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Circle Economy and ICLEI have partnered up to initiate the go to knowledge hub of case studies about the circular economy in cities. The Cities Collection is a repository of case studies that demonstrate the role of cities in the circular transition, and includes policies, business cases and research articles. Cases in the Collection flow into an ecosystem of digital products which support users in transitioning cities to circularity, for example [Ganbatte](https://ganbatte.world/cities/) and <a href="https://circulars.iclei.org/" target="_blank">ICLEI Circulars</a>, both part of the <a href="https://circulars.iclei.org/circle-lab-for-cities/" target = _blank">Circle Lab for Cities Programme.</a>

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Circular Cities

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Policy case

Reduced green house gas emissions released into the biosphere

Reduce Emissions (SDG13)

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

Extracting resources and processing them to produce materials for use bysociety

Materials and Fuels

Societal Services

Utilise bio-based, reusable, non-toxic and non-critical materials

Regenerative materials

Enacting measures that optimise water use

Water efficiency

Enacting measures that optimise energy use

Energy efficiency

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

Other

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

Manage

Infrastructure

Develop regenerative infrastructure

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




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Regenerate

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

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

Communities

Governments

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).

Impacts

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Industries

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A framework of policy instruments that enabled and encourage the transition to the circular economy

Policy Instruments

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A framework of policy instruments that enable and stimulate the transition to the circular economy

The principles of a circular economy concern designing out waste, regenerating ecosystems and keeping items in use. Decoupling the economy from material flows—improving the rate of resource productivity faster than the economic growth rate—is also a consistent guide. By evolving with the growing number of applications of circular economy principles, and consolidating these strategies across thematic areas, Circle Economy’s Key Elements Framework (KE) renders the elements of the circular economy salient and serves as a basis to derive contextual strategies and interventions. 


The Framework consists of:
- Core Elements: Activities directly handling product or material flows; and uniquely,
- Enabling Elements: those that remove obstacles for core actors.


Key elements of the circular economy

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Circle Economy's framework of strategies and activities that define the circular economy

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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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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 Being a partner in the European URBACT programme ‘Resilient Europe’, the Antwerp municipality uses the concept of ‘urban resilience’ as a new frame to integrate social and spatial issues into the climate adaptation policy development process. As a connecting and integrating lens, urban resilience is used to experiment with co-creative methods to improve quality of life in the city.
The Antwerp municipality engaged its innovative platform for urban living: StadsLab2050. This platform invites experts, civil society organisations, citizens and the local government to co-produce experimental urban interventions and processes.
Taking a more place-oriented approach, they chose to focus on the Sint-Andries area. Sint-­Andries was selected due to the fact that the neighbourhood already had affinity with the theme of climate adaptation. Two large infrastructure projects (redevelopment of the Gedempte Zuiderdokken and the Scheldt Quays) that include measures for climate adaptation are currently in the pipeline and the people of Sint­-Andries are being consulted throughout the participation process. Additionally, several small future redevelopments of local streets and squares in Sint-­Andries are being drafted.
Why
Sint-Andries is a neighbourhood located in the old city centre and connected to the Scheldt river. Despite its slightly higher topographical position compared to its surroundings, it still faces water management related challenges due to the large proportions of paved areas and a lack of green infrastructure. The municipality’s options to tackle these challenges are limited. Sharing the responsibility for a climate-robust neighbourhood is therefore indispensable.
The main stresses and shocks due to climate change in Antwerp in general, and Sint-Andries in particular, are:

Extreme temperatures
Pluvial and fluvial flooding
Sea level rise and storms
Drinking water scarcity and drought
Changing biodiversity
Financial impacts
Health issues
Limited infrastructure capacity

With whom

Citizens
Government
Experts

How
At the start of this project, the focus was on getting commitment from different municipal departments, hiring an expert to help with the process, and mapping and contacting relevant stakeholders of Sint-Andries, who together would form the URBACT Local Group (ULG).
Shortly after, the project leaders organized an expert consultation meeting. The goal was to let experts in various scientific fields (people, ecosystems, infrastructure, institutions) identify the most important challenges for climate adaptation of Sint-Andries. This would at a later stage give input to the local action group.
The first URBACT Local Group kick-off meeting followed the expert consultation, with an aim to better understand and identify challenges of climate adaptation in St-Andries. They first mapped the area from a climate adaptation perspective, formulated challenges in small groups, after which they shared them in larger groups. Substantiated by facts and figures from the expert consultation, they prioritised challenges by using the ‘Can Do’ – method;
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CAN-DO METHOD
Processing the input of the challenges and possible interventions into a mind-mapresulted in 5 objectives, 20 challenges and 50 ideas for interventions. 20 potential experiments were born. Together with the external process expert, they started contacting potential ’experiment ambassadors’.
With the identification in hindsight, the ULG organised workshops on concrete interventions.The goal was not to merely validate the challenges and objectives, but also to mobilise the group to take up actions and form experiment teams. They did so by presenting the mind-map as a synthesised outcome in order to validate it with the local action group, and by summing up the action experiments, showing great potential.

