Page 30 - U4SSC: A guide to circular cities, June 2020

For example, ITU-T Study Group 5 on ‘Environment, climate change and circular economy’ has been
working with its membership to develop international standards (also called ITU-T Recommendations)
that improve circularity in cities. One of these standards is Recommendation ITU-T L.1020 ‘Circular
economy: Guide for operators and suppliers on approaches to migrate towards circular ICT goods and
networks’, which provides guidance on how operators could work with their supply chain to improve
the circular economy aspect of ICT goods and networks. ITU-T Study Group 20 on ‘the Internet of
Things, smart cities and communities’ has also developed international standards that enable the
deployment of IoT technologies in a coordinated and sustainable manner. In addition, the Focus Group
on ‘Environment efficiency for artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies’ is also working as
a global platform to identify the standardisation needs for developing a sustainable approach to AI and
other emerging technologies. The work of these groups provides valuable guidance for implementing
circular actions and city stakeholders are encouraged to participate in their work.

Certification programmes may be formulated to incentivize and encourage the public and the private
sectors to support circular actions. Successful implementation would be recognized under certification
programmes and would encourage similar or novel implementation in a city.

Engaging a broad range of stakeholders may increase the likelihood of success for implementation
of circularity actions (e.g. public sector, private sector, academia, individuals, NGOs and civil society
in general). Global platforms, such as the U4SSC, provide a collaborative space in which to engage in
dialogue and foster innovations in circular cities.

Nurturing a rich innovative ecosystem, one that encourages entrepreneurs and SMEs to address
circularity challenges, would help in boosting circularity in a city. Incubators, accelerators, hackathons,
and so on might be leveraged for enriching the city innovation ecosystem based on the principles of
circularity. Since circularity is predominantly a novel area which requires significant innovation, start-up
and SME support would be highly important in increasing the likelihood of its success in the long run.

The above examples illustrate a list of potential enablers that can catalyse different circular city
actions. Each city can formulate a set of enablers based on its own characteristics. The appropriate
set of enablers can be selected based on their applicability, expected impact, cost and various other
requirements.

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