Page 21 - U4SSC: A guide to circular cities, June 2020

4. The circular city implementation framework

This section describes a four-step circular city implementation framework according to the four
components described above.

The framework includes four steps:

1. Assessing current circularity (baselining).
2. Determining potential for future circularity and prioritizing circularity actions.

3. Catalysing circularity.
4. Assessing projected circularity impact.

Each of the four steps is explained below.

Step 1: Assessing current circularity (establishing a baseline)

This step entails conducting a swift baseline audit, which determines the status of a city with respect
to its circularity. More specifically, it evaluates a city’s baseline with respect to the following three
components:

a. Key performance indicators (KPIs) related to circularity of cities.
b. City-level circular initiatives and relevant action items.
c. Various circular city enablers to assist in implementation.

Each of the above components is explained briefly below.

a. Baselining based on existing circular city KPIs

Evaluating cities’ performance using the KPIs may guide the implementation of the circularity approach;
not only does it measure the performance of circular city initiatives, but it is also an effective way to
monitor their progress. Some examples of circularity-related KPIs include percentage of wastewater
receiving treatment, percentage of solid waste recycled, percentage of renewable energy consumed in
the city. Cities can further define other circularity KPIs at the sector/industry level such as percentage of
refurbished, remanufactured, re-used, recycled, shared materials and products. Potentially, all circular
city outputs defined in this document can be associated with circularity KPIs.

Table 3 below offers a template that a city can use to collect the necessary data according to the
selected KPIs and evaluate its progress on the circularity.

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