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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 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 health and happiness of human populations

Well-being

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

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

Water and Sewage

Providing residential and non-residential construction services, such as architectural, engineering, planning, real-estate, contracting, and inspection services

Construction and Real Estate Services

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

Prioritise regenerative resources

Account for the systems perspective during the design process, to use the right materials, to design for appropriate lifetime and to design for extended future use

Design for the future

Replace freshwater with less impactful alternatives and enact water efficiency measures

Regenerative water

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

Manage

Infrastructure

 Spatial Planning

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

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Rethink

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




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Regenerate

Do better with less by using and supporting infrastructure, processes and products that are designed to minimize material, water and energy use and waste generation from production to end of use


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Reduce

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

Support closed-loop systems and cross-sectoral synergies

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

Promote solutions inspired and supported by nature

Ensure that infrastructure and built assets in the city are designed and upgraded to be as resource-efficient as possible.

Design infrastructure and the built environment for resource efficiency

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

Communities

Governments

Water system refers to the water supply network for storing and supplying water for use by the community.

One of the greatest challenges of a city is to provide its inhabitants with safe, clean water from a limited fresh water supply. Improving the city’s water infrastructure efficiency, such as minimising leakages, reduces the strain put on the limited supply, which in turn, helps to ensure inhabitants gain access to clean and affordable water.

The water infrastructure of a city typically consists of components such as surface water diversions, wells, pumps, transmission pipes and canals, treatment and storage facilities, and distribution network elements (Burian et al.). Options for improving the efficiency of the system include investing in water loss reduction systems, creating and following a regular maintenance program, and better matching water supply and demand (Global Water Partnership).

Cities can improve the efficiency of their water system infrastructure by conducting a water audit, in which all water flows are traced and losses in the system are identified to map where the most efficiency improvements can be gained. Alongside this, asset management can be used to create a short-term and long-term strategy of investing in new equipment, refurbishing existing equipment and developing maintenance programmes to ensure infrastructure is as efficient as possible, and leaks are minimised. Such management programmes create financial transparency amongst all stakeholders and provide useful long-term planning for larger infrastructure changes (US EPA)

💧 Water Systems

Cities worldwide are facing significant water-related challenges, including urban water runoffs, flooding, reduced water quality and severe water scarcity—exacerbated by rapid urbanisation and more frequent extreme weather events. On top of this, urban water runoff continues to be a major cause of water pollution in urban areas, carrying trash, bacteria, and other pollutants through gutters and stormwater systems into local waterways, typically without treatment.

City governments can pursue a “sponge city” approach by redesigning the urban fabric and integrating blue and green infrastructure (BGI) (e.g. rain gardens, permeable pavements, storage ponds, etc.) along traditional grey infrastructure (e.g. pipe networks, storage tanks, flood walls). This can help to absorb, store, filter and purify these water flows, in turn replenishing aquifers, reducing the need for expanding grey water management and minimising flood risk, while also reducing the heat island effect. 

Cities can do so by, for example, integrating requirements for BGI into municipal urban planning rules for newly built up areas of city districts, industrial parks and development zones, and integrating sponge city building requirements into municipal urban planning rules. Then, local governments could also strengthen collaboration between all relevant stakeholders—from real estate developers to engineers, to water-utility organisations—to identify locally relevant opportunities for sponge cities. 


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💧  Blue and green infrastructure for sustainable urban drainage

