Circular Governance Studies and Reports

The insights provided are built on desk research covering the topic of circular city governance, combined with a number of interviews with experts from different organizations (including OECD, P2P Foundation, Universities, Cities’ officials and technical figures, consultancies and local enterprises across Europe), as well as with a ‘loose’ cross-comparison of the case studies presented in this Report. When it comes to desk research, a number of recent studies provide well-structured indications for ‘good governance’ in the circular city:

Circular City Governance: an explorative research study into current barriers and governance practices in circular city transitions across Europe (Jonker and Montenegro Navarro 2018)

Ellen MacArthur Foundation has developed a rich library of tools and resources aimed at supporting local governments in the definition of circular economy plans and strategies. Among them, the Report 'City governments and their role in enabling a circular economy transition' (Ellen MacArthur Foundation 2019) offers a straightforward framework of policy levers that may turn out to be key for enabling a meaningful transition to the circular economy.

We have considered a number of specific studies and conceptual frameworks for collaborative governance, including environmental governance and conflict resolution (Agrawal and Lemos 2007); collaborative governance (Ansell and Gash 2007); cross-sector collaboration (Bryson, Crosby and Stone 2006), quadruple helix governance (Carayannis and Campbell 2009); Integrative Framework for Collaborative Governance (Emerson, Nabatchi and Balogh 2015) and polycentric governance for urban commons (Iaione and Foster 2016; Bauwens and Niaros 2015).

We found particularly relevant the work developed by Prof. Ezio Manzini and DESIS Network around the concept of Collaborative Cities, which offers a design-driven perspective to structure creative and collaborative urban environments for collective city-making.

Useful links and resources:

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