Social Europe

  • EU Forward Project
  • YouTube
  • Podcast
  • Books
  • Newsletter
  • Membership

Cities harnessing innovation for the circular economy

Pau Ruiz and Ana Birliga Sutherland 30th May 2023

Cities have the agility to lead the transition to circularity and already have a body of good practice to show.

circular economy,cities,innovation
Innovative practices: a complex of reconfigured shipping containers in Eindhoven, including an outlet for goods made from used materials (Lea Rae / shutterstock.com)

Our global economy consumes massive amounts of resources year after year—shooting past our planet’s safe limits and raising an increasing number of environmental challenges. The divide between what we extract and use and what our planet can provide is widening. Last year’s Earth Overshoot Day fell on July 28th, indicating that we consumed the Earth’s yearly regenerative capacity in a little over half a year, using resources at a pace that would require nearly two planets to sustain.

Aside from damaging biodiversity and posing a threat to reserves of natural resources, such prodigious consumption is tightly linked to climate breakdown: around 70 per cent of greenhouse-gas emissions are tied to the handling and use of materials. To ensure both people and the planet can thrive, we need to usher in a new economic paradigm—one that regenerates nature, designs out waste and keeps materials in use at the highest value possible for as long as possible.

The big shift is to a circular economy, and we have a powerful toolbox of solutions which could fulfil people’s needs with just 70 per cent of the materials we use, thereby limiting temperature rises and further environmental degradation. But global change requires local action: cities are the future of the circular-economy transition.

Driving the transition

As epicentres of innovation, infrastructure, investment and culture, cities are big consumers: in many countries, urban hubs are responsible for the largest portion of material and carbon footprints. According to the Global Footprint Network, by 2050 up to 80 per cent of the world’s population is expected to live in urban areas, projected to consume 90 billion tonnes of materials annually, although they occupy just 3 per cent of the world’s surface.

Their massive impact means that cities (as also regions) boast the power to drive the circular-economy transition. More agile than national governments and closer to local initiatives, municipalities can influence a range of critical sectors, from construction to manufacturing.

Cities comprise many complex systems that fulfil residents’ needs, from housing and transport to food and energy. Systemic change must occur across sectors, requiring actors to rethink how they do business and consume resources. As with any disruptive transition, innovation must underpin this.



Don't miss out on cutting-edge thinking.


Join tens of thousands of informed readers and stay ahead with our insightful content. It's free.



Defining ‘innovation’ in the context of a circular economy can be tricky—but central are novelty and improvement, value creation and redistribution, and dissemination of ideas and technologies. Innovation can, and should, affect politics and society alike, drawing on social (including organisational) as much as technological considerations. Innovative circular practices and initiatives range from incremental to radical and can involve a wide range of stakeholders.

‘Co-creation’ of schemes

Municipal authorities can use various instruments, from awareness-raising to capacity-building, to engage and mobilise citizens and associations, kickstarting the long-term change a circular economy entails. By providing the crucial catalyst of shared spaces—variously described as living labs, maker spaces or FabLabs—they can make resources available within the city for the ‘co-creation’ of schemes.

Independent initiatives and new businesses frequently encounter high costs and inadequate public infrastructure and resources. Cities can acquire essential assets for sharing by multiple actors—such as water-cutting or 3D-printing machines—which startups may be unable to afford themselves, thereby surmounting startup barriers and propelling innovation.

Take Amsterdam Smart City’s Circle Lab, an open innovation platform promoting collaboration among companies, policy-makers and others. It fosters innovation by helping translate Amsterdam’s circular goals from theory into practice—while mobilising other cities, businesses and citizens to ‘learn by doing’. The lab’s users—which now top 8,000 members and organisations—can meet to learn about city-wide circular initiatives, share ideas and events and get in touch with other innovators.

Procurement and pilots

As public entities, cities have huge spending power, which they can use to leverage innovation. Through their purchasing decisions, cities can incentivise businesses to rethink their products or services, while supporting local businesses and startups and so shaping a thriving economic ‘ecosystem’. This also encourages competition among suppliers, which itself can catalyse new solutions.