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

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

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



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

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

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

Cities have an incredible opportunity to realign human interests with nature and its biodiversity. Due to the lockdowns of the past year, many people have found a renewed appreciation for green public space and blue skies. Now, some cities are leveraging the opportunity of stimulus measures to access resources to move towards a green and just recovery. Integrating the principles of circularity and custodianship of  biodiversity can help achieve those goals.The relationship between biodiversity and the circular economy is not entirely clear cut, as our previous blog explored. Although we may need biodiversity for a circular economy, biodiversity does not necessarily need the circular economy. Nevertheless, it is becoming increasingly clear that aligning the circular economy with the biodiversity agenda can make important contributions to global recovery efforts and the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. Ultimately, cities need to look beyond their own boundaries and understand the biodiversity impact of products and raw materials they produce and import. The challenge will not only be about preserving the last remaining natural places, but to create new ones, especially in cities. In this article we explore three ways in which circular principles can be applied to cities whilst respecting nature and supporting biodiversity. Urban biodiversity and circular citiesAt the same time that global biodiversity loss has accelerated, humanity has become an urbanised species. And the trend towards urban living is set to continue: 80% of the world’s population will live in cities by 2050—by then, equivalent to 9 billion people. Cities are the consumption centres of the world’s resources where linear consumerism and ‘convenience’ have become symbols of progress, as well as hotspots of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. To facilitate life in cities, humans have constructed systems to connect with the goods and services required for survival—many of which are sourced outside the city itself—and to ameliorate waste streams.In the pursuit of modernity, many cities have demonstrated their control over nature by covering the earth with hard surfaces, removing trees, canalising watercourses, and planting lawns and neat rows of identical plants. As they formalise, densify and expand in size, they typically become less biodiverse and encroach on surrounding biodiverse areas in the form of urban sprawl. By diminishing the ability of surrounding and intertwined ecosystems to flourish, cities run the risk of becoming ‘dead zones’ with a loss of habitat and biodiversity. This in turn limits the ability of ecosystems to provide beneficial services to different groups in society—many of whom depend on them. But what if instead of damaging biodiversity, cities could protect and actively promote it alongside their circularity efforts?The vertical forest building in Milan. Photo from Stefano Boeri Architetti‍Urban circular strategies can contribute to enhancing biodiversity, when done rightBiodiversity is typically seen as a feature of rural landscapes, so it is unsurprising that urban biodiversity has been long overlooked. The covid-19 pandemic could be a pivotal moment to raise awareness of biodiversity loss and reassess our relationship with the natural world.  Cities are recognising the importance of providing urban habitats that can support biodiversity and a growing number of organisations are trying to connect the dots between urban circularity and biodiversity. From a systemic perspective, efforts to close the Emissions Gap through circular practices help to reduce climate-induced biodiversity loss, but there are a range of options that demonstrate more immediate and tangible benefits for cities. In an effort to newly align circularity and biodiversity, the Circular City Actions Framework recently developed by ICLEI, Circle Economy and Metabolic, includes as a central aim of the circular economy ‘to curb the extraction of finite resources, and ensure all infrastructure and production-consumption systems positively contribute to local resource and nutrient cycles whilst respecting ecosystems' regeneration rates’. Circular nature-derived solutions: The urban biocircular-economyIn line with circular principles, the bioeconomy prioritises renewable biological resources to produce products and energy as a substitute for artificial or finite resources (such as fossil fuels). While great in theory, this approach has also been criticised for potentially increasing pressure on land and biodiversity—for example by intensifying biomass production through monoculture farming, which competes for fresh water and land that could have been used for food production.However, an urban biocircular-economy could offer a promising solution. Like in nature, there is no such thing as ‘waste’ in a circular economy. All materials are used in such a way that they can be used multiple times at their highest value. An urban biocircular-economy can reduce demand for new biological resources by prioritising organic ‘waste’ as inputs, thus reducing the need to convert natural areas to farming. Biological resources in the circular economy are renewable, sustainably managed, recovered and reused as much as possible. For example, in a biocircular-economy, cities can save trees by valorising waste wood from demolition activities to create new construction materials, or reduce the need for farming of soybeans for biofuels by powering public buses on landfill methane. This economic model is gaining momentum as a way to deliver society’s needs and support local economies, while preserving resource security, reducing GHG emissions, promoting industrial symbiosis, improving waste management and avoiding conflict over land for food production. The bioeconomy in circular AmsterdamThe bioeconomy is a core aspect of the city of Amsterdam’s circular journey.  Together with Circle Economy, the city identified various strategies to transform organic waste streams into valuable bioproducts, such as compost, bio-based building materials, bioplastics, and biodiesel for city buses. These strategies can reduce the need for chemical fertilisers and prevent the demand for new biomass, such as wood, indirectly benefiting surrounding ecosystems, while also allowing cities to harvest the benefits. The implementation of these material reuse strategies has the potential to create €85 million of value per year within the construction sector of the city, and €150 million of value per year with more efficient organic residual streams.