So, how can your city begin the transition towards regenerative and circular goals? What knowledge and skills are needed to engage in this journey? What types of technology can make this transition smarter and effective? How can multi-stakeholder partnerships and citizen engagement be supported to make the most of pooling of resources and collective intelligence? And how can you test these solutions?

Creating and implementing a circular and regenerative city vision is a complex process and requires an interdisciplinary perspective. REFLOW approaches these objectives through its various Work Packages. Each Work Package is an essential element that your city should tackle in the transition to a circular and regenerative city model. However, the Work Packages themselves are not standalone pieces: they interact with and depend on one another, contributing to creating this multifaceted perspective and, consequently, to assisting your city in navigating its transition.

As the content and tools developed by REFLOW will eventually be available to other cities beyond the project’s pilots, we avoid using the term “Work Package” in this resource, instead using terms like “element” or “aspect.” The different elements of REFLOW are listed below, as well as their Work Package counterpart:

• Co-Creation Design & Framework (Work Package 1): This WP will design, deliver and evaluate a series of CE practices responding to urgent citizen and business needs. It will shape and facilitate the people-centred approach at the basis of the project. The aim of this WP is also the alignment of the distributed ledger infrastructure (WP2), circular engineering practices (WP3) and governance and urban planning (WP4) into an overarching activity of business model ideation and prototyping.

• Technical Infrastructure & Softwares (Work Package 2): The integration of new technological solutions to facilitate the circulation of data and resources;

• Creating & Managing Circular Flows (Work Package 3): A sound material management approach to map, identify and redirect circular material flows;

• Collaborative Governance & Urban Strategies (Work Package 4): A set of new practices to redesign governance models towards more collaborative and distributed public-private-people alliances;

• Pilots Framework (Work Package 5): A structure that acts both as a tool and as a dashboard. It aligns the cities from the understanding of their context, while recording the progress of their journey to discover how to become more circular;

• Capacity Building (Work Package 6): A capacity building set of actions to align the skills and needs of all key involved stakeholders with the vision of the city;

• Communication (Work Package 7): An ongoing communication strategy to inform and engage stakeholders and create a successful narrative of the circular economy transition.

The mainstream linear economy model that has largely influenced contemporary urban development is quickly coming to an end. Signals are popping up relentlessly around us showing that such a model is no longer sustainable, and that radical new forms of organising human activities are urgently needed to make sure the planet survives. Yet, we are barely aware that the way we produce things is a deliberate choice. Alternatives exist and can be intentionally chosen to reduce negative impacts and externalities on natural ecosystems and, in turn, on people and society as a whole.

This handbook-- open, iterative and adaptive just like the cities we imagine-- is designed as a tool to help cities navigate and engage in this transition.

This is an adaptive and adapted version of the REFLOW Handbook. To access the original file delivered to the European Commission, go to:

REFLOW proposes several steps for cities to engage in the transition towards a circular model:

The first step of this transition is to co-develop knowledge on existing collaborative governance approaches in order to assist you in exploring possible CE approaches, practices and strategies according to your city’s context. It covers several points: policy frameworks, learnings from emerging governance strategies within the context of different ‘city concepts’ and visions, and existing toolkits.

This handbook focuses on this first step and seeks to help orient your city with respect to collaborative governance approaches. We often place cities within the context of certain models. Keep in mind that these models are not boundaries, but rather a way to organise and understand the cities and the needs they are responding to. Your own city will likely build on combinations between different concepts: what matters is not which model applies to your city, but rather how the different models can provide relevant and meaningful insights for your own city.

Cities are changing fast, both in Europe and beyond. The topic of sustainable development is now on top of almost all political agendas at different governmental levels, and the objectives of the Agenda 2030 largely underpin ongoing strategies of urban development across European cities. This happens at a time where the disruptive force of the 4th industrial revolution is reinventing everything across society and economy, with unprecedented threats and opportunities.

In this context, over the past few decades city 'visions' and concepts such as the Smart City, the Green City, the Sharing City have emerged - among many others - as attempts to repurpose cities and their functions in their shift towards post-industrial paradigms. Although often entangled in the critics of ‘urban marketing operations’ to scale up the global competition, these concepts signal an overall trajectory where cities are actively engaging with the challenges and opportunities brought about by the current innovation age, and are translating them into identities, strategies and plans of sustainable urban development.

Across these models, not only have we assisted to a shift of attention from urban government to urban governance; well beyond this, we have been generally seeing the acceleration from governance as a means of participation and consensus, to governance as an enabler of co-creation and co-production of the urban fabric.

Collaborative governance, participatory governance, open governance, polycentric governance, distributed governance: definitions are many and may even continue, each highlighting specific aspects in the structure and characteristics of the relationships that underpin the governance system. Yet, all these different definitions seem to depict an overall landscape where traditional public-private governance arrangements are losing terrain, in favour of networks and systems-driven approaches that are better able to account for the growing uncertainty, interdependence and complexity of today’s urban contexts.

In the examples provided below, the reader will discover how cities are experimenting with new forms of collaborative and multi-stakeholder governance across different city 'models'. Although the Reflow project tackles the challenge of the transition to Circular Cities, for the scope of this Handbook we have broadened the horizon to other city concepts and visions. As the Circular City is heavily entwined with broader aspects such as digitalization, sharing economy, servitization, urban regeneration and more, we believe that city 'concepts' such as the Smart City, the Sharing City, the City as a Commons, etc. may all offer precious indications and inspiration for collaborative urban governance in the circular economy. Taken further, we might even argue that an effective transition to the Circular City will require these concepts to blend and integrate each other, configuring holistic and comprehensive strategies and plans that cross-cut across climate, educational, business development, urban planning, smart city and citizens participation policies.

What is this handbook?

This Handbook is a practical resource to assist cities in adopting circular economy strategies focused on co-creation methodologies in a practical, intuitive and easy to implement way. The REFLOW Handbook aims to be a useful guide for information, tools and other types of materials that can support you and your city to start a transition towards a more sustainable, inclusive and thriving city.

The REFLOW handbook will support the pilot cities in Amsterdam, Berlin, Cluj-Napoca, Milan, Paris and Velje-- and the local consortium-- to easily find all the tools necessary to implement the REFLOW methodology developed by the project's consortium partners.

This document is a a living resource, which will be constantly fed by the experimentation and co-creation processes that will be happening throughout the project’s duration.

Why a handbook?

The complexity of urban innovation needs adaptive and dynamic tools for organisations, governments and citizens to be able to test and experiment at different scales - neighborhoods, districts, city scale, peri-urban scale, etc. In a constantly changing reality, we also need tools that are able to adapt and that can provide updated and validated information and resources, in an open source fashion. As such, this Handbook provides both REFLOW’s pilot cities and other interested cities with access to an updated repository of tools, methods and metrics, to embrace the transition towards a more circular and regenerative urban model.

Who is this handbook intented for?

The REFLOW Handbook supports the pilot cities of the project; i.e. Amsterdam, Berlin, Cluj-Napoca, Milan, Paris and Vejle and their local partners. As the project comes to a close, it will also become available to any city interested in transitioning-- or in any step of the transition process-- to a more circular and regenerative city. The Handbook is generally written in a way that is meant to be accessible to a wide range of stakeholders, no matter their background.

How can this handbook be used?

This Handbook currently hosts different insights and possibilities connected to the project’s base elements. The information is meant to inspire pilots and external cities and help them initiate the transition to a more circular and regenerative city. You are encouraged to use this information to develop sound, strategic urban frameworks and action plans to approach the circular economy and then use the Handbook’s forthcoming tools and indicators to evaluate what is relevant or not to your city’s context, adapting frameworks to suit your city’s unique strengths and opportunities.

The Handbook is not planned as a stand-alone resource: it will interact with the different elements and outputs of the project. As the project evolves-- and more insights and tools become available-- this relationship will be further defined. While the current iteration extensively explores urban governance, having a basic overview of each of the project’s elements (see “About the REFLOW Project”) before reading the Handbook in depth will help you contextualise your city and its current status in the transition process. As the elements are highly interdependent and interconnected, being familiar with each one first will help you to link learnings and approaches later on. When reading through and exploring the Handbook’s different insights, we invite you to reflect on your city’s practices and pinpoint which strategies could contribute to reinforcing your own local initiative.

This Handbook is a practical guide conceived to be easily navigated. We have structured the content so that you can read it in consecutive order, or go directly to certain content, depending on where in the transition process your city is. Finally, sections are written in a didactic style to help clearly guide you.

Where will be used?

This Handbook is initially a tool for the six REFLOW pilots for the project duration (2019-2022). Ideally, a city at any point in the transition process will be able to take advantage of this resource.

When will be used?

This is an evolving online version of the Handbook, including basic information for your transition to a circular city. This is an iterative document that can be used and updated both by the pilot cities and other actors outside REFLOW project.

This handbook is based on the Fab City Handbook:

The Circular Economy Action Plan and the overall effort of EU institutions have indeed played a key role in mainstreaming the concept of circular economy in Europe. The majority of EU Member States now have a national strategy or roadmap dedicated to this topic, and Regions are increasingly entwining their Smart Specialization Strategies (RIS3) (European Commission 2014b) with the circular economy. In the context of the ongoing programming period, structural and investment funds, Horizon 2020, the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) and LIFE programme, Interreg Europe, offer important financial resources for investing in the circular economy, with a strong focus on the experimentation of circular approaches in urban and peri-urban contexts.

The circular economy is currently also one of the thematic priorities of the EU Urban Agenda. A specific Thematic Partnership on the Circular Economy (UAPCE) has been launched in 2017, coordinated by the city of Oslo and involving The Hague, Prato, Porto, Kaunas, Flanders Regions, four Member States (Finland, Poland, Slovenia and Greece), the Commission, European Investment Bank and other stakeholders. An Action Plan has been elaborated and approved in 2018 to provide cities with a set of specific actions and recommendations across the three building pillars of the Urban Agenda: better regulation, better funding and better knowledge. The Action Plan mainly focuses on four themes: circular consumption, urban resources management, circular business enablers and drivers, governance.

Although the Plan is considered as an open and in-progress document, a number of specific measures and priority fields of action have been identified, which shall also benefit from post-2020 cohesion policy and its explicit reference to the circular economy. Such measures include revision and improvement in waste legislation, water reuse measures, analysis of regulatory obstacles and drivers for boosting an urban circular bioeconomy, elaboration of a Circular City Funding Guide, preparation of policy options for mainstreaming the circular economy in the post-2020 regulatory framework or set up of a Circular City Portal, among others. Importantly, the Plan also highlights the key role of the sharing or collaborative economy in circular economy initiatives, especially in areas such as circular consumption and CO2 reduction. Lastly, the Plan acknowledges the diversity of urban contexts across Europe, recognizing that the transition to the circular economy is likely to be different in each European city.

Useful links and resources:

In this section, you will be able to access specific resources that may be adapted and tested in your pilot city. Some of these resources were developed for other projects and gathered in this handbook and other were created specifically for REFLOW project.

