The Circularity Gap Report Norway is an in-depth analysis of how Norway consumes raw materials—metals, fossil fuels, biomass and minerals—to fuel its societal needs. Currently, 97.6% of materials consumed each year never make it back into the economy. Norway also has one of the highest per capita consumption rates in the world at 44.3 tonnes per person.
In the face of the climate emergency and the EU's decision to strive for full circularity, Norway's need for a circular transition is urgent. Our report shows that the country can become 45.8% circular by restructuring business and industry. The report dives into six scenarios for a potential way forward and explores how governments and businesses can facilitate circular consumption and prepare the labour market for the transition. With a good tripartite cooperation in Norwegian employment, a highly-educated and digitally competent population and a long history with renewable energy and plastic recycling, Norway is well set to become a pioneer in the circular economy.
The Doughnut of social and planetary boundaries can be turned into a city-scale tool by asking this very 21st-century question:
How can our city be a home
to thriving people in a thriving place,
while respecting the wellbeing of all people
and the health of the whole planet?
It is a question that invites every city to start exploring what it would mean to thrive within the Doughnut, given that particular city’s location, context, culture and global interconnections.
Through the Thriving Cities Initiative, we have worked with pioneering cities to downscale the Doughnut; creating the first City Portraits. The City Portrait has been developed to foster big-picture thinking, and cross-departmental collaboration within the City and with a wider network of changemakers to co-create the city's transformation. The City Portrait uses detailed city-specific data to provide a holistic snapshot of the city and its impact through four lenses – arising from combining social and ecological domains at local and global scales – which together provide a new perspective on what it means for a city to thrive. It appreciates what makes a city unique, while understanding its global influence and responsibility.
Watch the video below of Kate Raworth explaining our approach to 'Downscaling the Doughnut', read more about the City Portrait here.
The City Portrait Canvas is a simplified version of the City Portrait, since it does not begin by creating a statistical overview of the city. Instead, it draws on the portrait's conceptual framework of the four lenses. Even without creating a detailed City Portrait, city changemakers can use the City Portrait Canvas as a thinking tool for exploring and designing city strategies, policies and programmes.
Using the City Portrait Canvas, city changemakers can analyse and refine new and existing city strategies, policies and programmes through four interconnected lenses - social and ecological, local and global. The aim is to design strategies that can generate co-benefits between social and ecological dimensions, both within the city, and for the planet and people worldwide. By using the City Portrait Canvas, city changemakers have the opportunity to apply holistic thinking while developing strategies for thriving cities.
Download the City Portrait Canvas and get acquainted with the four lenses of the City Portrait. Watch the 10 minute introductory video. Then read the Why, and What of each lens to familiarise yourself with the different themes related to a city's local aspirations and global responsibilities. For a deep dive into the City Portrait tool and its four lenses, we recommend reading the 'Creating City Portraits' methodological guide.
Select a strategy you are working on in your city that you would like to assess for its social and ecological impacts, on both a local and global level. Note down the main components of the strategy on the City Strategy Worksheet. Then, write the name of your strategy inside the diamond shape in the centre of the City Portrait Canvas.
Now, dive deeper into the local impacts of your strategy.
Now explore the global impacts of your strategy. Repeat a), b) and c) from Step 3 for the Global lenses.
Tip: While doing the exercise, you might find yourself alternating between the positive and negative impacts. We recommend that you find your own intuitive way to navigate between steps a) and b).
Summarise your key insights from Steps 3, 4 & 5 on the City Strategy Worksheet. Ask yourself “how would you refine the existing strategy to enhance its social and ecological benefits?”
‘Creating City Portraits’ is the methodology for downscaling the Doughnut of social and planetary boundaries to the city. The tool provides a holistic snapshot of the city and its impact through four lenses–both social and ecological, local and global–which together provide a new perspective on what it means for a city to thrive. It appreciates what makes a city unique, while understanding its global influence and responsibility.
The Creating City Portraits guide is based on experience of applying the methodology with pilot cities in the Thriving Cities Initiative - Philadelphia, Portland and Amsterdam. Having received a huge level of interest in the City Portrait methodology to ‘downscale the Doughnut’ since the publication of the Amsterdam City Doughnut, the Thriving Cities Initiative is publishing this guide with the intention to make it as simple as possible for others to use and adapt.
Would you like to create a City Portrait for your city? Use our City Portrait Canvas, a tool to assess city strategies, policies, and programmes in a holistic way, integrating environmental and social, local and global considerations.
Learn more about how the Doughnut can be turned into a tool for transformative action in this 12 minute introductory with Kate Raworth.
TCI is a collaboration between Circle Economy, C40 Cities, Doughnut Economics Action Lab and Biomimicry 3.8. It takes cities on a journey to become thriving places, while respecting the wellbeing of all people and the whole planet.