They further specified and defined experiments in group by using a project template, received mini-coaching (what is needed to make this project a success) and presented means of support in the next phase.
ULG workshop
Upon this first action workshop, the Antwerp municipality project leaders started collecting “calls” from the experiment teams and communicated these through the StadsLab2050 channels (e.g. call for flat roofs).
The process expert was based in Antwerp and had a considerable network in the area, which proved beneficial. After the ULG workshops, they started seeing possible synergies with local organisations and tried to get them on board as well. New interesting actors kept on joining the ULG throughout the process. They did and are still doing the same networking within our municipality and expert networks to link the proper organisations and people. Within the municipality, the municipal project leaders linked a relevant colleague to each experiment of the ULG so that the experiment teams have direct access to the city administration and expertise.
Project groups also started to meet outside the “official” workshops. To help these teams, we organised a coaching session, where project ambassadors could get support from the external process expert and municipal project leaders.
To give these ideas some traction, the StadsLab2050 communication office started taking interviews with the experiment ambassadors.
StadsLab2050 communication
In order to gain valuable insight, the municipal project team organized an inspirational site visit to Rotterdam. They invited members of the ULG and local politicians to join them in Rotterdam and learn from their experiences and draw lessons for their own experiments. The Rotterdam administration hosted the entire day, providing insight into urban resilience, rooftop policies, water management, etc.
Even though all ideas were being supported, two of them received coaching over the entire course of the projects: ‘Groene Ader’ (Green Corridor) and ‘Multifunctionele Daken’ (multi-functional rooftops). Guidance was provided for both these projects to support them in influencing city policy, and how to upscale individual achievements.
Becoming experts themselves along the way, ten members of the ULG led European partners of the Resilient Europe programme through the neighbourhood, elaborating on the process, first experiments, dreams and challenges. There was also an exchange between the ULG members and the European partners on the working methods of other cities.

The core community members of the ULG felt the need for continuation and working on an action plan for 2018, resulting in 10 actions that will contribute to the resilience goals of the neighbourhood.
By the end of 2017, the ULG organized a mid-term evaluation  and dissemination event,aimed at providing an overview of the process and achievements so far, of  existing experiments and a gaze towards future actions (10 actions planned for 2018). During the event the group reflected further on the process, on how the cooperation was going and what the added value of the process was. Local politicians also participated. In preparation of this event, an independent evaluator conducted interviews and workshops with several actorsin the process.

Around the same time, the municipal project team also organized an internal mid-term evaluation,taking a moment together to reflect on the process so far and evaluate the collaboration between the different departments involved. During this session they discussed the learning objectives that were formulated at the start of the project. They also discussed ways to facilitate the current dynamics in the neighbourhood, by looking at the role of the government and new governance structures. Furthermore, they discussed the conditions in which these kinds of project could be replicated elsewhere.
The objectives operationalized
At the kick-off meeting, the ULG group formulated their shared challenges for Sint-Andries from a climate adaptation perspective. From these shared challenges the group distilled shared objectives, which resulted in the identification of 5 objectives.
The 5 main objectives are:

Making Sint-Andries a pleasant neighborhood to live in;
Using the roofs of Sint-Andries in a multifunctional way and considering climate adaptation objectives;
Increasing the capacities of infiltration, buffering and recuperation of water in order to improve water robustness;
Increasing people’s resilience in order to cope with climate adaptation stresses;
Stimulating co-creation of various stakeholders in Sint-Andries.

The ULG formulated 9 principles to look at these objectives:

Sustainability and climate robustness being coherent goals.
Learning by doing: learning from actual experiments leading us closer to our dream.
Maximum support: from the start, we are committed to creating the largest possible support in all sections of the neighbourhood.
Social sustainability: we want to include all residents, including the more vulnerable and not just those who are already on board with environmental concepts.
Joining forces: we want to optimize cooperation between citizens, administration, politics, organisations and companies.
Learning process in citizen participation: this process also forms a laboratory for the cooperation between residents’ associations and administration/policy.
From neighborhood to city: to scale up the experiments in Sint-Andries to the other parts of the city.
From experiment to policy:our experiments in the neighbourhood should be integrated into urban policy.
Networking: working together with other cities (from the European network): eg. Rotterdam and learn from each other.