Whenever new resources (toolkits, methodologies, technology, etc.) will be developed during REFLOW, they will also be included in this section of the handbook for other cities to access them and adapt them to their context.

The Circular Economy is a relatively recent topic within EU policy-making; yet it is already a well established and framed political and investment priority. Under the pressure of massive urbanization and accelerated globalization, the mainstream make-take-dispose linear economy is increasingly showing its own limits, eroding relentlessly the key resources on which we all depend to live and thrive. In this context, over the past few years, the circular economy has been quickly scaling up political agendas and priorities, positioning itself as a viable, alternative economic model which may also meaningfully contribute to many of the 'wicked' challenges of the new millennium.

At the time of its launch in 2014, during the global financial crisis, Europe's 2020 Strategy envisaged a set of programmatic actions that would contribute to smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. In the Strategy's vision, 'growth' is not merely understood in quantitative terms. Rather, it contains substantial qualitative aspects, being based on knowledge and innovation (smart), resource efficiency (sustainable), as well as on social and territorial cohesion (inclusive). Among the seven flagship initiatives of the Strategy, the 'Resource Efficient Europe' already laid down the basis for the circular economy to flourish, as it highlighted the need to shift towards sustainable growth via a ‘resource-efficient, low-carbon economy that decouples growth from the use of resources’ (European Commission 2011). More in particular, resource efficient development is understood as an economy that 'creates more with less, delivering greater value with less input, using resources in a sustainable way and minimising their impacts on the environment' (ibidem).

Few years later, the circular economy started to explicitly inform the European debate. Between 2012 and 2013, the European Resource Efficiency Platform (EREP) issued a Manifesto and policy recommendations to support the transition to a ‘circular, resource-efficient, resilient, as well as socially inclusive and responsible’ (European Commission 2013) economy, as a way to get out of the crisis via a re-industrialization of the European economy. EREP’s recommendations included the promotion of new (service-based) business models, creation of incentives for SMEs, better information on products, creation of shared products, production standards and labellings, awareness-raising initiatives, development of new ‘green’ skills, knowledge and jobs, among others. Also in 2013, the Seventh Environment Action Programme (7th EAP) identified a long term vision by 2050 and specified cities as key contexts for implementing sustainable actions rooted in circular economy's principles.

In 2014, the circular economy made a crucial step ahead within EU policy-making. With the Communication 'Towards a Circular Economy: a zero waste programme for Europe', the European Commission highlighted several barriers preventing circular economy from thriving and proposed a number of specific actions. These spanned from financial support to R&I projects, better use of structural funds, further development of the Ecodesign directive, the Green Public Procurement, the Resource Efficiency Scoreboard, the definition of waste targets, and the support to job creation and skills development via enhanced policy coordination. One year later, these actions turned into a comprehensive and concrete Action Plan for the Circular Economy (European Commission 2015), which largely represents the cornerstone of all actions further developed by the Commission and EU institutions in this field. The 2015 Plan provides detailed proposals for the CE, on the basis of supporting studies which suggested that improving resource efficiency along value chains could reduce overall material inputs by 17–24% by 2030, save up to €630 billion per year for European industry and a potential to boost EU GDP by up to 3.3% by creating new markets, products and jobs. In subsequent years, the Plan has been further sided by and enriched with several legislative proposals which altogether comprise the Circular Economy Package.

The Circular Economy Package is a comprehensive and concrete set of 54 measures that aim at closing the loop of product lifecycle. The Package identifies five priority sectors: plastics, food waste, critical raw materials, construction and demolition, biomass & bio-based products. For each of them, specific targets and a monitoring framework on the national and EU level. The Package has a strong focus on innovation and investment, and heavily promotes cooperation between Member States, Regions, municipalities, enterprises, R&I organizations, citizens and all actors that have a stake in the circular economy.

In early 2019, the Commission published a Report on the implementation of the Circular Economy Action Plan. The Report provides an overview of the 54 actions and how they have contributed to the shift towards a circular economy. A transition trend is clearly emerging and ongoing, already creating new jobs and business opportunities, opening new markets and investments, as well as increasing recycling and the demand of recycled materials.

Useful links and resources:

The ‘Smart City’ can be seen as an umbrella concept that essentially describes a shift in ‘urban paradigm’ as propelled by the digital revolution. Although no unique definition exists, the concept of Smart City is usually understood in close connection with digital technologies and their potential to improve, optimise and innovate services, as well as to increase citizens’ quality of life and environmental performance.

Digital experiments in cities are not new; however, more recent and disruptive digital innovations such as Internet of Things, big data, artificial intelligence and distributed ledgers have opened the door to radical new ways for transforming the way we live and experience our cities. Per se, the Smart City points to a holistic city vision, where ‘smartness’ permeates the different components of the urban system. A 2014 study from the European Parliament identified six axes that characterise the smart city: smart economy, smart mobility, smart environment, smart citizens, smart living, and smart governance (European Parliament 2014). From another perspective, at European level the concept of smart city now largely underpins ongoing policies for energy efficiency and climate change, witnessing its strategic application for promoting environmentally sustainable economies and societies. Furthermore, the pervasiveness of the data economy, which largely stands as the bedrock of the smart city, is increasingly at the centre of urban regeneration processes, whether through the (re)creation of intelligent buildings and neighborhoods, or through the creation of innovation districts and hubs for tech start-ups and enterprises.

Becoming a smart city not only requires heavy investments in physical infrastructures and digital assets; more crucially, it demands the capacity to attract high level knowledge capital as well as to enable a vibrant local ecosystem of research and innovation. Boyd Cohen, a smart cities expert, explains the development of smart cities according to three main waves: the tech-driven smart city (or smart city 1.0), which has mainly seen the predominant initiative of tech start-ups and large IT corporations; the municipality-driven smart city (or smart city 2.0), where local governments have started to take an active step to channel ‘smartness’ towards citizens’ needs; and the citizens-led smart city (or Smart City 3.0), where citizens are actively involved and engaged in the co-creation and co-production of solutions, and where the development of smart city strategies goes hand-in-hand with open innovation approaches (Cohen et al. 2017).

However, the concept of smart city has attracted its share of critics and concerns. Examples like the massive installation of cameras in New York City after 9/11, China’s experiments with facial recognition in public spaces, or the recent Toronto Quayside project, all witness the possible, dangerous drift of the smart city towards mass surveillance and control, privacy violations and algorithmic discrimination, posing a major question mark around ‘who’ owns the major assets of the 21st century - i.e. data. Moreover, it is worth recalling here the risks of individualisation brought about by digital technologies, platforms and labour, which may dramatically shrink physical interactions and the demand for public spaces. Echoing Garrett Harding and further on the work developed by Nobel Prize Elinor Ostrom related to the commons, this may turn into the ‘tragedy of the smart city’ that, in the name of efficiency and performance, risks alienating citizens from their own city.

New governance frameworks that demand increasing coordination and cooperation are key enablers for the flourishing of ‘smartness’ in urban environments (Misuraca et al. 2010; Gil-Garcia 2014). ICT-enabled governance could provide all actors with better evidence (i.e. data) to improve decision-making and service delivery, facilitate direct democracy and foster agile and resilience approaches. ‘Smart governance’ is also key to citizen engagement and participation in the co-creation and co-production of services, allowing to shift beyond the more traditional customer-driven approaches (Janssen and Estevez 2013). Cities such as Barcelona and Helsinki have meaningfully engaged with this challenge, developing smart city strategies articulated around core values of data sovereignty, open access and ethical digital standards that also account for the emerging do-it-yourself (DIY) practices of makerspaces and local digital-savvy communities.

Many cities across the globe have articulated Smart City strategies that encompass multiple sectors and urban domains. Reykjavik has been ranked 5th in the 2019 IMD Smart Cities Index, thanks to an innovative environmental smart city strategy on public transportation. Through the online consultation forum ‘Better Reykjavik (2016), the city also fosters citizen engagement and involvement in proposing ideas for service improvement. Paris also emerges as a front runner, with a long term smart city strategy aimed at replacing the entire bus fleet with electric or natural gas vehicles by 2050. London stands as the highest-ranking European city, thanks to a comprehensive strategy that encompasses human capital attraction, mobility, economy, governance, urban planning and international outreach.

The European Commission has also been acting on the forefront of change, supporting member states and regions in developing smart specialisation strategies, as well as via pioneering initiatives such as the European Innovation Partnership on Smart Cities and Communities and the smart-city focus in Horizon 2020.

Explore the Smart City concept:

Explore Barcelona and Warsaw Smart Cities Initiatives:

The collaborative economy, which has rapidly spread across Europe and beyond over the past few years, is the the backbone of the Sharing City. Sharing, swapping, lending, borrowing and leasing-based practices and business models have been popping up as alternatives to traditional ownership of most assets, often leveraging the potential of digital platforms and ubiquitous networks to connect people and mobilise information at a scale and scope never seen before.

Within cities, the sharing economy has indeed found a fertile ground of development. Thanks to the typical relational and assets density of cities, sharing and collaborative-based models have been developing rapidly across different sectors, influencing both production and consumption: shared mobility and housing, new practices of peer to peer and decentralized production, often crystallised in the so-called ‘maker movement’, or new forms of collaborative finance and governance. The sharing economy has contributed to open the way to a new city paradigm, defining new opportunities to rethink services in a more efficient and smart way. Furthermore, well beyond the sole business domain, the sharing economy has often materialised across a variety of citizens-led initiatives (swap markets, urban gardens, social streets, collective management of public buildings, etc.), operating as a viable test-bed for exploring alternative models of management and care of urban assets that also contribute to (re)creating social ties and cohesion, while igniting new forms of social interaction.

Next to narratives and meanings that often tend to polarise the sharing economy between (bad) capital-led monopolies and (good) community-led initiatives, the lack of standards, reliable regulatory frameworks, poor awareness on business models, not to mention the rapidly evolving nature of this phenomenon, make it difficult to implement governance arrangements that fully harvest the innovation potential of the sharing economy. The novelty and ambiguous nature of the sharing economy leaves city governments with complicated questions on how to politically approach the phenomenon (Finckand Ranchordás 2016). The ‘dodgy’ nature of the sharing economy is also the focus of the recent debate about platform cooperativism. Cooperative ownership of platforms is often seen as a possible shield against the risks of monopolies, misuse of personal data, deregulation of labour rights and people farming, brought by some initiatives - often Silicon Valley-based - of sharing economy (Scholz 2014).

Urban governance within the sharing city is indeed crucial. City governments are currently experimenting with different governance approaches, varying from active government-led programmes (e.g. initiating and coordinating public-private partnerships, stimulating experiments and encouraging discussion of where the sharing economy should be heading), to implementing strict regulations to hinder the operations of disruptive commercial sharing platforms (McLaren and Agyeman 2015). Neal Gorenflo (2015) identifies two main paths that characterise the policy-making in the field; one in which the latter may risk to reproduce social hierarchies via profit-oriented approaches (transactional sharing economy), and one that instead attempts to unlock the potential of the sharing economy to promote collective city-making and management of urban commons (transformational sharing economy). In either case, the ‘Sharing City’ approach has contributed to bring attention to new forms of collaborative governance as a strategic means to put forward new structures and spaces for dialogue, decision-making and consensus-building.

