Decent Work in the Circular Economy: An Overview of the Existing Evidence Base is a joint report by Circle Economy, the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the Solutions for Youth Employment (S4YE) Programme of the World Bank, with support from the Goldschmeding Foundation.
This report is the first output of the broader ‘Jobs in the Circular Economy’ initiative between the three partners. The initiative aims to identify multiple gaps in the evidence base for circular jobs through collaboration with an international community of research institutions, industry representatives, social partners, governments and public bodies.
The report explores research gaps and five key themes that summarise the focus of the current evidence base. These themes represent crucial opportunities and challenges regarding the circular economy’s ability to create a more just and inclusive society—including labour market and sectoral transformation, informality and the circular economy, work reallocation and skills development, working conditions and social protection, and gender discrimination and social equity.
With this report, Circle Economy, the ILO and S4YE put forth a call to action to realise the full potential of the circular economy by generating better evidence in three main areas:
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This brief—Circular Jobs in City Governments: People Driving the Circular Transition of Urban Governance—dives into the jobs and skills needed to propel circular economy interventions in cities.
It presents six examples of circular economy interventions that can be used as a tool for city-level governance and creating local impact, spanning areas like energy, waste management, mobility, and public procurement.
It showcases eight examples of jobs that drive circular economy interventions forward in cities. These jobs are complementary and rely on each other to ensure that circular economy principles trickle down throughout government departments and become a reality in cities worldwide.
The document also groups the key circular roles into three phases: the strategic circle, the project circle and the operational circle. By understanding these circles and their requirements, city governments can secure the right competences, resources and tools needed to adjust their work to circular principles across different departments.
Circular Balears explores pathways towards building a circular tourism system in the Balearic Islands (Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza and Formentera). Developed in collaboration with the Fundació Impulsa Balears, the report studies the current flow of resources and materials in the local tourism system. It presents strategic directions and circular opportunities spanning five of the six key focus areas considered in this study: Water, Energy, Materials, Food and Mobility. The report also shows how these focus areas interact with the Terrestrial and marine environment. In particular, it examines their impact on the terrestrial and marine environment and how better management of the environment can unlock the circular opportunities of each focus area. By implementing the opportunities identified under each strategic direction, the region can ensure long-term economic development while protecting its natural ecosystems.
Jobs and Skills to Drive a Circular Built Environment dives into the jobs and skills needed for four circular strategies in the built environment: Smart material management, Product-as-a- service, Bio-based materials and Offsite, modular construction.
The briefing explores practical levers for upscaling circular construction strategies, from education to procurement. It gives policymakers and construction industry professionals tips on how to anticipate and plan for labour market shifts linked to the circular transition.
This report, commissioned by the Royal Association for Building Ceramics in the Netherlands (KNB) , investigates the current and future role of building ceramics in a circular economy. This versatile and sustainable material is already widely used and reused in the Dutch built environment, mainly in the form of bricks and roof tiles. However, it constitutes no more than 5% of the total annual volume of building materials.
The report explores pathways toward promoting the use of building ceramics and improving the environmental performance of ceramic technology. With this in mind, the sector should focus on lowering its carbon footprint, for example, by employing hydrogen and electricity in production processes. Moreover, ceramics suppliers should experiment with new business models, such as ‘Product-as-a-Service’, and enhance collaboration within the construction sector.
Almost 60% of the built environment required to accommodate the earth’s urban population by 2050 remains to be built (Circularity Gap Report, 2021).
So how will we make sure that cities can meet our universal need for shelter within the limits of our planet?
The urban built environment should be a ‘living’ system in which building materials and products are optimally used and reused, a system that operates within the boundaries of our planet, preserves the (business) value of its resources, and increases the number of valuable jobs and skills in a city.
This guidance document is the fourth of a series of resources produced by the European Investment Bank and Circle Economy for the Circular City Centre (C3), a competence and resource centre that aims to support EU cities in their circular economy transition. It is a guide for cities on how to progress in their circular transition in the built environment, from establishing an enabling framework to implementing circular solutions.
Find out more about the Circular City Centre here.
This annual publication gives an overview of new data on circular jobs produced by Circle Economy in 2022, with important updates and results. This data supplies policymakers, economists, labour organisations and social partners with insights into the relationship between the circular economy and the labour market. This can facilitate the design of evidence-based circular strategies, as well as required education pathways, and aid in target-setting and progress monitoring.
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This paper - Making Cycling Circular: The case of Swapfiets - details how both the tax landscape and traditional practices of accounting restrict the financial viability of circular Product-as-a-Service businesses. Taking the case of bicycle provider Swapfiets, the paper highlights that under current legislation, PaaS businesses are required to pay more VAT over the lifetime of a product than their linear counterparts, and that strict eligibility criteria prevents them from applying the reduced rate of VAT. It also determines the pitfalls of basing asset financing conditions on an assumption of linear depreciation, which we know to be inaccurate in PaaS models that engage in regular repair and maintenance. This publication determines that to navigate this issues businesses are incentivised to renege some of their circular ambitions, and so legislative change and new financing norms are recommended instead.
You can also find the Dutch version of this report on the Insights page of ABN AMRO Bank.
Montréal has set ambitious goals: becoming a zero waste city by 2030 and being carbon neutral by 2050. The Circular Economy can get them there. Even though the goals are ambitious and the challenges big, together the city’s efforts towards circularity have already borne positive effects—from numerous initiatives, new jobs and business models, to significant material savings and recovery—diverting thousands of tonnes of waste from landfill each year which prevents the emission of thousands of tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents.
To uncover how the city can upscale the positive impacts of the transition, Ville de Montréal worked together with Circle Economy on a Circle City Scan, a multi-stakeholder process designed to help cities identify contextually appropriate opportunities to foster a circular economy.
Four sectors will be key: the Food system, Built environment, Textiles and Mobility. To guide these four sectors in the right direction, the Circle City Scan outlines eight potential circular actions, meant to guide and inform Ville de Montréal in the development of the City's first Circular Economy Roadmap. The City is ready to take action, but private, public, academic and civil actors in Montréal should join forces and activate a circular ecosystem to scale circularity together.
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