On 3 November 2020 City of Copenhagen (CPH), London Waste and Recycling Board (LWARB) and International Federation for Housing and Planning (IFHP) hosted the inaugural City Network meeting, launching the start of cross-city discussions that will take place annually through the project.
Using a hybrid of virtual and physical platforms, the meeting gathered 32 participants from 15 cities across Europe: Amsterdam, Barcelona, Copenhagen Hamburg, Glasgow, Dresden, Helsinki, London, Manchester, Middelfart, Milan, Vantaa, Liepaja, Lisbon and Lodz. Focusing on the theme Circular construction in city governance, the sessions explored policies and tools that cities can use to promote circularity in construction.
The moderator - Jesper Pagh, Assistant Professor in sustainability, mobility and planning practices at Roskilde University - opened the morning with a round of introductions. The participants then split into four groups to discuss barriers and opportunities for circular construction in their regions. A number of common themes emerged:
• Addressing regulatory barriers that would enable the testing, use and storage of reused and recycled materials from demolished buildings
• The need to create market conditions that encourage the uptake of reused and recycled materials
• How CIRCuIT can demonstrate viable solutions and provide recommendations on addressing regulatory and logistical barriers to circular construction
• An interest in sharing existing solutions that have been piloted and have potential to work across other cities.
Following this, London and City of Copenhagen partners gave short insight talks on engaging with developers, incorporating circularity into planning policy, embedding reuse and recycling in public tenders, and developing a city-wide route map towards a circular economy to tackle consumption-based carbon emissions.
The final discussion provided an opportunity for the network to engage with each other and the panellists. The discussion covered various topics such as upskilling decision takers in the industry, data capture and analysis on material flows, approaches to creating market opportunities for reclaimed materials, trialling tools in different types of construction and how municipalities and developers can work together effectively with a tool to achieve circularity.
The conclusion of the meeting presented a variety of topics for CIRCuIT to consider in the development of tools and recommendations for urban planning policy and governance structures. The next annual meeting will be held in Autumn 2021.
If you work in a municipality that’s interested in joining the CIRCuIT City Network, please get in touch with Andrea Charlson at andrea.charlson@lwarb.gov.uk.