Amsterdam, Milan, London, Lisbon are a few examples of cities that have developed specific strategies and policies for the sharing economy, harnessing the potential of platform and sharing-based models to boost the creation of new jobs and enterprises, reduce waste and negative impacts over the environment, strengthen trust-based relationships and promote social innovation. developed by the Municipality, foster the sharing economy as a ground of collective policy-making and social innovation. Amsterdam has been the first European city granted with the label of . strategy recognizes the potential of the sharing economy to create new business, and yet puts strong attention on the need to improve regulation in a way that it ensures a level playing field.

Explore the Sharing City concept:

Explore Milan Sharing City initiative:

In this section, we include some of the resources that have been used in the development of this handbook and were not specifically mentioned throughout its different parts.

As this handbook is a living document, some of these resources may evolve into independent parts or sub-chapters within the structure of this gitbook.

This section provides a series of existing tools and methods that you may use to design, activate and foster the transition to more circular and regenerative urban environments.

We break each tool down into three sections to help you understand and make use of them. The sections cover:

• “What is it?”

• “What is it useful for?”

• And a “Description from the authors.”

Why this library

The tools included in the library represent assets that have been tried and tested in other projects and initiatives. To be included, a tool must be:

• Relevant: the tool supports the REFLOW initiative to assist cities in transitioning to more circular and regenerative models

• Practical: the tool is based on, and offers, practical applications

• Accessible: the writing and graphic style can be understood by large audiences, beyond specialists

• Open: the tool is free and available to anyone interested

So far, REFLOW's Collaborative governance approach is based on the knowledge developed from the research on different city models. However, our hope is that this open and iterative tool will evolve as well, expanding the resources provided according to what we experiment, co-create, test and learn across the multiple aspects of the REFLOW project.

Below, we recap the key points that have emerged from our preliminary research. Each point should be considered when approaching ambitious plans and strategies for the transition to circular and regenerative cities:

• Takeaway 1: The circular economy can go well beyond an economic paradigm rooted in environmental sustainability. It is an opportunity for social regeneration, social cohesion and inclusion, which can open to new socially purposeful activities, jobs and enterprises.

• Takeaway 2: Effective circular strategies and policies at the city level need to embrace the whole spectrum of domains and sectors traditionally governed by cities. As such, cities can be unique testbeds for overcoming ‘silos’ in policy-making and boost inter-departmental collaboration. Equally, they can open to new partnerships and alliances built on public-private-people approaches and governance arrangements.

• Takeaway 3: Citizen engagement in the circular economy is a fundamental element to igniting an inclusive transition and making it thrive. Cities are uniquely positioned to work with local communities in order to create and support a mesh of citizens-led initiatives that, all together, can form a vibrant and self-sustainable environment supporting circular and regenerative practices.

• Takeaway 4: No circular transition can meaningfully happen without creating an enabling regulatory framework. Cities are uniquely positioned to work with local actors in order to understand hindering factors and barriers, and thus to provide informed and aware insights at different governmental levels - with a key focus on the EU level.

• Takeaway 5: Tech innovation can be either directed towards corporate-led transitions, or rather support more inclusive and participatory processes that also contribute to make cities smarter. Distributed ledgers, smart contracts, smart regulations, open data and digital commons are some examples of digital assets that can be used to turn the circular economy into a ground for public value creation.

• Takeaway 6: Governance is not an isolated concept. It interacts with the many different elements of REFLOW-- from technological developments to skill and knowledge building and more-- and in fact depends on their development in order to be successful.

• Takeaway 7: There is no one size fits all solution to governance. The inclusion of different urban models and case studies illustrates the different approaches and best practices that currently exist. However, the idea is not to copy a model or initiative but rather to notice the practices in your own city and adapt the models and initiatives according to your city’s own local context to best meet your needs.

The European Union has a long history of sustaining and supporting sustainable development in urban areas. EU urban policy emerged in 1987 as a response to environment-related concerns, and largely looked at urban areas as contexts of both social and environmental degradation.

Globally, the UN Rio Conference of 1992 - the first Earth Summit ever held - heavily contributed to the shift from understanding cities as sources of major problems, to seeing cities as contexts of meaningful responses. Since then, the topic of sustainable urban development has increasingly informed both the general debate and political agendas across the globe, paving the way to a period of vitality and momentum around the urban matter.

Although urban planning does not fall under the EU policy competence, the topic of territorial development started to shape significantly the European strategies for sustainable development and growth since the 2000s. The Cohesion Policy acts as the main driver for boosting harmonious and homogeneous development in all Member States and regions.

Ever since, growing attention and investment over urban areas across structural and investment funds, has materialised in pioneering initiatives such as URBAN I and URBAN II (1994-2006), the European Capital of Culture, the European Green Capital Award or the Covenant of Mayors. All of them witness the extent to which the urban matter gets more and more recognized as a strategic priority across sectoral policies. Furthermore, the Treaty of Lisbon also contributed to reinforce the territorial dimension of the cohesion policy, calling for development strategies which are able to take into account place-specific needs, strengths and opportunities.

The debate promoted by the European Commission in the context of the 'Cities of Tomorrow' initiative in 2010 has contributed to the development of a true 'European urban policy'. Through a series of workshops and wide stakeholder consultation, the initiative brought about the attention on the key principles and characteristics of a shared 'European' model of sustainable urban development: the city of the future shall be socially advanced and cohesive, highly inclusive and accessible, respectful of diversities, based on democracy, as well as a place of high quality of life and welfare, good housing and services, environmental regeneration, innovation and growth. All these principles earmark the main steps of the European Union project itself, as they take into account both foundational acts such as the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, as well as the progress achieved through urban-related policy acts such as the Leipzig Charter on Sustainable European Cities (2007), the Toledo Declaration on Urban Regeneration (2010), and the Territorial Agenda of the European Union 2020 (2011).

The urban dimension plays a fundamental role in Europe 2020 strategy. Cities are considered strategic contexts for achieving most of the Strategy's ambitious targets for the 2014-2020 programming period. The revised regulation on structural funds foresees that at least 5% of European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) shall address the topic of sustainable urban development, via integrated and holistic actions accounting for multiple economic, social, environmental and demographic challenges that cities have ahead. Programmes such as URBACT III and Urban Innovative Actions (UIA) have been launched to support cross-cities cooperation and development of bold solutions to common problems. Furthermore, initiatives such as the European Innovation Partnership for Smart Cities and Communities (EIP-SCC) and EIT's Knowledge and Innovation Communities (many of them addressing directly the urban dimension) provide cities with the unique opportunity to operate in an international, multi-sectoral community, committed to knowledge sharing and collective capacity-building towards sustainable change. Lastly, we shall not forget the key role played by Horizon 2020's (one of the largest public investment programmes in research and innovation ever) role in driving cities' innovation, with dedicated streams of funding covering a variety of topics and sectors.

The Pact of Amsterdam (European commission 2017b) marks, to date, the most recent effort towards the achievement of a European policy for sustainable urban development. It was born from a series of informal meetings between the Ministers responsible for urban matters, the Commission, other EU institutions and relevant stakeholder organizations and cities' networks. The pact establishes the Urban Agenda for the EU, which kick-started a new period of reflection and action around urban matters, and opened the way to new working methods, rooted heavily in multi-level and polycentric forms of governance. One of the key objectives of the Agenda is to empower cities in playing an active role throughout the development of relevant EU policies, while fostering coordination and collaboration across all governmental levels. This shall in turn contribute to 'better regulation, better funding, better knowledge', as key preconditions for anticipating changes and allowing cities to implement more effective strategies. So far, the Agenda has identified 12 priority themes and built as many Thematic Partnerships (i.e. - 1. Inclusion of migrants and refugees; 2. Air quality; 3. Urban poverty; 5. Housing; 6. Circular economy; 7. Jobs and skills; 8. Climate adaptation; 9. Energy transition; 10. Sustainable use of land and nature-based solutions; 11. Urban mobility; 12. Digital transition). These themes are, in turn, constituted by variable geometries of cities, Member States and stakeholders across Europe. The Partnerships are in charge of developing specific Action Plans for each theme covered, in order to 'analyse challenges and bottlenecks and recommend focused, concrete and implementable actions' (European Commission 2017b).

Partnerships' work will be crucial in informing the next 2021-2027 programming period, as well as in guiding cities towards the achievement of the Agenda 2030 goals. The new cohesion policy will offer enhanced opportunities to cities, empowering local authorities in the management of funds, supporting place and people-based development strategies, international networking and capacity-building, also via a dedicated European Urban Initiative. This initiative will aim at strengthening integrated and participatory approaches to sustainable urban development, providing a stronger link to relevant EU policies, in particular, cohesion policy investments. It will do so by facilitating and supporting cooperation and capacity building of urban actors, innovative actions, knowledge, policy development and communication in the area of sustainable urban development.

Useful links and resources:

Within the ‘City as a Commons’ concept, citizens are making a claim to govern urban resources according to their own rules and norms. As commons, these urban resources fall outside of the public-private dichotomy. Under this approach, the city is understood as a shared resource and all inhabitants are productive commoners, co-constructing the various commons that fit their passions, skills and needs.

The emergence of the city as a commons responds to the modernist urban model, which brought about the transformation of small and public to large and private, displacing the citizen as the owner of the city. Answering to Saskia Sassen's (2015) question “Who owns the city?”, the 'city as commons' approach claims citizens as rightful owners. Citizen cooperation schemes are key to this vision, so that people are able to participate in decision-making processes concerning their environment and the politics that manage it. This model, aligned with other sustainable city approaches, considers the city as a process rather than a fixed system. As the former, the city and its citizens, as well as their needs, are constantly adapting and evolving. The city itself is constantly reformulated to respond to these changes, reinforcing the need for a governance structure that is capable of doing the same.

The emergence of contributory communities around the commons challenges the existing system, including city policy, market strategies and civil society organization and management. The commons constitute a new claim with regard to the exercise of power and on how resources are governed. The 'city as commons' requires: a ‘partner’ city that enables and empowers commons-oriented civic initiatives; generative market forms that sustain the commons and create livelihoods for the contributors; and facilitative types of support from civil society organisations (Bauwens and Niaros 2015). These poly-governance structures of participation and deliberation consist of at least three levels (commons, state and market) but can be even more, as the work of Foster and Iaione (2016) has suggested referring to the ‘quintuple helix’ model.

