The Rise of Circular Cities: Transforming urban environments for sustainability

Amsterdam has been at the forefront of adapting sustainable practices. The capital city of the Netherlands aims to become completely emission-free by 2030 and fully circular by 2050. By 2030, it also targets to halve its use of virgin materials. The city’s strategy is based on Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics model, which advocates the balancing of social and planetary boundaries for a sustainable development.? “Humanity's 21st century challenge is to ensure that no one falls short on life’s essentials, while ensuring that collectively we do not overshoot our pressure on Earth’s life-supporting systems, on which we fundamentally depend,” says Raworth. To this effect, Amsterdam has invested heavily in three categories: food and biomass, consumer goods, and construction, focusing on the way it produces, consumes and processes materials. Its Circular Strategy covers a large number of measures for businesses, the city and its residents: from waste reduction to resource management to circular construction.

It’s time to acknowledge the rise of circular cities: Peterborough, Rotterdam, Haarlemmermeer, Glasgow and Paris have also embarked on a circular journey.?

Why focus on cities??

While the world strives to make a transition towards a circular economy, it is best to start with cities. Today, 56% of the world’s population – 4.4 billion inhabitants – live in cities. According to the World Bank, this trend is expected to continue, with the urban population more than doubling its current size by 2050, at which point nearly 7 of 10 people will live in cities.?

Though cities occupy less than 2% of the Earth surface, they account for 75% of natural resource consumption and 50% of global waste production. They are major contributors to climate change and material consumption, while on the other hand, they are also hubs for innovation and socio-economic transformation.?

According to Ellen MacArthur Foundation, “Because of the high concentration of resources, capital, data, and talent spread over a relatively small geographic area,? cities are uniquely positioned to support certain circular business models, such as sharing models, reuse systems or product-as-a-service models.” Urban areas are already leading developments in circular manufacturing, fashion, transport, food and procurement.?

What is a circular city??

The European Circular Cities Declaration defines a circular city as one that promotes the transition from a linear to a circular economy in an integrated way across all its functions in collaboration with citizens, businesses and the research community. Through this transition, cities seek to improve human well-being, reduce emissions, protect and enhance biodiversity, and promote social justice.? According to the UN Environment Statistics, a fully circular economy would both cut down our resource use by 28% and reduce carbon emissions by 72%.?

Envisioning such a city

In cities that embed circular economy principles - materials stay in use. They are not discarded at the end of their life, rather put into a resource management system where they are returned, sorted and reused. Infrastructure, vehicles, buildings, and products design out waste. They are intended to be durable, adaptable, modular, and easy to maintain and repurpose. Materials are locally sourced. People repair and refurbish their products. These activities occur at the individual, community, and commercial level. The city is clean, green and resilient. The concept of a circular economy in cities strives to establish a sustainable system wherein city assets and products are maximally utilized through practices such as reusing, refurbishing, remanufacturing, recycling, and other circular actions.?

This vision may sound ambitious given the many challenges in urban areas starting from population growth to vulnerability to climate change, environmental degradation and fiscal pressures. Structural waste and economic losses; consumer culture and lifestyles and growing inequality are some of the other challenges. But international organizations have come up with frameworks that serve as guiding principles. Several cities across the globe are already taking rapid strides.?

Roadmap to circularity?

The United for Smart Sustainable Cities (U4SSC) initiative, a global platform dedicated to supporting cities worldwide in becoming smarter and more sustainable, has developed a set of guidelines for circular cities. The key components of its framework are: city assets and products (infrastructures, resources, goods and services available for use in a city); circular city actions (outcome-oriented actions that can be applied to city assets and products); circular city outputs (the outputs of circular city actions applied to city assets and products); and circular city enablers ( complementary activities which support or accelerate implementation of circular city actions). The interactions between these components form the basis of the circular city implementation framework.?

No two cities are the same and a framework that works for Dubai may not work for Mumbai or Cape Town. The guidebook developed by the Collaborating Centre for Sustainable Consumption and Production (CSCP) ? classifies cities into four quadrants: legacy vs.?

pioneering cities, and developed vs. emerging economies. It documents how various cities across the globe are incorporating principles of Circular Economy into a city framework. It promotes collaborative movement and recommends actions such as “the enabling of necessary technical innovation, creating new or redesigning existing infrastructure, identifying circular-based business models, circular procurement or setting in motion the right environment for citizens to adopt sustainable lifestyles.”

For instance, Amsterdam’s circular strategy includes seven key elements 1. Prioritizing regenerative resources 2. Designing for the future 3. Preserving and extending what’s already made 4. Rethinking the business model 5. Incorporating digital technology 6. Using waste as a resource and 7. Collaborating to create joint value. Paris’s 15-point action plans are more elaborate and its integrated strategy are worth taking notes from.?

Ellen MacArthur proposes that Circular Economy principles be applied to three interconnected urban systems central to a city's daily functioning: buildings, mobility, and products.?

Implementing these principles in buildings involves reducing new construction, optimizing urban land use, cutting construction and operational costs, and enhancing resource efficiency. A circular urban mobility system focuses on effectively accommodating the user’s mobility needs by diversifying modes of transport, eliminating pollution and maximizing vehicle utilization. Circular product strategies entail reducing virgin material usage, eliminating waste and toxins, enhancing product design and services, reducing market entry barriers for businesses, and facilitating broader product access.?