London launched its Circular Economy Roadmap in 2017, Rotterdam created a Circular Economy Strategy, and Brussels is implementing a regional plan to increase circularity. They are by far not the only ones: in March 2020, the European Commission adopted the new circular economy action plan – one of the central pillars of the European Green Deal. It touches upon a multitude of aspects, from a sustainable product policy framework to circularity in production processes, packaging, cutting waste, and creating a well-functioning EU market for secondary raw materials.
The Business Case for (More) Circular Urban Production
The EU Commission estimates that applying circular economy principles across the EU has the potential to increase the union’s GDP by an additional 0.5% by 2030, creating around 700,000 new jobs. There is a clear business case for individual companies too: since manufacturing firms in the EU spend on average about 40% on materials, closed-loop models can increase their profitability while sheltering them from resource price fluctuations.
Clearly, we’re not there yet: Cities of Making states that in London alone, “around 84 million tonnes of materials are consumed (this includes fossil carriers used as fuel and to produce energy) every year. Around ⅔ of this material will become emissions or waste, while the other ⅓ will be added to the stock of buildings, infrastructure and machinery”. But innovative models based on a closer relationship with customers, mass customisation, the sharing and collaborative economy, and powered by (emerging) digital technologies – such as the Internet of Things, big data, blockchain and Artificial Intelligence – will accelerate circularity. Cities have a major role to play here.
Each step of this development plays into the hands of urban production. Reducing space requirements increases the potential of manufacturers to find room for their activities in the city. Distances to the customer become shorter, which has a positive effect on transport emissions. At the same time, waste plays a crucial role: the waste of one company can be the raw materials of a second. Through agglomeration and collaboration, the potential of closed cycles can be used decisively. By locating craft businesses in urban areas, the repair of things can happen close to the customer and without global transport routes. A ‘right to repair’ will feed into this too. The city becomes a hub of manufacturing expert knowledge, collaboration, and innovation through agglomeration and exchange.
In 12 patterns, Cities of Making describes how urban manufacturing can help transition to a circular economy. Three cases can be made in particular. Let’s look at production loops, repairs, and waste flows:
Transport and Technology: Local Goods, Local Loops
Cities offer the potential to reduce distances throughout all stages of manufacturing: from resource extraction to processing to the point of sale, and finally also to repair, re-use, or material recovery. Co-location of consumption and production activities increases the traceability of products and processes, promoting the adoption of cleaner technologies. It also allows for higher customisation and thus reduces wastage of resources associated with unsold stock as well as built-in obsolescence and high turnover of products. It may also encourage circular business models around take-back systems, reverse logistics, and upgradability.
These changes in manufacturing also offer opportunities for social change: distributed production has the potential for local ownership and involvement, something which large-scale centralised production rarely does.
New and clean technologies have immense potential for urban production in a wide range of sectors. They enable smaller volume and bespoke production to be viable, including additive technologies like 3D printing, and technology that improves communication across value chains, such as cloud computing. Cities that invest in knowledge and research into new technologies, building bridges between universities and manufacturers, for example, can also expect clear economic benefits. The wealth of expertise in these institutions is a source of, and draw for, entrepreneurs. They could be key to positioning the city as a potential hotspot for innovative manufacturing businesses to start up.
The Cities Report exemplifies this with the printing sector: “The printing sector may appear banal and not showing healthy signs for a future in urban manufacturing, if not for the arrival of new technologies that are improving accessibility to new products. This includes 3D printers, CNC machines, laser cutting machines and so forth. While fablabs are experimenting with such technology, it is very possible that once a larger customer base is formed, printers will be the likely professional sector that can provide both private and commercial services. In this sense, printing could be at the forefront of an entirely new wave of innovation, and we do not see it fading quite yet into the past.”