Many cities in Europe have taken turns towards participatory, commons-oriented policies. Ghent was the first city that attempted crafting an urban commons-focused transition plan on the city level. Bologna is the exemplary case for developing new institutional processes for public-commons partnerships. Barcelona is also significant since, through the En Comú coalition, it illustrated how movement activists can work with political parties to create new platforms that foster greater participation in governance. Further, the case of Frome illustrates how local councils can play a key role in enabling communities to increase their resilience and face their challenges. However, it should be highlighted that there is an increasing number of integrated citizen coalitions that operate in cities with little or no support from local authorities.

Explore the City as Commons concept:

Explore Bologna and Ghent City as Commons initiatives:

The ‘Green City’ understands the urban environment as a living ecosystem and considers environmental sustainability as a key precondition for just and thriving societies. Energy efficiency and environmental performance are the main pillars of the Green City, which are generally articulated across goals of CO2 emissions and municipal waste reduction, shift to renewable energy, promotion of biodiversity and support to more environmentally-friendly production and consumption modes and lifestyles.

The concept of the ‘Green City’ - often referred to as ‘Eco-city’ - is certainly not new in Europe, as it is largely rooted in the broader debate of sustainable urban development that has characterized EU policy-making for at least two decades. Green cities’ strategies, developed across fields such as urban mobility, real estate and property development, waste management and utilities, are often oriented to 'greening the built environment, preserving, restoring and regenerating natural ecosystems. Policies and plans range from urban forestation, green façading, buildings retrofitting and urban gardening to practices of , green financing and eco-friendly labeling.

Importantly, the green city is also acknowledged in its potential to support and boost the green economy, operating as a viable testbed for the emergence of new enterprises and jobs that are intentionally directed towards decoupling growth from the use of natural resources, while reducing social and health disparities that often affect poor and marginalized communities in urban contexts (CSIR 2014). Furthermore, green city strategies include resilience-oriented interventions. These aim at improving cities' adaptation to climate change by mitigating its risks in relation to issues such as increase in precipitation, flooding and heating phenomena and their effects over vulnerable categories such as children and the elderly.

The topic of governance in green cities has a number of challenges and opportunities ahead. How can climate-related policies and plans be framed, communicated, funded, monitored and assessed in a way that they prove to be much more than an investment with no or weak returns? A poor and limited awareness of climate and environment-related issues across society often hinders consensus and decision-making, and may decrease the ambition of policies and plans to objectives and actions that do not really tackle the scope and scale of the problems we face. Benefits on domains such as preventative health, jobs and enterprise opportunities or reduced pressure over social services are often not or poorly considered. This factor has at least two major consequences: on the one hand, the missed opportunity to shape new markets and mobilise businesses towards viable, eco-friendly services and products; on the other, the difficulty (often a structural limit) to pool financial resources from different city (and in turn regional and national) departments around a unique, cross-cutting strategy. This often results in complementary sources of funding, e.g. crowdfunding, corporate social responsibility (CSR) or sponsorship. Paradoxically, these complementary sources often become a ground of conflict and misunderstanding between the Municipality and citizens, who might perceive such attempts as a step back of the public authority from its key responsibilities. Indeed, this latter point also calls for a general need of cities to develop new, more engaging and comprehensive narratives around green and climate-related policies, making them attractive for the entire array of actors who can both contribute to and benefit from them.

The European Commission has been active in promoting the development of green cities for at least two decades. The , the or the establishment of the European Green Capital Prize and European Green Leaf Award are some examples of how the Commission is supporting cities in developing urban strategies of ‘living well, within the limits of the planet’. The European Green Capital Prize - launched in 2008 and awarding, over the years, forefront eco-friendly cities such as Stockholm, Copenhagen, Nantes, Bristol, Ljubljana and, the most recent, Oslo - has played a key role in providing cities with a clear and wide set of both quantitative and qualitative indicators to develop, monitor and assess their green development strategies. These indicators span local contribution to climate change, noise, green urban areas, water waste treatment, eco-innovation and sustainable employment, energy performance, among others.

A vibrant movement of green cities is currently underway both across Europe and beyond; Copenhagen has been awarded several times for its eco-credentials, presenting one of the most developed cycling infrastructures across Europe, also contributing to unlock a micro economy of cyclers-related services. Oslo's commitment to prioritizing people over cars and lowering fossil fuel emissions has earned it the title of European Green Capital 2019. The city has been extremely successful in supporting public transportation usage, as well as in pushing the shift towards electric vehicles. Amsterdam also stands as one of the most bicycle-friendly cities in the world, and is often recalled as ‘hosting more bicycles than people’. Essen, located in Germany’s Ruhr valley, has proven successful in regenerating its coal and steel-based town into one of the greenest cities in the world, also leveraging culture and creativity - with the creation of cultural hubs and districts - to repurpose the city's identity in the broader post-industrial shift. Prato, a city well known across Italy and beyond for its textile district, is currently championing the ‘green transition’ in the country, with a complex and structured plan that combines green façading of public buildings, massive urban forestation and district-based circular practices to drive the city towards sustainable, healthier and thriving urban environments. Interestingly, the city is now working in close collaboration with Universities and research centres to develop a comprehensive monitoring and evaluation plan able to capture the multiple benefits stemming from green and circular interventions, well beyond the sole environmental performance.

Explore the Green City concept:

Explore Oslo and Copenhagen Green City initiatives:

is a global initiative supporting the development of locally productive and globally connected self-sufficient cities. At its core, the Fab City concept aims to change the way cities produce and use materials and resources by shifting from a ‘Products in Trash Out’ (PITO) model to a ‘Data in Data Out’ (DIDO) model. On the one hand, this is translated into more production taken place inside the city and more recycled materials, adding value in every new product iteration and meeting local needs through local inventiveness. On the other, the city’s imports and exports are dealt as data (information, knowledge, design and code). The DIDO model is not circular but spiral: materials flow inside cities, while information on how things are made circulates globally.

The Fab City project was first launched in 2011 at the conference in Lima by the , the , the and the . This initiative is open for cities, towns or communities to collectively build a more human and livable new world, joining the Barcelona pledge: a countdown for cities to become self-sufficient by 2054. It currently includes 34 cities across the globe.

In response to top-down and exclusive policies, Fab City emerged to create inclusive, holistic, and bottom-up open source solutions to meet the complex needs of the contemporary city. Fab Cities are co-designed collectively through an inclusive and equitable , engaging and empowering all citizens to create change. The process of co-creation and co-design is based on the (Diez 2018), which engages stakeholders across all levels of practice. To ensure inclusiveness, technology that supports the creation of the Fab City is people-centered and uses the Digital Commons Approach. In a Digital Commons Approach, information and technology used to create the city is both open source and open access. In contrast to policies and practices that are marked by theoretical, hands-off approaches, the Fab City tests research through a prototyping process. This innovative experimentation process uses pilots in order to prototype, test and develop solutions, which involve new relationships between stakeholders. Prototyping takes place in experimentation sites, which range from neighbourhoods to cities to whole regions, and are supported by the global Fab Lab Network and includes an international think tank of civic leaders, makers, urbanists and innovators. The Fab City initiative has an specific focus on including, collaborating with and supporting small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), a group that has faced large barriers to participating in more traditional Circular Economy initiatives.

The governance structure of the Fab City Global Initiative (FCGI) comprises the Fab City Network, organisations and public bodies (cities), and the Fab City Collective, which is composed by action researchers from different groups of the Fab City Full Stack model. Together, the FCGI members operate across the multiple levels of full-stack approach to change the mainstream urban paradigm. By means of the distributed Full Stack approach, the aim is to strengthen new collaborations between the government and citizens.

An Advanced Manufacturing Ecosystem of urban solutions from citizens, companies, educational institutions, and governments shapes options for governance, regulatory, funding and other policy responses at city level. Barcelona’s Poblenou district works as a Fab City prototype. The neighborhood, which is considered as the city’s maker district, follows a model of resilience where citizens are empowered through access to digital fabrication tools, collaborative projects and knowledge. In Poblenou, digital social innovation is fostered through the use of open technologies, which aim at transforming the district into a collaborative, democratic, inclusive and creative area for local innovation. The ecosystem is composed by a strong network of workshops, maker spaces, Fab Labs, universities, research institutions, restaurants, businesses and active social movements.

Learn more about the Fab City concept:

Explore Paris Fab City initiative:

What is it?

The Circular Design Guide is a collaboration between and , which offers circular innovation methods as well as interviews with designers, creative exercises and worksheets, case studies and links to technical tools.

What is it useful for?

• Understanding circular flows

• Engaging organizations

• Learning about design thinking practices to circularity

• Circular business models

• Regenerative thinking

• Materials mapping

• Digital systems

Description from Authors:

This guide is a free online resource that aims to raise awareness of the circular economy, nurture a “systems perspective,” and share practical innovation methods.

It includes 24 methods, grouped in into four areas, loosely aligned with the flow of a circular design process: Understand, Define, Make, Release. The methods include introductions (“Understand Circular Flows”) and helpful techniques for those struggling to engage their organization (“Circular Buy-In”). Some adapt traditional design thinking practices to circularity (“User-Centered Research,” “Rapid Prototyping,” “Circular Business Model”), while others—such as “Service Flip” and “Imagine New Partnerships”—have been created specifically. Wild-card methods—including “Learn from Nature” and “Regenerative Thinking”—are designed to inspire readers.

‌The Circular Design Guide is packed with extras: interviews with designers; worksheets for each method; illustrative, inspiring circular innovation case studies; and links for helpful technical tools, such as material selection

Useful links and resources:

What is it?

The PSS toolkit is part of the TURAS program (supported by the Seventh Framework Programme of the EU). The toolkit development was led by Brussels Environment, Ecores, Groupe One, Strategic Design Scenarios and Egerie Research. The aim was to explore new hybrid-combinations between products and services systems in order to develop new creative and sustainable business opportunities (both economically viable and creating new jobs) for the Brussels-Capital Region.

As part of the TURAS project, a methodological Toolkit to facilitate the development of innovative Business Models in a sustainable city context has been developed and tested.

The particular feature of the Toolkit is that it offers a combination of a territorial approach and individual business support. In the methodological process, the first step (Phases 1 to 4) ensures synergy and complementarity between the territory and the users (public authorities, non-profit making organisations, residents and businesses) through the co-creation of innovative business models. The second step (Phase 5), meanwhile, provides individual support for the business in order to develop the idea of the innovative business into an appropriate economic model, after, in particular, being confronted with the real world via the “reality check”.

What is it useful for?

• to set up a “benevolent ecosystem” made up of a wider circle of indirectly involved players (owners of other related projects, indirect stakeholders, public or private financial backers, etc.) capable of directing, advising, synergising, disseminating and communicating the project under development;

• to identify a set of strategic challenges which can integrate the functional economy model in an appropriate way and facilitate the transition to a sustainable and resilient city;

• to identify/develop the business models which are not based on individual ownership but which, instead, highlight access, alternative use, sharing, etc.

Description from Authors:

The methodology proposed is structured around an approach which is firstly territorial and then followed by an individualised approach towards the project owners and businesses.

