Circular Amsterdam (Amsterdam - The Netherlands)
Circular Amsterdam (Amsterdam - The Netherlands)
Circular Amsterdam is a circular innovation programme that presents a framework of innovation processes in the City of Amsterdam. The goal of this program is to increase knowledge in circular economy and experience the transition from a linear to a circular economy. The whole process is supported by the City Council in terms of control and policy.
Amsterdam realised a City Circle Scan study (which resulted in a report: “Circular Amsterdam: a vision and action agenda for the city and metropolitan area”) to thoroughly analyse all the city’s system processes and identify the potential drivers of transition to a circular model.
The City Circle Scan identified two main areas with potential for improvement and application of a circular economy program: the construction chain and the organic residual streams chain. A series of strategies and action points where then defined to improve the circularity of the processes and lead to the transformation of these areas.
- Circular construction chain: 1 - Smart design: to make buildings more suitable for repurposing and reusing the materials. 2 - Dismantling and separation of waste streams: doing this efficiently enables high-value reuse. 3 - High-value recycling: recovery and reuse of materials and components. 4 - Marketplace and resource bank: exchanging commodities between market players.
- Circular organic residual streams chain: 1 - Central bio-refinery hub: for the valorisation of organic residual streams from household and industrial waste. 2 - Waste separation and return logistics: smart waste separation and return logistics to deploy the logistics hub of the city in a smart way and to increase the value of residual flows. 3 - Cascading of organic flows: deploy organic residual streams in the smartest way possible. 4 - Recovering nutrients: retrieve essential nutrients to close the cycle.
Sources:
https://amsterdamsmartcity.com/projects/circle-scan-amsterdam
Improved e-Governance and citizen services;
Improved solid waste management;
Improved Bio-Waste management;
Improved Energy management.
Description of the specific objectives:
- Improve service quality;
- Support economic growth;
- Reduce greenhouse gas emissions and material consumption in the construction chain and the organic residual streams chain;
- Stimulate employment opportunities.
Gemeente Amsterdam (City Council); Circle Economy; TNO; Fabric.
- Expand the circular economy model to the other areas of the city’s economic system.
Smart organic waste valorization technologies and processes; smart building technologies and recycling of construction waste; defining policies to support the transformation into a circular economy.
A roadmap and action agenda where defined in the Circular Amsterdam report (result of the City Circle Scan study), with three top actions for each chain:
- Construction chain: Facilitating resource and material storage (to match demand to the supply of building materials and resources); Stimulating high-value reuse (by being a launching customer and contributing to the development of procurement guidelines); Stimulating material passports (and contributing to the development of guidelines for new construction projects).
- Organic residual streams chain: Virtual resource platform (to further develop and make publicly accessible specific geo-data regarding demand and supply of organic residual streams in the city and region); Circular bio-refinery free zone (to identify specific locations which are intended to be circular free zones and define rules for further development); Launching customer (to develop procurement criteria for the use of locally produced grass, wood, and food).
In 2017, Amsterdam Circular Innovation Program has won the World Smart City Award for circular economy at the Smart City Expo World Congress in Barcelona.
Expected impact (related to the four indicators of the City Circle Scan report):
- Added Value: the implementation of material reuse strategies and efficiency improvements in the construction chain has the potential to create a value of €85 million per year, while high-value processing of organic residual streams has the potential to create an added value of €150 million per year, over a period of five to seven years;
- Material Savings (calculated by value retention in domestic material consumption): in the construction chain, material savings could add up to 500 thousand tonnes per year, while the organic residual streams chain could save up to 400 thousand tonnes per year. This is a very significant amount when compared to the current annual import of 3.9 million tonnes of biomass and 1.5 million tonnes of construction materials utilised by the region;
- Job Growth: increased productivity levels lead to the possible creation of 700 additional jobs in the building sector, and 1200 additional jobs in the agriculture and food processing industry;
- Reduction in CO2 emissions: greenhouse gas emissions are estimated to decrease by 500 thousand tonnes of CO2 emissions per year in the construction chain (which is equivalent to 2.5% of the current annual CO2 emissions of the city), and 600 thousand tonnes of CO2 emissions per year in the organic residual streams chain (which is nearly 3% of the current annual CO2 emissions of Amsterdam).
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| Report Circular Amsterdam.pdf | 14.69 MB |