Building Circular Neighbourhoods: a discussion paper

The United Nations Environment Programme together with Arup, BASE, C40 Cities, Ellen MacArthur Foundation, Mass Design Group, Mexico City and the Prague Institute of Planning and Development, developed a discussion paper meant to explore whether and how communities and neighbourhoods could be a starting point towards circularity in a city.

Join the discussion using the hashtag #circularneighbourhoods #circularneighborhoods

Paris | 2021

Key findings 

Local government investment is the essential element in the uptake and replication of circular initiatives in cities. However, neighbourhoods can be powerful entry points.  

The neighbourhood scale makes circularity more tangible, and this discussion paper was able to map tangible and manageable actions for neighbourhood applicable in many contexts: 

• Circular construction provided a window to the system of structures that make up a city. Neighbourhoods could be turned into material banks and that there is room to change local regulatory/policy framework to allow local construction and repair.  

• Servitisation offered possibilities for change in how systems in our homes work. From electricity to appliances, returning responsibility to manufacturers/service providers transferred performance risk from consumer to provider, encouraging maintenance instead of throwing things out.  

• A snapshot of neighbourhood food systems revealed the multiple benefits of community gardens - connecting us to nature and creating a shift in mindset towards circularity. 

By deconstructing cities into smaller action areas, it is possible to identify starting points for a radical transformation towards circularity. The neighbourhood allows for the design and operation of “living labs” - large enough to be representative of community behaviour and their interactions with urban systems, yet also small enough not to be prohibitive in terms of costs and human resources.