Page 25 - U4SSC: A guide to circular cities, June 2020

Step 2: Determining potential for circularity and prioritizing circular city actions

Following step 1, the city can then formulate its own circularity initiatives and actions. The city can
engage a broad range of stakeholders to not only define the city’s own circularity priorities and needs
but also determine a list of actions to promote circularity for implementation.

The potential list of circular city outputs (i.e. different combinations of circular city action items applied
to city assets and products) can assist in identifying a list of potential circularity innovations in the
city. Specific city needs and priorities may help to emphasize certain circular city outputs among
the potential ones, or conversely de-emphasize/eliminate others. Each city may have to go through
this exercise based on its own context, aspirations and goals. This Guide defines an output as an
individual result of an action taken within the implementation framework with respect to promoting
city circularity.

Another important input to this step is to compare with the benchmarking of other cities’ successful
circularity initiatives/action items. The city needs to be careful in assessing the applicability of
international benchmarks as the context of cities and their aspects may vary significantly.

In this step, a long list of circularity initiatives/action items can be formulated for implementation.
It is recommended that a city utilizes its collective capital extensively to come up with various ideas
contributing to circularity in its own urban context.

Circularity prioritisation approach

The city might not be equipped to implement the list of circularity actions in its entirety or may lack
the requisite resources to do so. In such cases, a prioritisation mechanism will be highly beneficial. A
pragmatic prioritisation approach used in this implementation framework has two main criteria. The
first criterion is the value, which refers to the projected value of the circular city idea. The second
criterion identifies the projected costs of implementing the selected idea, which is dependent on the
city’s own context. Each criterion is composed of several sub-criteria, which are briefly explained below.

i. Value

• The degree of alignment with the city circularity vision and strategy: This sub-criterion refers
to circularity actions overall fit to a city’s existing circularity vision and strategy, (if it exists).
• City circularity KPI(s) impact: This sub-criterion indicates the extent of the circularity actions
contribution to existing circularity KPI(s) in the city.

• Social impact: This sub-criterion assesses the impact of the circularity actions on people and
communities in the city. It would include issues such as people’s lifestyle, culture, participation
and engagement, health and well-being, personal freedom and privacy, concerns and aspirations.
It is also important to assess whether circularity impacts the entire city or its part.
• Economic impact: This sub-criterion assesses the impact of the circularity actions to the city’s
economy. Economic impact can be measured by indicators such as the city’s Gross Domestic
Product (GDP), rate of employment, wealth, disposable income, labour-force skills, among
others.

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