For instance, Toronto’s Circular Economy Procurement Implementation Plan, a joint effort across the municipality’s departments, aims to spur innovation and create value by engaging directly with local businesses, encouraging the use of new technologies and building capacity to raise awareness. Toronto’s procurement contracts now include circular-economy principles and requirements. With a focus on economic benefits, environmental criteria and job creation, the plan drives circular procurement in the city while supporting Toronto’s broader goals of achieving zero waste and enhancing social prosperity.

Pilot projects are experimental springboards for innovation. By encouraging creativity and out-of-the-box thinking, cities can soften the risks associated with novel, small-scale ideas and test their feasibility. Crucially, pilots allow organisations to learn from their experiences and improve over time—helping them better understand the benefits and limitations of scaling up their innovations. They can also enhance collaboration among stakeholders as, in a pre-competitive environment, they are often more flexible than larger-scale ventures. This fosters quick, frequent communication between parties and allows for agile adjustments based on feedback. All this induces an environment where circularity can flourish and ideas align with communities’ needs.

For example, the O-House, a project launched in Kongsvinger in Norway, is a modular home for young people made from recycled and renewable materials. It can be moved from place to place around the municipality, demonstrating how moveable, sustainable homes could be an affordable option for first-time buyers struggling to enter the housing market. The project demonstrates the potential to reclaim and repurpose local construction materials and the power of circular building design. It brings together a range of actors beyond local government, fostering collaboration and encouraging relatively low-risk innovation, thanks to the public sector’s involvement.

Report card

Before launching pilots or embarking on innovative journeys, cities must know where they stand: they need a circular-economy ‘report card’ that shows how they are doing and where they can best focus their action. Circle Economy’s Circularity Gap Reporting Initiative, which has calculated circularity at the national level for years, is now coming to cities with the launch of ‘CGR4cities’.

Currently being tested in Munich, this programme will show how resources flow through urban systems and contribute to consumption-based emissions. Based on these insights, the analysis can derive a set of circular solutions which can take cities from linear to circular, while shedding light on the impact these solutions could have. By allowing decision-makers to set goals and measure progress, CGR4cities can kickstart a city’s circular transition.

The Circularity Gap Reporting Initiative brings together stakeholders from businesses, governments, academia and non-governmental organisations to evaluate findings, based on the latest scientific evidence, and to design scenarios to inform policy-making and industry strategy. With the use of participatory and multi-stakeholder processes, it ensures that plans lead to sustained actions on the ground. Cities wishing to take part can request a scan.

This is part of a series on ‘global cities’ supported by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung

Pau Ruiz
Pau Ruiz

Pau Ruiz is a research analyst at Circle Economy. He has delivered workshops and helped draft guides on urban circularity strategies, as well as monitoring the transition to a circular economy, at state, city and organizational levels, using various measurement frameworks.

Ana Birliga Sutherland
Ana Birliga Sutherland

Ana Birliga Sutherland is a writer and editor for Circle Economy. She has degrees in law and environmental management from University College Utrecht and the University of Edinburgh respectively.

Harvard University Press Advertisement

Social Europe Ad - Promoting European social policies

We need your help.

Support Social Europe for less than €5 per month and help keep our content freely accessible to everyone. Your support empowers independent publishing and drives the conversations that matter. Thank you very much!

Social Europe Membership

Click here to become a member

Most Recent Articles

u4219834676 bcba 6b2b3e733ce2 1 The End of an Era: What’s Next After Globalisation?Apostolos Thomadakis
u4219834674a bf1a 0f45ab446295 0 Germany’s Subcontracting Ban in the Meat IndustryŞerife Erol, Anneliese Kärcher, Thorsten Schulten and Manfred Walser
u4219834dafae1dc3 2 EU’s New Fiscal Rules: Balancing Budgets with Green and Digital AmbitionsPhilipp Heimberger
u42198346d1f0048 1 The Dangerous Metaphor of Unemployment “Scarring”Tom Boland and Ray Griffin
u4219834675 4ff1 998a 404323c89144 1 Why Progressive Governments Keep Failing — And How to Finally Win Back VotersMariana Mazzucato

