The Netherlands has put forward the ambitious goal of a fully circular economy by 2050. But resting at the centre of a perfect storm, the built environment in the Netherlands is dealing with challenging environmental and social circumstances such as the climate and nitrogen crisis, a shortage of affordable housing and the biggest labour shortage seen in years. To uncover the state of circularity and related employment effects—both showing opportunities and providing recommendations for the Dutch built environment—this report applies the Circularity Gap methodology to a sector for the first time. It assesses the circularity of the Dutch built environment and sketches a path forward, highlighting key recommendations for actors.
This paper produces a circular economy jobs measure. Using jobs as a proxy indicator, these measure gives cities a robust number to indicate progress toward the circular economy and is designed to serve as a first step in developing a circular economy strategy.
The circular economy jobs measure tracks the inputs and outputs of goods in a city's ‘boundaries’ through the material import dependency of the city's economic sectors. At the same time, tracking and assessing the circularity of the local jobs in these economic sectors will also provide city leaders with an indication of which sectors circularity is happening and could potentially happen.
This paper also concludes that the process of coming to the circular economy jobs has two parts, the first more relevant to the local government and the second better influenced by the national government. Both need to come together for a truly circular local economy to happen.
Today's understanding of the circular economy fails to address issues of global social equity and threatens to exacerbate the divide between high- and lower-income countries, making it clear that a global circular economy will not be socially just by default. This report (and accompanying policy briefs) lays out the case for thinking beyond borders to achieve a sustainable, circular economy that matches environmental goals with social ambitions. It highlights key levers for governments and multilateral bodies, illustrating the benefits of a global, socially just approach to environmental, trade and development policies, and the risks of continuing along current policy pathways.
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This paper is the first outcome of a collaborative project between the BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt, RESPOND, Circle Economy and SYSTEMIQ. Through a series of interactive workshops, we will develop a shared understanding of the ‘regenerative economy’ and, from our learnings, create tangible actions for changemakers to put the regenerative economy into practice.
Building on the development of a harmonised Circular Jobs Methodology, Circle Economy and UNEP have embarked on the development of a City Typology framework that aims to bring a huge diversity of cities together into a more manageable and generalised set of types to support the transition to a circular economy.
The framework consists of four broad city types that are constructed from three variables, which influence the circular economy considerations of a city. The framework will continue to be developed to form practical pathways towards a more circular economy for each of the city types.
Transitioning towards a circular economy is a complex task for cities.To help cities get inspired to take action on the ground, the European Investment Bank and Circle Economy have worked on a catalogue of circular actions and solutions that have already been successful across cities in Europe.
This catalogue is the second guide developed for EIB’s Circular City Centre (C3), a competence and resource centre that aims to inspire city stakeholders to envision their city as a circular economy hub. Circular actions and solutions are categorised following the Circular City Actions Framework—an approach that goes beyond recycling, and encourages cities to also rethink, regenerate, reduce and reuse resources. They are explained on a case-by-case basis and span across eight sectors: Built environment, Consumer goods, Food, Manufacturing, Mobility & logistics, Tourism and leisure, Waste and material management, Water and wastewater management.
Find out more about the Circular City Centre here.
Circle Economy's Circular Jobs Monitor gathers and displays the number and range of jobs that are part of the circular economy.
This bulletin provides a snapshot of data that was added to the Circular Jobs Monitor and other updates that have taken place over the past year. The Circular Jobs Monitor now hosts data for over 150 cities from over 30 countries around the world made possible through our partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
For each territory on the monitor, you can explore the number and percentage of circular jobs. This total is also broken down by sector, circular economy strategies and across three types of circular jobs: core, enabling and indirectly circular jobs.
The Circular Jobs Monitor provides policymakers, economists, and labour organisations with insights into the relationship between the circular economy and the labour market. These insights can facilitate the design of evidence-based strategies for promoting the circular economy, required education pathways, and a benchmark of current circular activity against which to monitor future progress.
Would you like to help us grow and improve the Circular Jobs Monitor? We welcome input, data and feedback on the usability and content of the Circular Jobs Monitor to ensure it grows to be an even more insightful tool for stakeholders working to advance the circular economy in their locality, industry or sector.
Sweden's emissions reduction goals are the most ambitious worldwide: net-zero by 2045. But the energy transition is only part of the story. Our Circularity Gap Report Sweden finds that Sweden must—and can—do more to become a true climate champion. The key lies in building its circular economy to shrink its large material footprint. At only 3.4% circular, most of the resources Sweden consumes are not cycled back into use—and rates of extraction are astronomical. But by building a circular economy across sectors such as the built environment, agrifood, mobility and more, the country can cut its material footprint by 42.6%.
This study calculates the employment effects of the Amsterdam Circular Strategy 2020–2025 and the Waste and Raw Materials Implementation Program 2020–2025 for three value chains: food and organic residual flows, consumer Goods, and the built environment. These value chains have been identified in previous analyses as essential to Amsterdam's circular transition. By calculating employment effects, we hope to motivate companies and governments to employ circular strategies. By anticipating changes in the labour market, the City of Amsterdam can seize the opportunities offered by circularity—something it’s well poised to do, as Amsterdam’s workforce already posseses some of the skills necessary for circular jobs.
Download the report in Dutch below.
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