The territorial approach provides:

• Entrenchment in a local context, making it possible to create solutions which meet the needs and expectations of the territory’s users (public authorities, residents, businesses, associations, etc.)

• A pooling effect (collective coaching, peer-to-peer exchange of experience, grouped dissemination, etc.) and a synergy effect (hybridisation between innovations, communication on all the initiatives in addition to individual communication, etc.).

The owner/initiator of the process can be a territorial authority (region, municipality, town, etc.) or a structure which represents businesses (e.g. chamber of commerce). All the ideas generated must feed a “pool of ideas”. In addition to the ideas exploited (meeting with an owner, suitable marketing window, etc.), all the ideas must be retained (open collaborative platform), firstly, to stimulate the territorial process and, secondly, to encounter other opportunities for them to be put into practice (new owners, marketing window).

The individualised “reality check” tools are the opposite of traditional consultancy/ tutoring: they are stimulating (owners authorised to carry out a participative co-design development: consultants as process facilitators) and directed towards experimentation (rapid simulation of solutions; full-scale trials; modelling used as the first stage of launch, etc.).

The methodology is presented in the form of various key phases (Phases 1 to 5) represented in the diagram below).

Useful links and resources:

In setting the boundaries of the REFLOW Collaborative Governance framework, our reflections have been rotating around the concept of infrastructuring, understood as ‘the socio-technical scaffolding around which organizational and personal collaborative networks and relationships are built, including the ways of working, structures, artifacts, activities and attitudes that contribute to creating a supportive framework for both present and future collaboration’ (Thorpe and Manzini 2018). This concept is particularly useful as it may help frame and design collaborative governance arrangements that, while coordinating and organizing actors, assets and resources around pre-identified goals and paths of change, leaves the space open to new initiatives and projects to emerge and feeding into the system over time. In other terms, our interpretative lens of collaborative governance goes towards the definition of a loose coordination framework that organizes collaboration across three main dimensions or layers of infrastructuring - strategic, operational and relational -, these interacting continuously with each other and contributing to forming the actual shape of the social, cultural and economic fabric of the city. When it comes to creating a circular and regenerative city, this framework can help organize, activate and coordinate not only those key resources that are deemed essential to kickstart the transition - and which might be articulated via a more top-down approach led by Municipalities -, but it can rather account for the constellation of all those projects - often citizens-led and bottom-up - that can meaningfully contribute to the transition itself. Therefore, this framework largely looks at collaborative governance as a means for inclusive and participatory circular economy in urban contexts, leveraging all assets and strengths that may exist in cities. Moreover, the framework attempts to take into account the processual dimension of urban governance, concentrating not only on how the three layers entrench and mutually reinforce each other, but also depicting an open-ended design process that embeds learning by doing as a means to improve scale and scope of collaboration over time.

The framework is depicted as a pie chart where the segments reflect the different sectors traditionally governed by cities, while the three concentric circles describe the three layers of the infrastructuring action:

• Strategic: which starts from recognizing a set of external drivers, and further translates them into a strategic vision and roadmap;

• Operational: which covers all the various operations and tools - regulatory, economic, tech and knowledge assets, etc. - that help turn vision and roadmaps into concrete actions;

• Relational: which covers softer elements such as awareness, values, trust, capacity-building, and that can also be seen as the outcomes stemming from the articulation and deployment of the two previous layers.

The spiral describes instead the process of going through the three layers as an open-ended process, adopting an overall iterative method that, in line with the REFLOW approach, uses ‘portfolio experiments’. These are in turn conceived as small scale experiments that allow to test circular initiatives in one or more sectors, and further expand and scale them up at every iteration. The spiral also reflects an open-ended process directed towards expanding the level and scope of collaboration at every iteration, onboarding new actors over time, deploying new activities for different audiences and/or allowing new initiatives that emerge from the bottom to plug-in in the system. So conceived, this framework may serve as a general map for Cities to organize a clear, yet flexible transition root, as well as a ‘checklist’ to make sure that all ingredients for an effective transition to circular and regenerative cities are considered and actively explored.

Current Limitations and Future Work

This framework shall be considered as preliminary and not exhaustive of all the dimensions that might be relevant in terms of urban governance and collaborative governance for the circular transition. Moreover, the framework does not provide any indications in terms of how collaborative governance can look like as a whole, and how it can develop across the three layers identified. Instead, it limits itself to set a starting boundary of dimensions that may turn out to be key when designing collaborative governance frameworks.

Indeed, collaboration can take plenty of forms, and be developed according to different goals. As we have generally seen across the different city concepts presented in the previous section, collaboration can range along a spectrum which goes from service efficiency and governments’ better performance, towards unlocking collective intelligence and capacity to respond to shared problems and issues. It can happen through bridging and connecting actors via more formal arrangements such as public-private partnerships, or by building on soft processes of ‘engineered serendipity’ in self-organization and self-coordination. Accordingly, every dimension identified within each layer - technology, regulation, vision, narrative, etc. - can be approached with different levels of intensity, depending on the level and scope of the collaboration that we aim to achieve and - all in all - according to which ultimate city vision. Exploring and defining the actual shape of collaborative governance across the three layers and their own dimensions (with the new ones that may emerge as the project evolves) is exactly the next step of our work, which will require close cooperation with the REFLOW pilot cities.

To help you, tips and recommendations are organized and described according to the three layers of infrastructuring. For each of them, we provide concrete examples stemming from the case studies, in order to facilitate exchange of practices and approaches, and foster reflection around opportunities and room for transferability. Similarly to the framework described above, the indications that follow should be considered as preliminary and not exhaustive of the complex array of factors that may characterize urban governance per se, and its role in enabling the transition to circular cities. For now, such indications shall serve a starting ground for conversation and reflection for the REFLOW pilot cities, coherently with the current design stage of the project. In the course of the project development, we will have the chance to collaboratively explore and ‘test’ some or all the indications provided below, in order to improve and make them tailored to the concrete challenges, barriers and opportunities that REFLOW cities face.

What is it?

​Make Works’ supports mapping local ecosystems and aim to make local manufacturing openly accessible. An open access factory finder, Make Works source manufacturers, makers, material suppliers and workshops. The online platform allows designers, makers, artists, engineers, entrepreneurs, micro-businesses and everyone that wants to, to search for listings in their local area so that they can find someone who can assist them to create, build or repair physical things. We want to support small scale, local manufacturing, or distributed manufacturing, as an alternative to the consumption of mass manufactured products.

Make Works thinks that the information gathered should be open and accessible, connecting people directly to making and repairing things, democratising access to production and investing in local economies, skills and community. Their philosophy is to open up manufacturing and make local, sustainable production accessible for everyone.

What is it useful for?

• map local ecosystems and source local manufactures, workshops and materials

• small scale production networks

• environmentally sustainable systems for the future

• accessible information about manufactures to inspire to make, build, create and repair things in the world.

• set incentives for conscious decisions about consumption habits

• improve quality and integrity of design and understand how to source materials and production processes

Description from Authors:

Make Works builds small scale production networks to help developing environmentally sustainable systems for the future. From distributed production reducing the carbon emissions released in transportation and shipping; supporting local, resilient economies; through to providing communities with access to tools and skills needed to repair existing things. On a practical level, simply source local manufacturers, craftspeople, workshops and materials. Create accessible information about manufacturers to inspire people to make, build, create and repair things in the world. Give citizens access to information about manufacturing means they can make more conscious decisions about their consumption habits. Improve the quality and integrity of what can be designed and made by understanding the materials and production processes used. Allow businesses to take more responsibility for the working conditions and the environment that any manufacturing they commission locally affects.

REFLOW Pilots are highly recommended to become a Make Works Region!

Learn how to do it:

The first step is filling the online template with basic inputs for the region home page at the Make Works website, or alternatively you can get in contact with [email protected].

Useful links and resources:

Fab Labs and makerspaces are key to REFLOW because they are active prototyping communities: the spaces host makers that are constantly working to develop, test, improve and scale practical solutions.

Fab Labs & makerspaces also have the advantage that they play host to a wide variety of stakeholders from many different backgrounds. A mix of actors enables more opportunities to look at issues holistically as well as from a whole new perspective. As our work on REFLOW is about changing the status quo, being able to approach the issues facing pilots from a new perspective is essential.

Lastly, Fab Labs and Makerspaces specifically empower and provide tools to citizens and entrepreneurs and often have connections to local governance structures. REFLOW targets each of these groups, making Fab Labs and Makerspaces a great place to start searching for and developing community partners and support.

How you can find Fab Labs & makerspaces

They're everywhere, but unfortunately not one unique database that incl. Here are some helpful tools to find your local Fab Labs & makerspaces.

What is it?

The Systemic Design Toolkit was officially launched at the RSD7 conference in Turin by a collaboration between Namahn and shiftN. This toolkit provides a set of systems and design thinking tools to support a coherent, but flexible and collaborative process to understand complex problems and design more viable alternatives.

What is it useful for?

• Identifying leverage points

• Applying participatory tools

• Co-creation of solutions with different stakeholders (from government to private organisations)

• Create alignment among different ideas

• Creating visualizations tools and prototyping

Description from Authors:

The toolkit was developed from the understanding that the current society is in the midst of a fundamental shift where the conventional ways of problem solving don’t work anymore. In this sense, this toolkit provides step by step and hands-on tools to analyze complex challenges and co-create systemic solutions following seven main steps:

Framing the system

Setting the boundaries of your system in space and time and identifying the hypothetical parts and relationships.

Listening to the system

Listening to the experiences of people and discovering how the interactions lead to the system’s behaviour. Verifying the initial hypotheses.

Understanding the system

Seeing how the variables and interactions influence the dynamics and emergent behaviour. Identifying the leverage points to work with.

Defining the desired future

Helping the stakeholders articulate the common desired future and the intended value creation.

Exploring the possibility space

Exploring possible ideas for intervening on the leverage points. Empowering the ideas by working with the paradoxes in the system.

Designing the intervention model

Defining the engine for change and its variations. Iterating by envisioning its implementation in different contexts.

Fostering the transition

Defining how the interventions will mature, grow and finally be adopted in the system.

Useful links and resources:

Essential 1 | Build a shared definition and narrative around your circular city vision

Working on a shared definition of what the circular economy is and how it might look like is fundamental to boost common understanding and coherence in goals and actions. Cities are uniquely positioned to ‘test’ official definitions in their everyday operations, and to eventually enrich them according to their strengths and opportunities. Cities that have developed frontrunner circular economy plans have often gone through structured participatory processes, which have involved a wide array of non-governmental actors in the definition and design of the plans themselves, and hence in a shared construction of meaning and understanding. Moreover, the definition of an engaging narrative that is accessible and attractive for different stakeholders also appears as a crucial factor. In this respect, cities should develop narratives that go beyond the understanding of the circular economy purely in terms of waste management and environmental management perspective. New market potentials, new enterprises and new jobs are opportunities also brought by circular economies. They should be stated clearly through partnerships with local incubators, co-working, makerspaces and innovation labs that could help reach young people and startups. Moreover, circular economy can as well be a booster for new, more sustainable lifestyles, thus offering the opportunity to develop specific services such as swapping corners in neighborhoods, repair cafés, peer to peer initiatives for food waste reduction, among others.