‍Amsterdam. Photo by Jace & Afsoon on Unsplash‍Circular nature-inspired solutions: Biomimicry in regenerative circular urban designBiomimicry is defined as ‘the imitation of nature’ because it learns from and mimics nature to create inspired practical solutions to respond to climate change, biodiversity loss and other environmental challenges. This practice can inspire the design of infrastructure and production-consumption systems that are conducive to life. Not all biomimicry promotes biodiversity, but when complemented with a circular economy, biodiversity wins. On the one hand, biomimicry calls for rethinking the current urban system and offers a methodology to design it in a way that mimics nature by advocating more open-ended, complex and flexible loops. On the other hand, the circular economy can provide a business case for some biomimicry solutions that have biodiversity benefits.  To unlock the potential of biomimicry for regenerative, rather than extractive cities, greater visibility and better collaboration between stakeholders is needed. The Biomimicry Design Toolbox is the first step in this direction, providing a set of tools and core concepts that can help urban change makers begin to incorporate insights from nature into their solutions.Biomimicry in Thriving PhiladelphiaAs part of the Thriving Cities Initiative (TCI) programme, Circle Economy, in collaboration with Kate Raworth, C40, and Biomimicry 3.8, worked with the City of Philadelphia to start a green infrastructure revolution aimed at tackling a widespread urban environment problem: urban stormwater runoff. Runoff is overloading sewage treatment plants and polluting waterways. Through the use of green rooftops, roadside plantings, carefully landscaped parks, rain gardens, rain barrels, and other nature-inspired solutions, Philadelphia is mimicking the way nature collects and cleanses water to increase water efficiency and reuse urban stormwater. Stormwater becomes a resource, bringing in many benefits. Going green is a far more cost-effective method than constructing wastewater treatment plants, and many secondary benefits can be derived—from mitigating waste flowing freely into waterways, to reducing the urban heat island effect and summer heating demand, cutting down emissions, improving surrounding property values and lowering asthma rates.‍Water runoff. Photo by Ricky Rew on Unsplash‍Circular nature-based solutions: Urban circular ecosystemsNature-Based Solutions (NBS) are defined as ‘actions to protect, sustainably manage and restore natural or modified ecosystems’ (IUCN, 2016). Examples of NBS in cities span from simple concepts—permeable pavements to reduce flood risks or green roofs to improve biodiversity and energy efficiency—to practical actions, such a city manager installing trees and grass along steep slopes to prevent landslides, or an urban planner protecting or restoring a nearby forest or wetland that is crucial to the city’s water supply and quality. NBS can also be seen as an effective framework to tackle social issues by providing fuel, food, livelihoods, health, jobs, education, recreation benefits and sustaining cultural traditions. A circular economy–based NBS approach can significantly contribute to climate change mitigation by improving sustainable material management, promoting dematerialisation (reducing the material and energy input of a process) and decarbonisation. Circular NBS can also increase the resilience of the ecosystem via reuse, reduce, recycle, remanufacture, and repurpose strategies. These can close material and energy loops and eliminate waste generation. They can be effective in densely populated cities where green areas can be built or created on top of existing or new grey infrastructure, such as a park on top of a parking garage, or an urban garden on top of a school. NBS that follow the circularity concept, for example by recycling nutrients, are enablers of the circular transition and can be used as tools to build new resilient, circular urban ecosystems. Conversely, the circular economy creates favourable conditions to attract more investments for NBS scaling up. Circular NBS in the urban built environmentChina’s sponge cities are a successful example of how NBS can address urban water management challenges. Sponge cities are designed to absorb, store, filter and purify rainwater, in turn reducing flood risks and transforming urban vegetated spaces into vibrant centres for the community. Following their success, other actors, such as the COST Action Circular City, are actively working to add circularity in the mix and find innovative urban circular solutions that support and facilitate the implementation of NBS. The main goal is achieving resource recovery using organisms (such as microbes, algae, plants, insects and worms) as the principal agents. NBS outputs can then re-enter the value chain in the form of reclaimed water, biomass or organic fertilisers, while recycled materials can be used as the basis for the establishment of NBS. The Boutique Hotel Stadthalle in Vienna is one-of-its-kind example of how circular NBS can support urban biodiversity (birds, bees, and butterflies) and offer ecosystem services to surrounding areas. The building runs on zero-emissions, is covered in trees and green roofs and recycles 100% of its organic waste by composting. Water from the well is used to flush toilets and irrigate the interior courtyard, where fresh herbs are grown and harvested to scent the hotel rooms and as spices for the hotel kitchen; honey produced is consumed at the hotel breakfast.The Boutiquehotel Stadthalle in Vienna. Photo by Monika Haas on Wikimedia Commons.‍‍Time for actionAlthough we might not need circularity to ensure biodiversity, we do need biodiversity for a circular economy. As best said by Lauren Phipps in her article: ‘No one framework or priority is intended to stand alone or address every problem in the world’. Circularity can be integrated in many of the solutions based, derived, and inspired by nature to upscale environmental, economic and social benefits. With circularity, cities can become a key player in global efforts to conserve and restore biodiversity. Given the benefits that come from a biodiverse, low-carbon circular city, the support and regeneration of urban biodiversity should be integrated into local decision making and policy. This may help to reframe the essential human-nature relationship and decouple growth from resource needs, building an urban system that is regenerative and restorative by design. Cities must factor circularity and biodiversity into stimulus measures and recovery plans for a truly green and resilient recovery. Integrating the principles of circularity and custodianship of biodiversity can help cities meet climate targets, address environmental degradation, and redistribute nature's benefits, while harvesting economic benefits.  Cities are not the only ones that can take action. You can also help support urban biodiversity. How? Join the ecological urbanism movement and contribute to build a resilient and biodiverse city. Fill your own backyard garden with native species, turn your balcony into a bee-paradise, join the blue-green roof revolution, or simply start by keeping your cat indoors to protect local birds and reptiles.  Do you want to know more or share ideas? Let us know!

