Re-Inventing the City Conference:
Scaling Circular Regions and Circular Economies
After lockdowns initiated in 2020 with the emergence of the pandemic, cities began to take new shape experiencing new urban behavior and new solutions to contain the pandemic. With months of lower levels of industrial activity in manufacturing — in contrast to a business as usual context — in cities like New Delhi and Beijing, the high emitting carbon emissions and levels of air contamination finally began to clear up, showing the world the possibilities of a “re-invented” city.
There was an uptake on the possibilities of climate solutions. These have been ever more evident with the results of COP 26. This opportunity to redesign the city, I believe has become a momentous time for urban designers and urban planners to propose new changes and scale up solutions in urban development.
With new changes in cities, including flexible (remote) work schedules and less crowded streets, even citizens I believe are starting to ground, seeing the possibilities of new types of urban behavior and new types of cities.
Two weeks ago, I had the distinct pleasure to attend the AMS Institute’s Reinventing the City Conference hosted by the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS). The conference was enlightening with very high level discussions and presentations of projects that are tackling issues regarding urban mobility, responsible urban digitization, food systems, and circularity. It was holistic in its capacity to share insights to public policy, urban design, municipal planning, stakeholder engagement, and resilience.
While the City of Boston has certainly tackled many of these issues and is an innovative city with several pilots and projects to address climate shock and urban fragility, the model of excellence I have always revered as “ideal” with a portfolio of solutions and also a culture that allows these solutions to blossom, it has always been the climate solutions and urban models of the Netherlands.
Going to Amsterdam was truly nostalgic. I hope through this blog to summarize some of the conference’s take aways in regards to Circularity for the transition of linear cities to circular cities. By sharing these insights, I hope municipalities and citizens can see what is possible in creating more sustainable urban systems. My enormous gratitude to the AMS Institute for being such exceptional hosts and creating such a relevant built in environment to discuss the future of cities.
The Circular Economy in the Netherlands and Northern Europe
While in the U.S. the movement for becoming more bikeable cities begins along with the developing community gardens and farms for locally sourcing production and zero waste behavior across the commercial sector, Northern Europe is on another era with the Circular Economy. This type of economy was built out by the Ellen Macarthur Foundation, a UK based non profit that challenged linear systems of production (take, use, discard model) of waste. Introducing a circular system of production and use (refurbishing, re-using, recycling, redistributing) of materials, cities have the capacity to produce less waste and emit less carbon from hyper industrial manufacturing.
This model is sustainable and feasible. It’s been clear from twelve countries that have circular operations according to Construcia (2020) that circularity is feasible. Amsterdam, according to the Circle Economy, has been ranked as the top circular city in the world. There are certain aspects that allow Amsterdam to have such performance. According to the World Economic Forum and PWC (2018), these are the following critical elements of built in environment that have allowed Amsterdam to be circular.
Figure 1. Critical elements of Amsterdam’s Circular City © G.Corbera, 2022
So now that you have a better understanding of the critical success factors of circularity, what might be some of the additional take-aways attained by the community of practitioners at the AMS Institute — ReInventing the City Conference?
Circularity as a contrast to the neoliberal model of growth
One of the sessions I attended was held by Kees Terlouw, a political geographer from the Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning at Utrecht University. His take aways for the circular economy were built around future circularity in cities. Kees believes the metropolitan region is a sweet spot for circularity in cities. He claimed to address change in economics models that should go from a trickle down economic model of growth to a social justice model. In his description of the model of circularity he mentioned the notion of relational dimensions. This is in contrast to the neoliberal model often found sometimes in metropolitan cities that is purely incentivized by economic growth with little to no value add for environmental protection or environmental resilience.
Kees claimed that circular cities “cannot be imposed from above.” That rather, they need to be created with a multi-stakeholder approach. In hearing Kees, I thought of the stakeholders often found in City Scans of the Circle Economy. Without the collaboration and alignment of stakeholders, little municipal transformation is possible. To think of the amount of stakeholder needed for municipal transformation in activities across construction, biomass & food, manufacturing, plastics, and consumer goods.
