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key city dimensions: economy; environment; and society and culture. They are useful for
measuring the impacts of circular city outputs and informing planners to make better design
choices. The specific KPIs that could be particularly useful include the KPIs on public building
sustainability, green spaces, solid-waste collection and treatment, shared vehicles and so on. In
addition, each indicator is connected to one or multiple targets of the Sustainable Development
Goals (SDGs), making them the ideal tools for measuring progress towards the SDGs.
ii. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation has undertaken a project called ‘The Circularity Indicators
Project’. The project provides a methodology and tools to assess the performance of a product
or company in the context of a circular economy. The project has published a toolkit and
methodology for circularity indicators. 9

iii. ISO 37120: The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has developed the Standard
ISO 37120 under the ISO/TC 268 to help cities measuring their performance in improving quality
of life and sustainability. Some of the KPIs in ISO 37120 can be utilized in the framework of
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circular cities (e.g. waste management-related KPIs).
iv. ITU, through its ITU-T Study Group 5, has developed a series of international standards to help
cities assessing their sustainability. For example, Recommendation ITU-T L.1440: Methodology
for environmental impact assessment of information and communication technologies at city
level provides guidance on assessing the environmental impacts of ICTs at city level. It takes into
consideration multiple factors, including the process of raw material acquisition, production, use
and end-of-life treatment of ICTs, which could be extrapolated to assess circularity in cities.
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There are several other circularity indicators developed by different organizations to address various
aspects of circularity. Cities can explore these KPIs to determine which one would be the most
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applicable to their operation depending on their own context. In addition, the implementation
framework depicted in this document is flexible enough to incorporate other specific KPIs that can be
formulated by cities themselves for their circularity implementations. Additional KPIs can be included
during implementation by a city.

b. Awareness building of circular city initiatives and actions: The success of circular city initiatives
depends largely on the awareness of their stakeholders. The uptake of circular city initiatives is
highly dependent on city-wide awareness and their adoptability to their potential users. Promoting
and explaining their benefits may help to drive cultural and behaviour changes towards embracing
circularity.
c. Training and circularity skills enhancement: Targeted skills enhancement programmes may
help in institutionalizing circularity in cities. Academic programmes (e.g. university degrees and
courses, related curricula changes) will help to enhance circularity skills through formal education.
Vocational and professional training programmes could also help in this regard. Moreover, sharing
and disseminating, for example, circularity-related publications, reports and research may also help
to further develop circularity-related skills. These programmes help in creating highly skilled human
capital for implementing circularity actions at the city level, as well as bridging skills and expertise
gaps that have traditionally been a major obstacle towards circular economy.
d. Measures to promote trust in circular activities: Circularity includes circular action items such as
sharing being applied to various city assets and products. Sharing may be applied to commercial

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