Examples from the city models:

• has largely made use of a combination of round tables, workshops, seminars, online surveys and multi-disciplinary advisory groups, in order to combine both expert contribution and citizens’ inputs. These activities have been implemented over two years, showing the importance to give enough time to wide mobilization and engagement.

• has been developed via leveraging a number of thematic living labs (in turn managed through public-private partnerships) where each living lab has operated as a sub-community, exploring the specific challenges and opportunities related to the specific topic of reference (ex. Regulation, etc.), and convening multiple actors.

• has put strong attention on the creation of engaging narratives, attempting to target in particular young people and using languages and meanings that focus on sustainable and green lifestyles as ‘cool’ ones. This has also contributed to create micro economies of services and spaces in the City dedicated to this topic.

Essential 2 | Design holistic and multi-thematic strategies

The achievement of circular cities cannot happen without specific plans and strategies that account for its complexity and the need to articulate over long terms. Yet, isolated circular strategies may not be able to encompass the scale and scope of the circular challenge at the city level. Successful circular strategies are often articulated, blent and combined in long-term city visions with concepts such as sharing, resilient, creative or green cities.

This also reflects the need to drive city departments towards common objectives and hence increased integration, as a means to make the most of pooling of financial resources and thematic expertise. Indeed, this point also recalls the major challenge of organizational redesign and innovation that local governments face in order to become more flexible and adaptable.

Examples from the city models:

• is a fundamental pillar of the broader Smart City strategy. The approach used by the Municipality – which is typical of its general policy making approach – is a ‘soft’ one, where a set of loose guidelines are provided in order to mobilize and activate the entire social and economic fabric of the city, going beyond a sectoral perspective. Moreover, the City is making a strong effort in mapping local initiatives and projects on a constant basis, and to facilitate networking and connection via provisioning of open databases and catalogues that foster information and awareness.

• As a joint effort of three Brussels’ Ministers, is a concrete example that drives the circular economy well beyond the sole waste management and environmental domain, setting goals that span across business-related and capacity-building areas. In the attempt to go beyond in silos development, the Programme builds on a sound public-private governance framework, which makes use of multidisciplinary groups that involve actors from different sectors and domains.

Essential 3 | Articulate circular city strategies with a circular hotspot approach

The deployment of the circular city is often approached via a hierarchy of intervention scales from the neighborhood to the metropolitan area. However, a viable circular economy can emerge only when these scales are nested.

In , the first evaluation of the regional circular economy programme highlighted the need to territorialise the strategy through a Hotspot approach. Territorialising circular economy from emblematic places can play the role of catalyst to scale up the territorial deployment of the circular economy. A circular economy hotspot can then be defined as a relatively small perimeter (a wasteland or large plot, a neighborhood) that plays the role of strategic node in the spatial organization of current or future physical flows of the larger urban system. The hotspot approach provides several advantages: It makes it possible to territorialize the deployment of the circular economy, but without confining it to a restricted area; furthermore, the reflection on the trajectory of the hotspot can then integrate larger scales by addressing issues of market opportunities, the scale of markets, the extent of the loops for identified flows, the presence of regional actors for the operationalisation of solutions. The hotspot approach is a way of anchoring the deployment within a concrete perimeter while leaving the possibility that its activation will expand to wider or extra-regional territories. The hotspot approach also makes it possible to measure circular economy in a more anchored and less abstract way than a theoretical reflection for the whole city. The concrete case of a hotspot can facilitate the emergence of relevant indicators and the formulation of quantified objectives. The territorialisation of the circular economy from a hotspot perspective inevitably mobilises other actors who are not yet directly affected by the transition to the circular economy in municipalities, neighborhoods and regional administrations. By working with them on the deployment of a concrete hotspot, this measure is then a way to "colonize" other areas of public action, including that of urban projects.

Essential 4 | Set in place clear and flexible roadmaps

Defining specific, although flexible, roadmaps is of fundamental importance in order to coordinate all actors that have a stake in the circular economy. It is also key to facilitate pooling of both material and immaterial assets (i.e. knowledge and financial resources, in the first instance). Effective strategies and plans for sustainable urban development are often structured across measurable objectives, and endowed with evaluation frameworks that build on a specific set of pre-identified indicators. Nonetheless, keeping plans and roadmaps open to ongoing revision and adaptation also emerges as a ‘must’, in order to foster 'learning by doing' dynamics.

Examples from the city models:

• has been built based on a number of both strategic and operational objectives that encompass the vision of the City by 2030. In turn, these objectives are implemented across a number of programmes that work in synchrony, and that follow cross-cutting, yet general, indicators. Periodically, the Strategy is subjected to collective evaluation, in order to adjust and improve it based on evidence.

• and are both based on clear targets associated to different strands of activities. Nonetheless, the implementation of the Plans is subjected to constant monitoring and evaluation, with collective moments of discussion and exchange that are used to eventually adjust annual milestones and targets.

• has been adopting a strong ‘discovery’ approach in the implementation of the Pacts of Collaboration. This has allowed the City to remain alert to new opportunities, relying on a flexible governance structure that has made strong use of neighboring assemblies and participatory budget.

What is it?

A toolkit based on the EU funded research project Making Sense, that developed activities of participatory and citizens sensing by leveraging on open hardware/software technologies, engaging communities of interest and practice on environmental issues in three European cities (Barcelona, Amsterdam and Prishtina).

Making Sense harnesses the increase in popularity of maker spaces and fab labs which work on the principle of open source hardware, software and design. Making Sense is a good example of citizen-driven innovation - working with the sensing platform Smart Citizen. The data gathered from the Making Sense toolkits is now used to inform a methodological framework for participatory environmental practices, a concrete positive behaviour change.

What is it useful for?

• collective awareness of local communities

• community engagement and co-creation

• identification of critical environmental issues: air, water, soil and sound pollution

• hands-on transformation of the (urban) environment

Description from Authors:

The key stages of activity are described with their corresponding set of cross-cutting principles. These stages and principles are specifically geared towards projects aimed at supporting community action.The stages of the framework provides an idea of who is involved at which point, what usually happens at that time, and key objectives or milestones to be achieved at each stage. Alongside these stages, principles are defined which lie at the heart of this process, and these should be used as a guide for participants at any stage, and for citizen sensing as a whole. These principles are co-creation; empowerment; openness; and changemaking.

Toolkit

‌1. Scoping

Important issues are discovered, mapped and discussed by the key participants. Information is gathered by internet searches; collecting articles, news reports and literature; or by conducting surveys and interviews. At this time existing communities are found and new ones start to form.

TOOLS: Geographical mapping, commons mapping, collaboration pilot schedule

2. Community building

All participants to come to a shared understanding of the issue, the goals of the campaign, the organisation of the project and how to document activities The skills of the participants are identified and new skills are developed. Additionally, other stakeholder are brought on board if there are any skills or expertise missing.

TOOLS: Onboarding, empathy timeline, recruitment

3. Planning

Participants decide collectively on the project goals, on sensing strategies and on protocols for collecting data. This includes a plan for collecting other types of indicators. It is when the sensing tools are created or developed from existing resources and are tested and calibrated.

TOOLS: Community level indicators, sensing strategy canvas, calibration, targeted measurements

4. Sensing

Everyone collects data on the issue i.e. environmental pollution. The data can be uploaded to a publicly accessible online platform. Participants can also take notes and record observations about how their lives are affected by the issue. Collecting these indicators can support the sensor data and be used to demonstrate the impacts to external individuals and government officials.

TOOLS: Sensing guides, data journals, operation manual, open hardware

5. Awareness

Using all the data and complementary indicators gathered during the sensing phase, the information is analysed and discussed amongst the community. The aim is to build a collective awareness from the data. The analysis stage can include activities such as data visualisation, and people from professional science or academia.

TOOLS: Awareness sheet, data discussion sheet, data dashboard

‌6. Action

After the issues have been identified, participants work together to propose courses of action. The aim is to devise, organise and deliver an action, or series of actions, that can generate recognition of the issue, make an impact and make change. Actions can range from an individual change to public-facing activities (e.g. a protest) aimed at widening awareness, or even policy change.

TOOLS: Digital presence, future news paper, co-creation assemblies

7. Reflection

Participants reflect on the process to date, and consider what worked well and what could be improved. This can include looking at the data and seeing if there was change as a result of the action. This might require the participants to repeat stages, or return to previous phases.

TOOLS: Questionnaires, pilot appraisal, graduation ceremony

8. Legacy

A legacy is created by looking towards the future of the project and making a plan for lasting impact. Plans for sharing information and news should be included to ensure that the project is sustainable, the project’s tools are being reused, and uptake continues.

TOOLS: Storylines, next generation training

Useful links and resources:

According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (2017) “a circular city embeds the principles of a circular economy across all its functions, establishing an urban system that is regenerative, accessible and abundant by design”. Translated into practical objectives, circular cities need to be upheld by a set of interconnected pillars (Metabolic 2017):

• Materials are incorporated into the economy in such a way that they can be cycled at continuous high value.

• All energy is based on renewable sources.

• Biodiversity is structurally supported and enhanced through all human activities.

• Human society and culture are preserved.

• The health and well being of humans and other species are structurally supported.

• Human activities generate value in measures beyond just financial.

• Water is extracted at a sustainable rate and resource recovery is maximized.

Cities’ interest in circular solutions is driven by a set of global trends (WEF 2018). As a result of urban expansion, on the one hand, more and more resources are demanded to accommodate greater activity, infrastructure and population; and on the other, current waste disposal and management practices (landfills, incineration, etc.) affect ecosystems greatly, fostering land degradation, loss of biodiversity and increasing pollution. Circular practices and material flows can thus mitigate this situation by developing trade for input components.

Cities are embedded both in a natural and human-built environment. These relationships influence greatly its circular potential. The rigidity of an existing infrastructure (due to adaptation cost and socio-technical lock-in) can reduce the adaptive capacity of a city. For example, it is timely and costly to adapt highly centralized energy grid systems to decentralized energy systems based on renewable energy or waste (Williams 2017).

Circular economy demands a paradigmatic shift towards a new economic system with (nearly) zero waste. This includes value chains in all sectors of the economy, demanding a wide multi-sectorial economic development perspective.

From a business perspective, higher demands for accountability and reputational threats derived from an adverse economic footprint make companies increasingly aware of the need for change. Including circular economy principles in their business models provide them with opportunities to redefine value creation beyond a financial perspective.

From a citizen perspective, hyper-consumerism has resulted in products being disposed of before their full value is extracted, increasing pressure on waste-removal processes. This trend can be mitigated by new circular models (e.g. product as a service, collaborative consumption) in which users take a more central role in creating value. Experimentation with such models in mobility or the hospitality sector is increasing interest in their applicability to other areas.