Educators, researchers, people from cities and places, business and enterprise are invited to join Doughnut Economics Action Lab's collaborative platform, which brings together like-minded changemakers who are putting Doughnut Economics into practice.
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Circularity presents opportunities for local labour markets. To tap into this potential, it is vital to understand how many and which jobs are already contributing to the circular economy locally. To obtain a baseline analysis of employment in the local circular economy in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly (CIoS), Tevi and Circle Economy collaborated on the Circular Jobs Monitor. The Circular Jobs Monitor is an online tool that gathers and displays the amount and type of jobs that are part of the circular economy. This report summarises the results that are displayed on the monitor and outlines next steps that can be taken to build on these results and further tap into the opportunities the circular economy presents the local labour market.
Tevi is an ERDF-funded programme helping Cornish SMEs to grow whilst supporting Cornwall's transition to a circular economy. Tevi currently supports over 300 enterprises through bespoke consultancy services, challenge networks and a grant scheme. Tevi is delivered by the University of Exeter in partnership with Cornwall Wildlife Trust, Cornwall Council and Cornwall Development Company.
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The Netherlands is a global frontrunner in the race to circularity with a Circularity Metric of 24.5%. However, the government has ambitious goals: an economy that is 50% circular by 2030 and 100% circular by 2050. The Circularity Gap Report, the Netherlands, recommends wide-ranging ways in which the economy can pivot away from its linear habits across four key sectors: agriculture, construction, manufacturing and energy. The suggested strategies could triple the Dutch metric from 24.5% to 70%.
More and more countries are recognising the circular economy as a means to make their economies more competitive, improve living conditions for growing populations, help meet emissions targets and avoid deforestation. But how countries reach an ecologically safe and socially just development space for their people varies greatly. The Circularity Gap Report for Countries provides insight into the best interventions to boost circularity on a national level and the tools to monitor progress.
The Circularity Gap Initiative aims to highlight the urgency of the transition to a circular economy and inspire key decision makers in both government and business to coordinate action to accelerate that transition. We do this by bringing together stakeholders from academia, businesses, NGOs and governments to input, evaluate and endorse annual reports on the state of the transition based on the latest scientific evidence.
How can your business forge a successful, circular partnership?
Collaboration is key to transition to a resilient, circular economy. Whereas the need for collaboration in the circular economy is largely understood, in practice, it often poses challenges.
This guide supports businesses to collaborate for a circular economy. Using the example of circular food packaging, it shows how businesses can identify and establish successful collaborations and together realise circular products. Based on interviews with 17 stakeholders, the guide introduces four collaboration types, outlines nine steps to successful collaborations, and identifies 14 roles and nine characteristics to identify attractive and suitable partners.
With the European Textile Regulation(1007/2011) entering into force in 2011, requirements on labelling and marking of the fibre composition of textile products were harmonized throughout the EuropeanUnion. However, in 2018, doubts were raised on the accuracy of these composition claims on labels on the Dutch market. With the introduction of the Fibersort, a technology able to categorise textiles based on their composition, deviations between the fibre categorisations given by the Fibersort and the composition claims on labels became apparent to sorters. The Ministry of Infrastructure & Waterways has commissioned Circle Economy to investigate the assumption that labels on garments are inaccurate, to map the consequences of inaccurate composition claims on labels, and to identify the measures required to tackle the challenge of misleading labels. This report summarises the outcomes and conclusions of this research.
During 2019, Circle Economy conducted a scoping study commissioned by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, on the “Global environmental and socio-economic effects of pursuing a circular economy in the Netherlands and the EU”. The scope of the study had a focus on exploring impacts in low-income countries. The study provides a deep dive into two exemplary products (denim jeans and mobile phones) with globalised value chains (both upstream and downstream) and significant potential for circular economy initiatives. From resource extraction to end-of-life, the study visualises and highlights the most important countries involved in these value chains. It also describes the potential impacts of Dutch and EU circular economy policies on countries outside the EU by looking at indicators such as land use, pollution of water and soil, work and income, CO2 emissions and health and safety.
The Amsterdam City Doughnut takes the global concept of the Doughnut, developed by Kate Raworth, and turns it into a tool for transformative action in the city of Amsterdam.
It marks the first public presentation of the holistic approach to ‘downscaling the Doughnut’, combining local aspiration with global responsibility. How can our city be a thriving home to thriving people, while respecting the planetary boundaries?
The Amsterdam City Doughnut has been developed in collaboration between Doughnut Economics Action Lab (DEAL), Circle Economy, Biomimicry 3.8 and C40 over the course of one year. It is at the core of the City of Amsterdam’s broader ambitions for becoming a circular city, the Amsterdam Circular Strategy 2020-2025.
(The full Amsterdam Circular Strategy 2020/2025 is available for download on the website of the City of Amsterdam.)
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