organic waste collection systems throughout the city. Collections systems can vary to suit the specific characteristics of particular neighbourhoods and areas of a city. For example, areas with detached homes have more space for bins, while for apartments with less space, a communal receptacle may be more appropriate. Communication campaigns can help to raise awareness and encourage participation of residents to separate their organic wastes. 


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🍏  Separate organic waste collection infrastructure

In 2009, Barcelona City Council implemented its new contract for street cleaning and rubbish collection. The tender procedure introduced a number of requirements to enhance the quality and sustainability of the service. It includes more frequent rubbish collection, environmentally-friendly vehicles, separate collection of organic waste and recycling containers.

Improvements to waste management

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

In 2015, Barcelona launched this Commitment which led to 9 related projects: (1) plug-ins looking for energy saving and efficiency; (2) passive reform and active awareness against energy waste; (3) pilot project of mosaic roofs with facilities that combine renewable energy with agricultural and green spaces, rainwater collection; (4) promotion of sustainable mobility with a modal shift of labor transport by lending a fleet of bicycles for workers; (5) green dot 2.0 - action to extend the useful life of materials and products through web and meeting point of initiatives and services that promote urban reuse, repair and mining; (6) action towards zero waste and the circular economy through the improvement of waste separation with door-to-door collection and a system of packaging deposit and return; and (7) communication plan about individual responsibilities on climate change, etc.