Exemplary experiment: The green corridor (‘De groene ader’)
The idea for this experiment was conceived at the beginning of the process. One of the ULG members was proactive in identifying the synergy between this project and possible funding sources. He submitted a project proposal at the district of Antwerp’s ‘Civil Participation Budget’ tender in the initial phase of our project. The neighbourhood committee already conducted a local research project involving the area’s walkability in the previous year. The idea was to complement their vision of a pedestrian-friendly neighbourhood with the aspect of climate adaptation.
During the various brainstorm sessions, more and more ULG members became interested in the concept of creating a green corridor that runs through the neighbourhood, showcasing and inspiring climate resilience measures. On the long term, the idea is to upgrade this corridor into a green, water infiltrating, cool, climate-robust area that connects different innovative experiments and functions as a living lab.
The experiment ‘green corridor’ proved suitable forencouraging people to work on climate adaptation. One of the advantages is that a number of actions will take place in a rather small and confined area. This makes experiments tangible and allows people to take care of their own creations.
Dream day
The experiment took off with a ‘dream day’, in which various proposals for a later ‘action day’ were formulated and debated. The ULG took care of the communication for the event and even got a local celebrity to promote the dream day on social media.
 
The event was organised in the local community centre and welcomed approximately 60 participants. It was an interactive workshop session in small groups, where participants could pick a theme to work on, for example ‘water infiltration’, ‘green areas for playing’, ….
The workshop leaders provided a lot of working material and tools for the various groups, including inspiring examples and images of the current environment. Each group then created a collage of the way they would like their street to look in the future.

At the end of the day, each group showcased their collage and explained their creation to the other groups. Besides from working on different themes, the groups also worked on different segments of the ‘green corridor’. When putting all the collages together, the idea of the green corridor clearly emerged.

Although people were encouraged to dream, they were asked to identify a number of actions that could be carried out inthe short term as well. These actions should be able to be implemented on the action day that was already scheduled for later that year. To create ownership, the participants were also asked to write their names on the actions that they would like to carry out.
The municipal project team learned that the methodology of a ‘dream day’ proved to be a solid method to work on collective vision building, enabling dialogue and an exchange of thoughts and ideas, often making the participants realise their ideas were shared by their peers. The use of a dream day is part of the experiment itself, since this was an altogether new way of imagining a new situation instead of conducting a more traditional public consultation. Even though not every participant of the dream day actively contributed to the preparations of the action day, it provided the necessary public support from the community.
Do day
In several locations within an area of 200m in the heart of the future “groene ader” – different teams worked on micro-interventions, where they could more or less see each other at work. A tent on the main square showcased the dreams, which were hung up to provide context, and provided a location for the team briefings, coffee and lunch.
What: Some of the experiments had a temporary character:

Inhabitants wanted to try out what their “garden street” (which is to come in the Lange Ridderstraat in the coming years) would possibly look like.
Some of the inhabitants dreamed of a greener square and wanted to test and demonstrate their proposition, namely that it is possible to combine sport, play and more planting and nature here. They used material from other temporary “future street” projects from this summer to rearrange the square in their way.


Other experiments had a permanent character:

The youth organisation Habbekrats removed 30m² of paving stones from the square where their youth play on a daily basis.
Inhabitants replaced 47 paving stones with “living pavement” (pavement combined with planting) along the streets.
City parks workers prepared 12 planting pits in the pavement. The pits’ locations were chosen together with the inhabitants of the street, who afterwards added the plants and will continue to look after those plants.
A team of local professionals, together with local youngsters interested in DIY, made a rainwater harvesting installation with a planter on top, so that the new planting can be watered with rainwater.

At the end of the day, the whole group did a walk to see and discuss the results, and to discuss ideas on the next steps. A local politician came to see the results as well.
Noteworthy was that this ‘Do day’ was organised during “car-free Sunday”. The neighbourhood was completely free of traffic, which made it the perfect moment to work safely on the streets and provide visibility for the interventions, as hundreds of bikers and families were strolling around. Two designated people were welcoming pedestrians and cyclists, explaining what they were doing. People from the neighbourhood spontaneously offered their help, went home to change clothes and joined in.
A photographer and a filmmaker eternalized the day. They were paid by Stadslab2050, but the scenario, interviews and editing were done together with the project members.  The result of the movie: http://www.stadslab2050.be/klimaatadaptatie/groene-ader/video-wat-gebeurt-er-als-bewoners-samen-hun-wijk-vergroenen 