Most Popular Articles

u4219834647f 0894ae7ca865 3 Europe’s Businesses Face a Quiet Takeover as US Investors CapitaliseTej Gonza and Timothée Duverger
u4219834674930082ba55 0 Portugal’s Political Earthquake: Centrist Grip Crumbles, Right AscendsEmanuel Ferreira
u421983467e58be8 81f2 4326 80f2 d452cfe9031e 1 “The Universities Are the Enemy”: Why Europe Must Act NowBartosz Rydliński
u42198346761805ea24 2 Trump’s ‘Golden Era’ Fades as European Allies Face Harsh New RealityFerenc Németh and Peter Kreko
startupsgovernment e1744799195663 Governments Are Not StartupsMariana Mazzucato
u421986cbef 2549 4e0c b6c4 b5bb01362b52 0 American SuicideJoschka Fischer
u42198346769d6584 1580 41fe 8c7d 3b9398aa5ec5 1 Why Trump Keeps Winning: The Truth No One AdmitsBo Rothstein
u421983467 a350a084 b098 4970 9834 739dc11b73a5 1 America Is About to Become the Next BrexitJ Bradford DeLong
u4219834676ba1b3a2 b4e1 4c79 960b 6770c60533fa 1 The End of the ‘West’ and Europe’s FutureGuillaume Duval
u421983462e c2ec 4dd2 90a4 b9cfb6856465 1 The Transatlantic Alliance Is Dying—What Comes Next for Europe?Frank Hoffer

Eurofound advertisement

Ageing workforce
The evolution of working conditions in Europe

This episode of Eurofound Talks examines the evolving landscape of European working conditions, situated at the nexus of profound technological transformation.

Mary McCaughey speaks with Barbara Gerstenberger, Eurofound's Head of Unit for Working Life, who leverages insights from the 35-year history of the European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS).

Listen to the episode for free. Also make sure to subscribe to Eurofound Talks so you don’t miss an episode!

LISTEN NOW

Foundation for European Progressive Studies Advertisement

Spring Issues

The Summer issue of The Progressive Post is out!


It is time to take action and to forge a path towards a Socialist renewal.


European Socialists struggle to balance their responsibilities with the need to take bold positions and actions in the face of many major crises, while far-right political parties are increasingly gaining ground. Against this background, we offer European progressive forces food for thought on projecting themselves into the future.


Among this issue’s highlights, we discuss the transformative power of European Social Democracy, examine the far right’s efforts to redesign education systems to serve its own political agenda and highlight the growing threat of anti-gender movements to LGBTIQ+ rights – among other pressing topics.

READ THE MAGAZINE

Hans Böckler Stiftung Advertisement

WSI Report

WSI Minimum Wage Report 2025

The trend towards significant nominal minimum wage increases is continuing this year. In view of falling inflation rates, this translates into a sizeable increase in purchasing power for minimum wage earners in most European countries. The background to this is the implementation of the European Minimum Wage Directive, which has led to a reorientation of minimum wage policy in many countries and is thus boosting the dynamics of minimum wages. Most EU countries are now following the reference values for adequate minimum wages enshrined in the directive, which are 60% of the median wage or 50 % of the average wage. However, for Germany, a structural increase is still necessary to make progress towards an adequate minimum wage.

DOWNLOAD HERE

S&D Group in the European Parliament advertisement

Cohesion Policy

S&D Position Paper on Cohesion Policy post-2027: a resilient future for European territorial equity

Cohesion Policy aims to promote harmonious development and reduce economic, social and territorial disparities between the regions of the Union, and the backwardness of the least favoured regions with a particular focus on rural areas, areas affected by industrial transition and regions suffering from severe and permanent natural or demographic handicaps, such as outermost regions, regions with very low population density, islands, cross-border and mountain regions.

READ THE FULL POSITION PAPER HERE

ETUI advertisement

HESA Magazine Cover

With a comprehensive set of relevant indicators, presented in 85 graphs and tables, the 2025 Benchmarking Working Europe report examines how EU policies can reconcile economic, social and environmental goals to ensure long-term competitiveness. Considered a key reference, this publication is an invaluable resource for supporting European social dialogue.

DOWNLOAD HERE

Social Europe

Our Mission

Team

Article Submission

Advertisements

Membership

Social Europe Archives

Themes Archive

Politics Archive

Economy Archive

Society Archive

Ecology Archive

Miscellaneous

RSS Feed

Legal Disclosure

Privacy Policy

Copyright

Social Europe ISSN 2628-7641

BlueskyXWhatsApp