Page 17 - U4SSC: A guide to circular cities, June 2020

Table 2: Template for defining potential circular city outputs
Circular action items

Sharing Recycling Refurbishing Re-using Replacing Digitizing
Buildings
Public
spaces and
City infrastructure
assets and Air
products*
Water
Energy
…..
For instance, the circular action item ‘re-using’ when applied to the city asset, such as reuse of water
resources at city level where used water is purified and reused.

Similarly, the circular action item ‘sharing’ can be applied to the service sector. For example, a day
care facility for children could be combined with a facility for older adult by placing a day care centre
in a nursing home.

Waste such as bottles, metal, footwear and plastic cups could be separated into compostable and
non-compostable; the non-compostable items could then be sold to scrap dealers and the remaining
compostable items sold to farmers. This is an example of the application of the recycling and re-using
circular action items to city resource ‘household items’.

The sharing action item can also be applied to public spaces. Public spaces can be used with alternating
distinct purposes. For example, a public square can be used as a general place for public gatherings
and for various art events and festivals at times.

The above examples are given in order to illustrate the concept of circular city outputs. There are many
more combinations of circular action items and city assets and products that can be used to generate
circular city outputs.

3.4 Circular city enablers

A circular city enabler is any entity, activity or initiative that, through its functions, can catalyse and
promote circularity in cities. The following are examples of enablers that a city can use to boost its
circular city outputs.

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a. Circular KPIs and their baseline and target values: Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are useful
for measuring progress and evaluating outcomes of activities supporting circularity. Indicators to
measure cities’ performance have been formulated, some of which measure circularity in cities.
Examples of earlier formulated circular city-related KPIs are provided below:

i. U4SSC KPIs for Smart Sustainable Cities: The U4SSC has developed the KPIs for Smart Sustainable
Cities to evaluate the smartness and sustainability of a city. The KPIs focus on measuring three

U4SSC: A guide to circular cities 9