The Ellen MacArthur Foundation recognizes cities as a focal point in transitioning to a circular economy, which offers opportunities to rethink material usage and create new value. This approach can address key mayoral priorities such as housing, mobility, and economic development, aligning with the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. The Foundation will launch "Circular Economy in Cities" resources to provide a global reference on the topic.
A circular economy in cities can bring significant economic, social, and environmental benefits:
- Thriving city: Increased economic productivity through reduced congestion, waste, and costs, along with new growth and business opportunities.
- Liveable city: Improved air quality, reduced carbon emissions and pollution, and enhanced social interactions.
- Resilient city: Keeping materials in use, reducing virgin material pressures, and harnessing digital technology.
These benefits can be achieved by changing urban systems' planning, design, financing, and how they are made, used, and repurposed. The vision involves:
- Planning: Greater proximity between living, working, and playing areas, cleaner air, reduced congestion, and more green space.
- Circulating: A distributed system for resource management, nutrient flows, and reverse logistics to return, sort, and reuse products.
- Designing: Infrastructure, vehicles, buildings, and products designed to be durable, adaptable, modular, and easy to maintain and repurpose, using non-harmful, locally sourced, and renewable materials.
- Making: Localized, decentralized production using techniques that design out waste and utilizing digital material banks for repair and reuse.
- Using and reusing: Access to space, products, and transport through sharing, product-as-a-service contracts, and modular designs that allow for reconfiguration.
Ultimately, this transition towards a circular economy in cities can create thriving, liveable, and resilient urban environments that use materials sustainably.
