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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

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

Impact on the quantity or quality of jobs, and shifts in the labour market

Jobs

Impact on the health and happiness of human populations

Well-being

Direct and indirect reduction in economic costs

Cost Savings

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)

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

Water and Sewage

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

Waste Management

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

Construction Materials and Products

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

Prioritise regenerative resources

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

Use waste as a resource

Replace freshwater with less impactful alternatives and enact water efficiency measures

Regenerative water

Ensure that biological products are properly managed and preserved

Maximise lifetime of biological products

Reuse, repurpose, and recycle waste streams within other industries

Valorise waste streams - open loop

Designing to enable multiple uses and lifecycles of a product and its materials

Design for cyclability

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

Manage

Infrastructure

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


Regulate

Develop infrastructure to support resource cycling

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

Incorporate extended use in project planning phases; create or update city policies to allow for extended use.


Design and regulate for separation and recovery

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

Process waste into valuable industrial inputs or consumer products; distribute processed waste to users.

Process waste and ensure its re-entry into industry at its highest value

Residual organic and food wastes can offer a quasi-renewable and low-carbon source of energy. By processing organic wastes, often under high temperatures, pressures and in the absence of oxygen, organic wastes can be transformed into fuels, which can be used for heating, electricity generation, as well as transportation. A variety of technologies have been developed to generate biogas from organic materials, for example, anaerobic digestion. Such facilities can vary in scale from single units that can process the waste of a single building or neighbourhood, to large-scale facilities that can process the majority of the organic wastes generated from the entire city. 

Cities have a key role to support the utilisation of organic materials as biofuels due to their close oversight and influence on the urban waste management system. In particular, cities can support the financing of large-scale facilities to help to overcome the investment costs, as well as develop relationships with businesses to operate such facilities. 


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🍏  💧  Biogas from organic materials

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

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

Much of the wastewater generated by homes, industries, and businesses must be treated before it is released back into the environment. This is because it contains nutrients and other substances that can be harmful to the environment and human health, as well as to aquatic fauna and flora. These nutrients can cause oxygen depletion in water bodies, beach closures and contamination of drinking water. However, if the nutrients are recovered, they can often be put to beneficial use. 

For instance, biorefineries use wastewater as a source of raw materials, generating products of value from waste nutrients and simultaneously producing clean water for reuse or discharge. Nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus can be converted into environmentally friendly fertilisers, and used for ecological restoration and agricultural purposes. Biosolids from wastewater can be used as fuel for heating, replacing fossil fuels and reducing the amount of biosolids sent to landfill. 

Local governments have an important role to play in providing pipes, water management and treatment infrastructure to ensure that water is safely handled. They can also play a role in monitoring privately run facilities to ensure compliance with environmental performance standards. Finally, cities can connect stakeholders to match supply and demand for non-potable water, energy and nutrients recovered from wastewater.


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💧  Recovery of nutrients and chemicals from wastewater and sludge

An estimated 80% of wastewater is discharged into the environment without treatment (UN), threatening aquatic wildlife, quality of groundwater and surface water resources, and human health. To avoid these negative effects, it is important to improve wastewater collection and treatment from both households and industries. 

Cities can help achieve this goal by improving wastewater transport and treatment infrastructure, adopting laws and regulations for wastewater treatment discharge, and offer financial incentives for businesses and industries to improve pollution controls over their effluents and advance treatment technologies. 

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💧 Improving wastewater treatment infrastructure

Slow strategies aim to keep materials in use for as long as possible, for example through design for durability and repairability. A more circular economy is also a slower one: materials, components, and products—and even buildings and infrastructure—that we lock in stocks are made to last. This will lower material demand in the long run, in essence also serving to narrow resource flows.

Slow

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).

Regenerate

Cycle strategies aim to cycle and reuse materials at their highest value: they maximise the volume of secondary materials re-entering the economy, ultimately minimising the need for virgin material inputs and therefore also narrowing flows. Of course, virgin materials will always be needed to a degree: all materials degrade and can’t be cycled infinitely, use energy, and require blending with virgin materials to maintain strength and functionality.

Cycle

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

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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Nakuru

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Nakuru County

NAWASSCO

<p>In Nakuru County, Kenya, partners in a collaborative project implemented by NAWASSCO brought in new technology for pit latrine and sludge emptying and transportation to the company’s treatment plant. The new technology allowed the waste matter to be recycled and used to produce bio-fertilisers and biomass fuel briquettes.</p>