Figure 2. City Scan of the Circle Economy | ©Circle Economy
In looking at Kees’s additional scholarly work, he greatly pushes for the expansion of urban space and the existence of regionalism and metropolitan networks. Some questions I would have for Kees, is
- Can other circular cities affect the behavior or incentives to transform in linear cities?
- How might the metropolitan network group of a municipality impact its climate action goals and climate planning?
- Has 100 Resilient Cities and C40 been claimed as useful models to maximize climate action and resilience in municipal networks?
For more scholarly work from Kees Terlouw, see here.
Enabling the Circular Economy through Software and Hardware —
One of the most unique solutions I learned about in the Netherlands was AMS Institute and geoFluxus’s Circular Monitor and REPAIR. Through data driven solutions, geoFluxus, a platform for mapping waste that was developed at Delft University of Technology and at AMS Institute, “analyzes and predicts where, how and which materials can be saved from becoming waste.” geoFluxus turns data into comprehensible maps and graphs. Led by , Rusnė Šilerytė, Arnout Sabbe, , Matthieu Bodin, Kozmo Meister, Vasileios Bouzas, Evert Van Hirtum, Jolanta Jasiulionyte, and Bram Vercamer the portfolio of solutions at geoFluxus, I believe holds the capability for municipal transformation.
It all starts with data. A municipality learning its waste streams, assessing the value creation that can unfold from waste I believe can lead to municipal change. In sustainable development, I think data is one of the most enabling tools for social change. It would be remarkable to see these tools used not just in Northern Europe but also in municipalities around the world.
Data driven analysis and data driven enabling tools are important in circularity to
- Collect Data
- Benchmark and Track Progress
- Drive new public policy
- Create new circular solutions
“Circular Economy can be supported by software and hardware…”
So what did these unique data driven solutions of REPAiR andCircular Monitor look like? (two projects discussed in the session)
REPAiR
REPAiR is a European Union funded project based at AMS Institute and Delft University of Technology that supports local and regional authorities in waste reduction in 6 peri-urban European areas through the development of tools and strategies. Using a transdisciplinary approach, REPAiR supports the circular economy through the development and implementation of territorial metabolism models, evaluation and impact models, decision models, and also deep knowledge transfer on development of methodologies for local and regional authorities. Waste “Flows” are depicted under one of the following relevant categories
- construction & demolition waste
- bio waste
- post-consumer plastic waste
- electrical waste and electronic equipment
- municipal solid waste
Below are some examples of the models created at REPAiR.
Figure 3. Companies producing waste according to group processing and manufacturing in the AMA Region. © REPAiR, Delft University of Technology
For more information, see here: http://h2020repair.eu/
Circular Monitor
Circular Monitor is a brand new project that recently stemmed out of AMS Institute. In light of the Circular Economy Week that was February 6–12, 2022, this project was shared and addressed in the session. Looking at the entire portfolio of material flows, and how they move in the Amsterdam region from import, production to consumption, and recycling, Circular Monitor visualizes the materials flow of the Amsterdam Metropolitan Region (AMA). Created through cooperation with CBS, geoFluxus, and TNO, this tool is unique for its capacity to visualize trade and waste flows of a major metropolitan region.
Figure 4. Waste Flow Movement in the Amsterdam Metropolitan Region (AMA) ©geoFlexus, 2022
For more information: https://www.ams-institute.org/events/monitor-amsterdam-circular/
Netherlands Mind-Set and Circular Societies
While the Netherlands is a mecca for circularity, we must not let circular innovation be defined by borders. Going back to Kees work and perhaps building an own hypothesis within , maybe there is something to be said about municipal networks and our abilities to transform the urban space based on the solutions that perhaps are in proximity to. Might we be able to rely on these new innovations across borders to inspire our own communities for circular transitions? Might we be able to find value creation in waste through new modular design and innovative business models? The circular world is our oyster. Let’s transition together.
More posts in-design on responsible digitalization, food systems, and resilience from Re-Inventing The City.