From a government perspective, the emergence of technological platforms is enabling circular economy principles to be applied on a larger scale by improving access to information, management of materials, tracking and logistics, transparency and accountability and facilitating deployment of innovative circular solutions. As more than 80% of global GDP is generated in cities, urban areas are indeed an ideal testing ground for circular economy models. The pragmatism and physical proximity in cities makes it easier to implement policy changes than at the national level, where bureaucratic structures and legislative timelines can hamper institutionalizing novel circular concepts. Cities can indeed be more agile and adaptive when implementing pilot initiatives, allowing them to stimulate change faster.

The confluence of business, citizens and government stakeholders in cities creates an opportunity to introduce new practices, such as reverse logistics, material collection, waste processing, energy and natural resource conservation or new business models and product design that incorporate circular thinking. For instance, as technical and biological ‘nutrients’ become aggregated within city boundaries, they can be found in quantities worth harnessing through urban mining (Li, 2015), thus becoming sources of new value creation. Additionally, as stakeholders are geographically close, this in itself can facilitate collaboration to close resource loops.

At a theoretical level, circular economy models and frameworks that have emerged recently in literature (Lieder and Rashid 2016; Braungart and McDonough 2009; Stahel 2010; Bocken et al. 2015) are very specific in scope, largely conceptual and generally targeted at the micro (e.g.: product design, Bakker et al. 2014) or meso-level (e.g.: buildings, Pomponi and Moncaster 2017). These frameworks often lack transferability to a macro-level. The conceptual nature of circular principles and the often diverse views on circular economy makes it difficult to translate circular frameworks into every day practices. Furthermore, current cultural norms challenge the transition to a post-material circular society, opposing to some of its fundamental principles, such as environmental protection, inter-generational equity, co-operation or cultural localism. Materialism and consumerism create cultural barriers to the effective implementation of circularity (Williams 2017).

The support of the public sector is nevertheless essential for the implementation of any urban circular agenda. The scale of the required cultural and economic shift demands a long-term vision. However, constant changes in political agendas and policy instruments, brought by short political cycles, hamper investments in new business models, technological innovation and infrastructural transformation. Civil society engagement in decision-making processes and implementation of circular strategies, involving a wide range of urban actors, is key to reduce resource consumption on the long run and keep strategies context-specific.

Circular cities are rooted in constant innovation, which requires dynamic management and a flexible and open approach. Prendevillea, Cherim, and Bocken (2017) argue that governance in a circular city is structured by a dual approach, combining a set of top down changes and bottom up changes. On the one hand, top-down change is institutionally driven (in this case at the municipal or local level). This involves strategy and policy decisions, including public-private partnership or the development of market initiatives. On the other hand, bottom-up change is brought up by social movements and innovation, such as entrepreneurial initiatives developed by organised groups, NGOs, communities or businesses. The concurrent development of both ‘bottom up’ and ‘top down’ approaches fosters a circular ecosystem where everyone contributes, with ideas and actions, to the transition to a circular economy.

Although no city has yet implemented the seven pillars in an integrated manner, more and more European cities show an increasing commitment towards circularity. Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Brussels, Paris, London, Glasgow or Prato - to mention a few - are developing articulated strategies and plans to move away from current linear models.

Explore the Circular City concept:

Explore Brussels, Amsterdam and Prato Circular City initiatives:

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:

(Jonker and Montenegro Navarro 2018)

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 '' (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 (); collaborative governance (); cross-sector collaboration (), quadruple helix governance (); Integrative Framework for Collaborative Governance () and polycentric governance for urban commons (; ).

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:

What is it?

The circular economy playbook developed by Sitra, Accenture and the Technology industries of Finland is a set of tools developed to support companies in identifying the most relevant circular business model(s). Beyond the rationale description of a circular economy, the playbook provides a Business model development toolkit, a set of exercises for identifying inefficiencies and customer paint points, assessing relevance of circular business models, and prioritising them, as well as tools for calculating high-level business case for circular business models.

The playbook calls for action by:

• Describing the rationale for why circular economy is relevant (Chapter 1)

• Identifying circular business models with highest value potential per sub-sector (Chapters 2 & 6)

• Outlining required organisational and operational changes (Chapters 3 & 4)

• Providing a blueprint of a transformation journey for companies to achieve circular advantage (Chapter 5)

What is it useful for?

This playbook is tailored to companies in the manufacturing industry giving examples for the following four sub-sectors: (1) Machinery & Equipment, (2) Marine, (3) Energy and (4) Transportation

It specifically addresses companies that want to:

• Better meet customer expectations and deliver customer outcomes;

• Enable outcome-oriented solutions and new levels of efficiency through technology and digitalisation;

• Improve resource utilisation and mitigate risk from regulatory, investor and societal pressure.

Description from Authors:

This playbook calls for action to

• Understand the advantages and untapped value potential of the circular economy

• Assess your company’s current state and identify the circular business models that can help you

• Understand which cababilities are needed to operate your selected model(s)

• Explore technologies that can enable your selected model(s) and assess your technology maturity

• Understand the key steps, common barriers and success factors. Design a transformation roadmap

Useful links and resources:

Essential 1 | Boost awareness through open movements of interest and practice

Citizens awareness on the circular economy is an essential step to make it spread and thrive in cities. Specific communication on social media, campaigns and events may be valuable approaches to increase awareness and knowledge across different city actors. Many frontrunner cities are also showing major investments in annual festivals, which help gather all actors that have a stake in the circular economy, review the state of the art, create information on existing initiatives and boost a local movement of community of interest and practice in the field. Many cities report the adoption of an ‘open movement’ approach that can account for experimental and 'learning by doing' dynamics.

Examples from the city models:

• has invested energy and resources in the organization of events dedicated to the circular economy. The first organized in 2019 - gathering a large and diversified audience at both local and national level - has proven successful in gathering experiences and facilitating the development and strengthening of new networks and collaborations.

• The and its Waste Management Strategy is focusing on incentives to increase the awareness of citizens. Besides annual events, Green Friday (an alternative to Black Friday) is an organised gathering by Oslo’s neighbourhood cafes and community centres. This event invites to learn about creative reuse and redesign. This initiative is supported by apps to share food, co-working spaces and repair workshops.

Essential 2 | Develop wide capacity building

New knowledge and capacities are critical elements for creating sound circular strategies and Plans. The circular economy defines a new field for the development of new expertise and professions, which demands a multidisciplinar approach. Collaborative engineering, systemic design, strategic design, environmental engineering and management are a few examples of key disciplines which will have to work integratedly with each other. The establishment of dedicated task-forces that incorporate a meaningful set of competencies may be a key factor, together with the development of specific training courses for city officials to increase awareness and knowledge across different city departments.

Examples from the city models:

• has followed a dual approach to capacity-building, creating a specific task-force on the one hand, and simultaneously building competencies on circularity for existing roles and positions on the other hand. Moreover, Brussels is making use of facilitators who have the specific mandate to engage with different stakeholders, without being attached to one single administration. The capacity building section of the Brussels programme includes 16 measures and involves 9 training institutions.

• and have dedicated particular attention and investment over citizens’ awareness-raising and capacity-building actions.

Essential 3 | Unleash the potential of citizens and social economy organizations as active contributors towards circular and regenerative cities

The role that individual citizens, grassroots organizations and social economy organizations can play in the transition to circular cities is still vaguely understood. Paradoxically, these same organizations have been key in pioneering circular practices well before the explosion of the circular economy debate at the international level. ‘Reuse' markets, neighboring services, new socially purposeful activities, jobs and places or new alliances between firms and social economy organizations are examples of how the circular economy can be meaningfully aligned with social inclusion and social impact. Moreover, urban regeneration may stand as a crucial field where to develop meaningful, citizen-led experiments of circular economy, creating new physical spaces which host new urban functions and experiences.

Examples from the city models:

• is a pioneering initiative that catalyzes citizens’ strengths towards the social good. The City turned regulation - often perceived as the ‘boring thing’ - into a driver of bottom-up participation, providing all citizens with a clear framework of action. Thanks to the regulation, more than 400 projects have been active in the city over time, many of them contributing to advance the city towards practice of sharing, reuse and recycling.

• has a long history of citizens' participation and engagement. Through the , it pioneered an interesting approach to urban regeneration, leveraging temporary uses as a menas for collective city-making. Moreover, although not implemented, the Commons Transition Plan, commissioned by the City, witnessed its own willingness to scale up the scope and scale of commons initiative in the City.

Essential 4 | Hosting and Convening

Well beyond regulatory and administration aspects, frontrunner local governments are also asuming facilitator and convener roles. Multi-stakeholder collaboration is increasingly recognized as a fundamental factor for unlocking the strengths and capacities otherwise diffused in society, and to make them converge around shared goals of sustainable urban development. Many local governments are adopting ‘community of practice’ approaches, organizing flexible governance arrangements that foster public-private-people alliances for experimentation, prototyping and collaborative learning. Engaging and connecting local talents and innovation champions is often key to create a vibrant urban movement that fosters commitment. Similarly, leveraging already existing communities such as those revolving around living labs, fablabs and makerspaces or other innovation hubs, may be also key to achieve and amplify the network's effect.

Examples from the city models:

• initiative relies on three main topics: people, place and platform. The connection between the topics is based on the development and implementation of successful integration between physical, digital and human systems in the city to deliver sustainable forms of urban management and a more collaborative environment for communities and citizens. To achieve this synthesis, Milan City Council has encouraged the dialogue and exchange of ideas through communities of practice. Many living labs, maker spaces and fab labs in Milan are concrete examples of communities that collaborate using digital technologies to co-create knowledge and solutions for a wide range of urban needs.

• and the City of Paris hosted the annual Fab City Summit in July 2018, an international gathering of the global community. Besides facilitating the co-creation of the hands-on and citizen centric activities, the Fab City Summit 2018 was conceived as the kick-off of the Fab City prototype areas in Paris, specifically the Fab City Campus. This event is the basis of a strategy for a series of long-term local initiatives in different urban areas that will shape Paris' future as a more locally productive city composed by several communities of practice within a circular economy strategy.

‘City authorities are at the forefront of societal change addressing both new challenges and new opportunities. Cities can boost innovation, embrace people from different backgrounds or with different lifestyles, and reduce our impact on the planet. To maximise this potential, however, policies at all levels of government need to consider the unique role of cities’ ().

Cities are increasingly recognized as the places where both problems and solutions to the grand challenges of the 21st century can be found. Two thirds of the European population live in urban areas, where major problems such as pollution and environmental deprivation, unemployment, poverty, segregation and exclusion are concentrated. And yet, as dense relational networks and complex systems of interaction, connection and transaction, cities are also major sources of innovation and growth, catalysing knowledge, energies and creativity from all walks of society and economy (Batty 2013; European Commission 2016; United Nations 2016).

