Welcome to the REFLOW Academy’s course on Governing a Circular Economy in Regenerative Cities! This course follows up on our Introduction to the Circular Economy and takes you through the benefits, challenges, solutions, tools, and methods for implementing the Circular Economy in your city.
A Circular Economy requires a systemic shift where all services – from water to waste to energy – are provided to citizens by making efficient use of natural resources and optimising their reuse. Economic activities are planned and carried out in a way that closes, slows, and narrows resource loops across value chains, and infrastructures are designed and built to avoid linear lock-in.
Cities hold an essential position in implementing this shift: cities are at the centre of key decisions which determine economic growth, social well-being, and environmental benefits.
Luckily, a multitude of city levers are already available to close loops, reduce waste, reuse resources, and restore ecosystems while also implementing long-term recovery strategies for more resilient, sustainable, and thriving societies. The key challenge is to understand how to successfully orchestrate this transition.
In this course, we will explain why cities play a fundamental role in the transition to a circular economy, outline the benefits and challenges of taking a circular approach to city transformation, and provide you with a framework and a set of tools to implement the transition in your own city!
Lesson 1 provides you with an overview of the current pressures influencing the sustainability of cities and explains why circularity can provide relevant answers.
Lesson 2 positions circular cities within the long history of green and sustainability concepts applied to the urban context.
Lesson 3 deep dives into the benefits and challenges of a circular city transition.
Lesson 4 provides you with an overview of the EU landscape surrounding circular cities.
Lesson 5 takes you to a circular city transition journey and details principles and levers that can support you in managing this transition.
Lesson 6 provides you with specific tools and methods that can help you reaching your circularity goals
Lesson 7 wraps up our course and offers you a holistic overview of everything addressed in the course to help you prepare for the quiz.
Access the course on Governing a Circular Economy in Cities – Reflow Academy