Antwerp Province

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Municipality of Antwerp

The City of Antwerp supports experiments with climate-robust roofs. Together with property owners, companies and experts, the city wants to transform four pilot roofs into innovative, climate-robust roofs with room for biodiversity. A climate- robust roof involves rainwater management, heat control and biodiversity. For these pilot projects the city is looking for combinations of climate-robust measures with other roof functions such as recreation, energy generation or food production. The&nbsp;5 main objectives&nbsp;are:- Making Antwerp's neighborhoods pleasant to live in;- Using the roofs in a multifunctional way and considering climate adaptation objectives;- Increasing the capacities of infiltration, buffering and recuperation of water in order to improve water robustness;- Increasing people’s resilience in order to cope with climate adaptation stresses;- Stimulating co-creation of various stakeholders.

Support to climate-robust roofs

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

Ecological Impact

Impact on increased knowledge and understanding as a result of the case study

Increase Awareness

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

Agri/Food

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

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

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

Industry collaboration

Engage internally to guide employees and facilitate greater knowledge sharing between internal divisions

Internal collaboration

Engaging in discussions with industry stakeholders to share circular economy best practices and push the industry towards greater circularity

Guidance, dialogue with industry stakeholders

Facilitate discussions and meetings between internal team members to identify circular opportunities

Dialogue with internal stakeholders

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

Inform

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

Research and Development

Conduct research

Govern the Transition

Institutional design to enable circularity

 Spatial Planning

Living labs

Site planning for circular material use

 Public Procurement

Asset Management

Circular use of public-owned assets (land, buildings and equipment)

 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

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

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

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

 Wereldwijd winnen metropolitane regio’s aan economisch belang. Sociale, ecologische en ruimtelijke uitdagingen zetten het stedelijk systeem onder druk. Steden en stadsregio’s werken daarom aan oplossingen om de veerkracht en leefbaarheid te vergroten. Er liggen uitdagingen op het kruispunt van werk, economie, ondernemerschap, slim materialen- en bodembeheer, natuur in de stad, ruimtegebruik, mobiliteit en logistiek. De zoektocht naar nieuwe en werkbare concepten en praktijken voor de stad van morgen is volop aan de gang. Een van die nieuwe concepten is ‘de circulaire stad’.
Stromen in en rondom de stad, zoals water, mensen, goederen en energie, vormen steeds vaker de basis van het denken over de toekomst van de stad. We beschouwen de stad of stadsregio als een ecosysteem: een complex, uitgestrekt en interactief metabolisme dat onophoudelijk werkt om in de behoeften van zijn bewoners te voorzien. Het concept van de ‘circulaire stad’ streeft ernaar die ‘stofwisseling’ te verbeteren, duurzamer en veerkrachtiger te maken, kringlopen te sluiten.
In ‘Visie 2050’, de langetermijnstrategie voor Vlaanderen, is ‘de transitie naar een circulaire economie’ een van de zeven transitieprioriteiten of structurele veranderingen met een grote impact op de samenleving. In de circulaire economie gaan we efficiënter om met grondstoffen, materialen, energie, water, ruimte en voedsel door kringlopen slim te sluiten. Natuurlijke hulpbronnen worden zo veel mogelijk hergebruikt. De uitwerking van de transitie naar een circulaire economie gebeurt daarom in nauwe samenhang met de andere transities: slim wonen en leven, de sprong maken naar industrie 4.0, levenslang leren en de dynamische levensloopbaan, werk maken van zorg en welzijn 4.0, werken aan een vlot en veilig mobiliteitssysteem, zorgen voor een energietransitie.
Antwerpen als testcase
Antwerpen is bij uitstek een stad van stromen. Het meest in het oog lopend zijn de goederen, de havenactiviteiten en het water. Maar ook lucht, verkeer, sedimenten en afval bewegen doorheen de stad, langs zichtbare en minder zichtbare ruimtelijke knooppunten, met meer of minder impact op mens en milieu. De stad bundelt mensen, bedrijven en maatschappelijke functies op een relatief kleine oppervlakte. De stad is ook een broeiplaats van lef, innovatie en ondernemerschap. Daarom biedt ze het perfecte laboratorium om de circulaire economie op het terrein te testen.
Het onderzoekstraject ‘Antwerpen, de circulaire stad van morgen’ heeft als doel nieuwe inzichten te genereren op het kruispunt van stedelijkheid, circulaire economie en ruimtelijke opgaven in de Antwerpse context. Enerzijds moet het traject de actualisering van het strategisch ruimtelijk structuurplan Antwerpen (afgekort s-RSA) voeden én het beleid in staat stellen om strategisch en operationeel de juiste accenten te leggen in interactie met iedereen die betrokken wil zijn: bedrijven, burgers en organisaties. Anderzijds kan Antwerpen een testcase zijn om te onderzoeken hoe we op grotere, stadsregionale schaal kringlopen kunnen sluiten en evolueren naar duurzame, circulaire steden. 
Eén onderzoekstraject, twee opdrachten
Het gehele onderzoekstraject omvat twee afzonderlijke onderzoeksopdrachten met vele producten en tussenstappen, zoals het samenbrengen en analyseren van data, de mapping van stromen, de opmaak van selectie- of potentiekaarten, de ontwikkeling van scenario’s en circulaire strategieën, ontwerpend onderzoek en het zoeken naar pilootprojecten. De onderzoekers formuleren ten slotte aanbevelingen voor beleid, op basis van actiepunten, mogelijke pilootprojecten en suggesties naar procesvoering en governance om de regio maximaal te laten inspelen op de kansen voor de circulaire economie en voor het optimaliseren, afstemmen, sluiten, etc van stedelijke stromen.
Een eerste onderzoeksopdracht ‘Metabolisme van Antwerpen, stad van stromen’ gaat in op de vraag hoe onder meer goederen, biomassa, afval, energie, mensen, lucht en data in en rond de stad Antwerpen bewegen. Hoe beïnvloeden deze stromen de levenskwaliteit en welke fysieke, directe en indirecte relaties bestaan er in ruimtelijke zin? Waar liggen de meeste opportuniteiten? Hoe kan dit inzichtelijk en bruikbaar gemaakt worden en richting geven aan beleid en maatschappelijke betrokkenen? Het analyseren, begrijpen en leren gebruiken van het concept ‘metabolisme van de stad’, zijn structuur, het ecosysteem in brede zin en de tekortkomingen en sterke punten ervan, geeft concrete aanknopingspunten voor een veerkrachtiger stad. Deze eerste onderzoeksopdracht moet kennis opleveren en opgaven formuleren voor een tweede opdracht van ontwerpend onderzoek naar potentiële transities.
Een tweede onderzoeksopdracht, die zal kaderen binnen het samenwerkingsverband en het platform voor ontwerpend onderzoek ‘LABO RUIMTE’, bouwt verder op de resultaten van de eerste opdracht en onderzoekt de concrete potenties voor ruimtelijke transities vanuit dit metabolisch denken voor de stadsregio Antwerpen: het sluiten of beter afstemmen en verknopen van kringlopen, het beter en duurzamer functioneren van het metabolisme van de stadsregio. Via ontwerpend onderzoek, in een open dialoog met partners en stakeholders en wars van sectorale en administratieve grenzen, worden mogelijke transities op langere termijn verkend.  