Philadelphia

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OUR MISSION IS TO ACCELERATE THE PRACTICAL AND SCALABLE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY

At Circle Economy, we believe in a visionary future for our planet — one in which we do not have to compromise in order to achieve economic, social, and environmental prosperity. As an impact organisation, we connect and empower a global community to create the conditions for systemic transformation. With nature as our mentor, we work alongside businesses, cities and governments to identify opportunities to make the transition to the circular economy, and provide a powerful combination of practical and scalable solutions to turn these opportunities into reality.
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Our mission is to empower a global community of businesses, cities and governments to accelerate the transition to the circular economy through practical and scalable insights and solutions that address humanity’s greatest challenges.

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Circle Economy

City of Philadelphia

Biomimicry 3.8

<p>As part of the Thriving Cities Initiative (TCI) programme, Circle Economy, in collaboration with Kate Raworth, C40, and Biomimicry 3.8, worked with the City of Philadelphia to start a green infrastructure revolution aimed at tackling a widespread urban environment problem: urban stormwater runoff. Runoff is overloading sewage treatment plants and polluting waterways. Through the use of green rooftops, roadside plantings, carefully landscaped parks, rain gardens, rain barrels, and other nature-inspired solutions, Philadelphia is mimicking the way nature collects and cleanses water to increase water efficiency and reuse urban stormwater. Stormwater becomes a resource, bringing in many benefits. Going green is a far more cost-effective method than constructing wastewater treatment plants, and many secondary benefits can be derived—from mitigating waste flowing freely into waterways, to reducing the urban heat island effect and summer heating demand, cutting down emissions, improving surrounding property values and lowering asthma rates.</p>