Many cities aim to be fully circular by 2050. That sounds like a promise. But anyone who looks honestly at what is actually happening sees mostly well-intentioned projects that deliver little in practice. Worm hotels in neighborhood gardens. A timber auction of felled city trees. Discounts on shoe repairs via local city passes. Inspiring, yes, but nowhere near enough. Cities don’t lack ambition. They lack realism about what is truly needed.
The market is not the enemy: it’s your ally
The biggest mistake a city can make is believing that a circular transition is purely about awareness and good intentions. It’s about business models, volumes, and making money. Companies only reverse their processes when it pays. Not when an alderman stands next to them holding a certificate.
Cities also need to be honest about what they cannot control. The right coalition matters more than a broad one. Which businesses are the real links in the chain? Who has scale, data, and execution power? And which neighboring cities need to be aligned? Bring them in early.
Food waste from local hospitality, construction materials from demolished buildings, electronics repair, and textiles from clothing collection points. All these flows have potential, but only when there is sufficient volume, the logistics behind them work, and someone makes money from it.
That doesn’t require subsidies. It requires smart market regulation: mandatory procurement criteria on city projects, ground lease contracts with circular conditions. Cities spend billions annually. That is a flywheel, not a footnote.
Residents are not a target group: they are actors
Circularity is currently pushed too much from the top down. The result: the average resident thinks it’s something for people with compost bins and linen bags. That needs to change. People already reuse a great deal through Vinted, marketplace apps, neighborhood platforms, and free-stuff corners. That is the circular economy in practice. But cities largely let that energy go to waste.
A city that takes its residents seriously builds infrastructure that connects to existing behavior: smart collection points in shopping areas, deposit systems beyond just bottles, and repair cafés with a real business model.
And then there’s data. Without data, circular policy is shooting in the dark. How much construction material is being demolished? Which textile flows go to recycling and which to incineration? A city-wide materials passport for buildings is not a luxury. It is the foundation on which you organize scale, steer supply chains, and convince investors.
Space is the bottleneck nobody wants to see
Circularity is not just an idea. It is a logistics operation. Recycling companies, sorting hubs, repair workshops, storage space for building materials — they all need physical space. Heavy-duty space. Environmental category 4 or higher. Waterfront locations. Exactly the type of industrial site that cities are increasingly converting to housing.
Researchers warn that the supply of suitable business locations will be exhausted in virtually every region around 2030, precisely when demand for circular space peaks. The excellent study Amsterdam Makes Room for the Circular Economy (by Posad Maxwan & Structural Collective) makes this concrete: circular activities, from neighborhood repair points to regional hubs, require their own logistics infrastructure. The report is clear: protect industrial sites in the region from being repurposed for housing.
Three concrete recommendations for cities
One: Protect industrial heritage as circular infrastructure. No business site in the region should be converted to housing or offices without an explicit assessment of its circular functions. Strategically located ports, industrial estates, and logistics hubs are the lungs of the circular city of 2040. Treat them accordingly, and recognize this as a regional issue.
Two: Make the city a launching customer. Every city project must be demonstrably procured in accordance with circular principles. Not as an opt-in, but as a hard contractual requirement. This creates demand, scale, and market simultaneously in partnership with businesses and knowledge partners.
Three: Build a city materials dashboard. A map showing which materials flow into and out of the city, by sector and by neighborhood. Open data, accessible to businesses, researchers, and residents alike. Those who know what flows can steer it.
Every city (and region) can become a circular city. But not through well-intentioned pilots. Through bold, compelling action. With a policy that takes markets seriously, treats residents as partners, uses data as its foundation, and protects space as if the future depends on it.
Walther Ploos van Amstel
Also read: Amsterdam’s Circular Economy: A Spatial and Logistics Wake-Up Call