The research project 'Antwerp, the circular city of tomorrow' aims to generate new insights at the crossroads of urbanism, circular economy and spatial tasks in Antwerp. On the one hand, the trajectory must feed the update of the strategic spatial structure plan Antwerp (abbreviated s-RSA) and enable the policy to strategically and operationally set the right accents in interaction with everyone who wants to be involved: companies, citizens and organizations. On the other hand, Antwerp can be a test case to investigate how to close cycles on a larger, urban-regional scale and evolve towards sustainable, circular cities. The first research project 'Metabolism of Antwerp, city of streams' deals with the question of how, among other things, goods, biomass, waste, energy, people, air and data move in and around the city of Antwerp. How do these flows influence the quality of life and what physical, direct and indirect relationships exist in spatial terms? Where are the most opportunities? How can this be made transparent and usable and give direction to policy and social stakeholders? The analysis, understanding and learning use of the concept 'metabolism of the city', its structure, the ecosystem in the broad sense and the shortcomings and strengths of it, provides concrete leads for a more resilient city. A second research assignment, which will fit within the partnership and the design research platform 'LABO SPACE', builds on the results of the first assignment and investigates the concrete potential for spatial transitions from this metabolic approach for the Antwerp city region: closing or better tuning and cross-linking of cycles, the better and more sustainable functioning of the metabolism of the city region. Through design research, in an open dialogue with partners and stakeholders and averse to sectoral and administrative boundaries, possible transitions in the longer term are explored.

Antwerp, circular city of tomorrow

Every project that contributes to making Antwerp more sustainable and that is
innovative is eligible for a sustainability premium. Preferably the project
should include working with residents or involving users. The city has a total
of 100.000 euros each year, and grants a maximum of 15.000 euros per project.

