Page 5 - U4SSC: A guide to circular cities, June 2020

Executive summary

The United for Smart Sustainable Cities (U4SSC) initiative is a global platform dedicated to supporting
cities worldwide in becoming smarter and more sustainable. The U4SSC is coordinated by the
International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe
(UNECE) and the United Nations Human Settlement Programme (UN-Habitat), along with the support
of 14 other UN agencies and programmes. The U4SSC is working to develop strategic guidelines and
measurement tools to assist cities in implementing the Sustainable Development Goals.

The Guide for Circular Cities contains a circular city implementation framework that is designed to
improve circularity in cities and support stakeholders in implementing circular actions. The framework
consists of a four-step methodology that provides a consistent method for assessing, prioritising
and catalysing different circular actions. This deliverable is developed in response to the growing
sustainability challenges that cities are facing and the emergence of the circular economy concept and
its applicability and extension in the city setting.

The Guide starts with an assessment of the main developmental and sustainability challenges that
cities are facing and the ways in which the concept of circular economy can be extended beyond the
economic sphere and be applied to different city assets.

It further defines key components of the circular city implementation framework. These components
include: city assets and products (i.e. various city infrastructures, city resources, city goods and services
available for use in a city); circular city actions (i.e. outcome-orientated actions that can be applied
to city assets and products); circular city outputs (i.e. the outputs of circular city actions applied to
city assets and products); and circular city enablers (i.e. complementary activities which support or
accelerate implementation of circular city actions). Each of these components contains different quality
and potential for facilitating circularity in cities. The interactions between these components form the
basis of the circular city implementation framework.

Finally, the Guide explains the circular city implementation framework. This framework utilizes four
different steps to assist city stakeholders in enacting circular actions. The first step is to establish a
baseline for circularity. The second step is to determine the potential of circularity in different assets
and to prioritize circular actions based on the availability resources. The third step is to apply city
enablers to catalyse different circular actions. The last step is to evaluate the impacts of these actions.

Cities are invited to use this Guide to identify a course of action for improving circularity. The Guide also
includes practical recommendations for preparing circular city actions and their implementation. The
Guide is complemented with 17 case studies that illustrate the application of the circularity concept
based on experiences from cities around the world.

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