Page 263 - Sustainable Cities and Communities Design Handbook

Urban Circular Economy: The New Frontier Chapter j 12 237

Cities are successfully embracing the circular economy and are looking on
how to capture and repurpose key resources. Cities represent a fundamental
catalytic power to drive resource efficiency and circular economy forward, and
make them among the greatest beneficiaries of such a transition. Clever Eu-
ropean city leaders are systematically reengineering the current urban systems,
to explore new ways of value creation and optimization, while ensuring long-
term prosperity, resource sufficiency, economic viability, and well-being in
urban centers.
As urban populations continue to rise, smart leaders must find ways to cope
with acute demands for resources and space, and the mainstream strategy to do
this is the urban circular economy.
Applying the urban circular economy principles, planners and policy
makers are rethinking the way our current urban systems operate but for this
they need to learn from previous mistakes and implement these lessons to
enable long-term resilience, resource optimization, economic prosperity, and
human well-being.
From roads made out of waste plastic to bricks made from old construction
waste, many cities are developing projects that involve local administrations,
businesses, and citizens in a completely new way of cooperating and sharing
value.
In this context, built-up urban areas create perfect conditions for the
development of peer-to-peer business models. In Europe, for instance, where
almost 90% of households own a car, car sharing has been shown to help
reduce traffic without taking away people’s freedom to drive. It also helps cut
the cost of maintaining and parking cars. The question is how to go beyond
individual examples of circular innovation to build a citywide circular system.
In this respect, business will have a major role in developing circular cities,
where peer-to-peer lending is becoming an exciting reality.

THE BIG CITIES EXAMPLES: AMSTERDAM, LONDON, PARIS,
AND MILAN ON THE LEADING EDGE OF THE URBAN
CIRCULAR ECONOMY
Big cities can really make the difference, showing how to implement the
required changes. The city of Amsterdam in the Netherlands clearly under-
stood that urban circular economy can help to preserve and enhance natural
capital, optimize resource usage, achieve resilience through diversity, and
design out waste. Along with its systems change approach, urban circular
economy has the potential to provide the necessary framework for building a
resilient and prosperous community, which in turn provides a supportive
operating environment for businesses.
With a dedicated research center established to explore how circular
economy principles can be leveraged for closing the resource loops on a
municipal level and by that enhancing the local economy, Amsterdam ranks