This section provides an overview of EU policy-making in the field of sustainable urban development, and digs deeper into its relation to circular economy and the transition to circular cities.

Essential 1 | Understand your local system - Urban diagnostic and metabolism

Collective sense-making of city’s strengths, opportunities, existing assets and gaps is key to any strategy. It helps developing the baseline upon which to design, set in place actions, monitor and evaluate progress. Urban metabolism approach seeks to understand cities from the lens of material and energy flows. It helps to identify and visualize the interactions between natural and human systems in a given urban environment. Urban metabolism research field aims to address sustainability challenges, such as dematerialisation, decarbonisation and the closing of material loops (Musango, Currie and Robinson 2017). These studies generally develop indicators, identifying sustainability targets and developing decision support tools. Various methods are offered to quantify resource flows: accounting approaches; input-output analysis; ecological footprint analysis; life cycle analysis and simulation methods. Flow approaches often attempt to incorporate human activities as part of the urban metabolism. Cities are analysed in terms of inputs and outputs of resources, materials, and energy. As cities have typically designed their infrastructures following linear metabolisms (e.g. resource-consumption-waste), shifting from a linear metabolism to a circular metabolism perspective provides new opportunities. A circular metabolism is more similar to a natural ecosystem with an efficient consumption, recycling and reuse of resource flows (Doughty and Hammond 2004), thus reducing its footprint and dependence from far away areas.

Examples from the city models:

• The metabolism scan in Brussels allowed to identify the materials that could be valued to minimize the need for new inflows. Economic activity in the Brussels-Capital Region is mainly tertiary (services, administration, etc.). With the exception of activities related to construction, the industry occupies a marginal place in the Brussels economy. The flows it generates can, however, be relatively homogeneous and have economic value. These residual materials or co-products were prioritised in the sectoral focus of the regional programme.

• The urban metabolism scan in Buiksloterham allowed to map material flows from an integrated perspective, via three main layers of analysis: current context, by evaluating existing activities, strategies, policies and initiatives in the area; stakeholders’ vision, by identifying relevant actors, their interests and level of participation in activities; and the actual urban metabolism, which included the scenario of energy, material, ecological and socioeconomic flows and conditions in the area.

Essential 2 | Understand gaps in data and technological assets

While we increasingly recognize the ‘systemocracy’ underpinning major urban challenges, our capacity to understand interdependencies and causal loops in systems is still generally limited. Paradoxically, cities have large amounts of data which often tend to remain in silos, and whose value is often captured by third parties and privatized digital markets. Moreover, while technological innovation is largely acknowledged as a key enabler for the circular transition, there is still poor knowledge on which technologies can be used and for what specific purpose(s) and benefit(s). Moreover, in order to manage data more transparently and effectively, citizens’ participation has become crucial to improve cities’ digital infrastructure, not only by allowing wide data collection and capture but also enabling citizens to take decisions more democratically and achieve improvements in public services. The interplay between circular economy, new technologies and citizens distributed intelligence can provide a fertile ground for innovation and shared value creation. When seeking to extend the useful life and maximise the utilisation of assets, technologies can provide useful knowledge about assets’ location, condition, and availability, thus enabling a broad range of opportunities. While it is a hard task to predict all possibilities going forward, there are already numerous conceivable ways in which this interplay can drastically change the nature of both products, business models and city functions.

Examples from the city models:

• Barcelona Digital City Plan strives for a more transparent, participatory and active governance in the city. The plan brings the importance of data and technology for transforming the city and this idea goes beyond the smart city concept. Within this plan, Barcelona City Council aimed to co-create an innovation ecosystem that rethinks a model that prioritises citizen participation. The plan includes a wide range of customised digital training and capacity-building in order to give back to the citizens’ greater control and power over their data, enabling them to discuss, articulate and decide their own priorities. To achieve the goal for technological sovereignty, the City Council supports the idea of data as a common asset, in order to make certain datasets available to individuals and organisations. In this direction, different initiatives have been developed in the city, fostering a pluralistic digital economy based on the transformation and digital innovation of the public sector and its implication with companies, organizations, universities, people and communities.

• Accessible data may inspire and encourage municipalities and institutions to build applications based on open public data. In Warsaw, the 19115 City Contact Centre application was created to allow the use of open data for collecting and categorising issues in the city. By encouraging citizen participation, the city was able to develop a more efficient and transparent tracking system. Many other platforms have been developed in the city in which residents are able to share ideas to improve the public services and make decisions on participatory budget.

Essential 3 | Develop multi-level impact frameworks

While the benefits stemming from the circular economy are largely conceptualized in literature, there is still poor empirical evidence demonstrating how far such benefits can go beyond the purely environmental aspect. Developing multi-dimensional impact framework is thus beneficial not only to advance scientific knowledge on the topic, but more crucially is a key precondition to drive further investment, as well as to support increasing integration. For example, measuring and assessing the impact of circular practices over health, living conditions in neighborhoods, education or service provision can help improve both horizontal and vertical strategies of urban development, identifying ‘cross-cutting’ goals that are pursued across city departments, as well as ‘cross-cutting’ indicators that drive spending and budgeting.

Examples from the city models:

• Circular City Prato is an ambitious policy that combines both the smart and green city strategies. The City is working in close collaboration with local universities and research centres to develop an extensive diagnostic of all green infrastructure of the city, and - based on that - to design an articulated impact assessment framework able to combine multiple benefits stemming from the adoption of circular and green initiatives and practices promoted by the Municipality itself.

• Amsterdam embraces the approach of a circular economy and is keen to adopt different sustainable strategies in order to reduce pollution, create a participatory environment and boost the economy. To do so, the city has been incorporating the combination of smart mobility, ICT solutions, and collaborative governance in many of its initiatives. In 2015 Amsterdam was the first city in the world to present an in-depth study on the potential for transition towards a circular economy, the publication Amsterdam Circular: Vision and Roadmap for City and Region. Its results were used to launch two programmes centred around the concept of ‘learning by doing’: 'Amsterdam Circular, Learning by Doing' and the 'Circular Innovation programme'. Both programmes went through an interdisciplinary evaluation in which were identified the main lines of the project results and the lessons learned. The Report Amsterdam Circular Evaluation and Action Perspectives was commissioned by the Municipality of Amsterdam and carried out by Circle Economy and Copper8. The evaluation indicates which action perspectives are possible to further accelerate the transition to a circular economy and include roles for market parties and issues for the municipality during the next years.

Essential 4 | Establish strategic alliances for overcoming regulatory barriers

When applied to the context of the circular economy, a number of rules, including environmental ones, can lead to the creation of legal-administrative barriers to innovation, hindering the development of new activities which are environmentally friendly. Identification of legal-administrative barriers and the development of adapted solutions are key in any transition towards circularity. The hotspot approach, previously mentioned, can help prioritize regulatory analysis in a specific sector or for specific materials, also via strategic partnerships with utility and service providers.

Examples from the city models:

• In the context of Prato Circular City initiative, the Municipality is currently implementing a number of strategic partnerships at the district level, in order to overcome regulatory barriers that hinder the reuse of specific materials (ex. Wool waste) that could be meaningfully re-entered in production processes. Importantly, as a formal partner of the Urban Agenda Thematic Partnership on the Circular Economy, Prato is working in close collaboration with the European Commission and the other cities involved in the Partnership to create a more favourable environment at EU level.

• The Brussels circular economy programme is seeking to address this issue by developing a governance scheme involving the private sector. The measure seeks to identify, prioritize and provide solutions to the legal administrative aspects that are necessary for the deployment of the circular economy (through the deployment of incentives) and those that constitute legal-administrative barriers and must be eased, while still maintaining a high level of environmental protection in accordance with the standstill principle.

Essential 5 | Develop business case scenarios

Poor understanding and awareness around existing opportunities for business model innovation is often a major barrier to make emerging markets thrive, and adopt circular, sharing or green economy approaches. Combining training, awareness-raising, entrepreneurship support measures with the set-up of open source repositories and catalogues may help to create a vibrant ecosystem for business model innovation. Moreover, existing assets such as networks of makerspaces and innovation hubs can be leveraged into ‘urban programmes’ for circular-based innovation, tapping into local talent and innovation champions.

Examples from the city models:

• Milan Sharing City has invested massively in the creation of an enabling environment for the sharing economy in the city. Combining measures such as the establishment of one-stop-shop services and dedicated shared working facilities, open catalogues, incentives for young people and social entrepreneurs - while developing a transversal action of networking and community-building -, Milan has indeed become one of the most vibrant cities in Italy in terms of spreading of sharing-based models and services.

• Barcelona is a pioneer in generating new practices in the market in terms of business models that pivot on open code and open-service practices. The city has become very attractive for technological companies of many sizes as it counts with a dedicated department that supports entrepreneurs, professional improvement and job creation in Catalonia. Barcelona Activa offers a comprehensive model including technical coaching, feasibility assessment, tailor-made training and incubation programmes. These incubators have different areas of business work, including the topics of artificial intelligence, the internet of things (IoT), robotics, space technology and nanotechnology. By supporting business development, the city council promotes the creation and growth of companies with high technological impact, which contribute to economic development and to generate qualified jobs in the city.

Useful links and resources:

REFLOW is an EU H2020 project, from 2019 to 2022, that seeks to understand and transform urban material flows and to co-create and test circular and regenerative solutions in urban and peri-urban areas across Europe. It has received funding from the European Union Innovation and Research Program, under the Grant Agreement No. 820937. The vision of REFLOW is to develop circular and regenerative cities through the re-localisation of production and the reconfiguration of material flows at different scales, leveraging Fab Labs and makerspaces as catalysts for wide-scale collaboration and co-creation conducive to systemic, sustainable change.

The project builds upon the concept of ‘urban metabolism’, which seeks to understand urban contexts through the lens of biological systems and technical processes. The metabolism consists of all the chemical processes that occur within a living organism, or, in this case, the city. In biology, the synthesis of proteins is considered a constructive metabolic process. In urban sciences, the city dynamics that make up the urban metabolism are defined by the flow of materials, information, and the distribution of activities, making cities the most complex systems ever created by humans. Under the current urban paradigm, cities consume more resources than they produce and the synthesis of energy, food and materials for urban areas degrades, discards or pollutes the environment. However, over the past decades, the digital revolution has profoundly affected logistics, trade and international communications, opening doors for new urban flows that are turning our unsustainable industrial paradigm on its head.

In this context, REFLOW aims to provide knowledge on viable practices aligning public and private actors’ interests to enable an effective and meaningful transition to circular and regenerative cities. In order to provide critical examples of ways in which cities can become circular and regenerative, REFLOW will explore and test new business models within the six REFLOW Cities - Amsterdam, Berlin, Cluj-Napoca, Milan, Paris and Vejle.

REFLOW operates at the international level, mobilising existing networks and movements that are working towards a new productive model for cities such as Circular Cities, C40 Cities and Fab City Global Initiative.

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