The case study of London gives examples of new initiatives and businesses showing the potential that exists. These sit alongside the sectors of industry critical to delivering a circular economy, such as waste and recycling: Rubies in the Rubble and Snact are capturing old or misshapen fruit and vegetables before they go to waste and turn them into business opportunities. Worn Again are developing a chemical textile-to-textile recycling technology that will enable clothes and textiles to be collected, processed, and made back into new yarn again and again. Premier Sustain remanufacture desks, chairs, and other office furniture at their Renew Centre in North London, which helps minimise waste and extends the lifecycle of these products.
Care to Repair
While perhaps not the most charismatic dimension of manufacturing, the repair and repurposing of materials and technology is an essential part of the shift to a circular economy and can improve resilience. London, for example, employs some 12,000 people in this sector. From phones, to cars, to clothing – it’s all about how you can keep things that have been produced (with all the energy and material that went into it) in use and at their peak performance for as long as possible. Cities therefore need to incentivise repair instead of replacement. Look to Vienna for their repair vouchers, for example.
A large (if not the largest) part of a product’s emissions is already generated in the production process. Therefore, it almost never makes sense to replace an appliance that can be repaired with a new one – even if it is touted to be more energy efficient. While it is true that the last half-century has produced vast amounts of almost unrepairable goods, we should be avoiding where possible the full replacement of machines and instead fix parts that are no longer functional.
Taking Brussels as an example, the Cities Report states: “Take the public transport operator STIB / MIVB, pieces of buses and trams are constantly being replaced and upgraded without the need to replace the entire vehicle. […] There are jobs and skills to be developed within the repair industry that are completely complementary with manufacturing. Furthermore, the environments needed for repair are almost identical to those for manufacturing – such as a workshop or a warehouse.”
Making Use of Waste Streams
Waste streams produced by the city in the form of solid residuals, waste, greywater, and heat can be productively utilised for urban manufacturing: one company’s waste could be another company’s feedstock.
For sustainable product cycles to be enacted, urban planning and economic policies must recognise the network of infrastructure required to provide a regenerative service for goods and materials consumed within cities. This can be done by addressing and mapping out the spatial needs associated with repair, storage, recycling, and waste. Cities also require policies for treating waste locally and means to capture the waste for local use, to prevent it from being exported – manufacturers can then convert waste into a useable resource. Furthermore, the legal and institutional framework around waste often prevents usable resources from being recovered, with restrictions on movement and exchange of waste.
Besides material flows, there also lies a lot of potential in improving energy flows (energy cascading). Even if there is interest on the manufacturer’s side, the topic is often too complex, expensive, and overwhelming for a single business to act. Cities of Making finds that among all obstacles named, the main challenge is a lack of understanding and visibility of material and energy flows between activities at the city level, which reduces the chances to identify the potential for re-use.
Cities need to provide a variety of spaces and circular infrastructure to address both collection points and levels of waste treatment. Remember: recycling should be considered as the last viable option (after repair or remanufacturing). Local collection points of segregated waste are importantly linked to storage space to allow material stockpiling. This can give entrepreneurs or local design and prototyping organisations an incentive to turn waste into a resource.
Where possible, build on existing waste management processes to ensure that users understand where waste must go and where to repair fixable things. However, where the system is blocked by regulation or policy, you’ll need to explore how to adapt it. In some cases, such as for organic materials, legislation may need to be changed to make the resource circular. Manufacturers should sort waste as thoroughly as possible at the source so that it can be taken to a suitable treatment site. Re-use & repair centres can be located near consumers or businesses to help lengthen product cycles while offering accessible and meaningful low-skilled work.
Cities also need to invest in developing workable synergies between waste creators and businesses that can re-use the waste. Resource recovery requires addressing three aspects. Firstly, it requires an understanding of the flows of material, water, and energy within the system which can be done with a material database. Secondly, it requires appropriate multi-scalar circular infrastructure (waste collection points, waste management centres, sale or distribution points) to be able to recover the resources. Thirdly, system interventions are required to encourage stakeholders to re-use local material and energy flows. Place-based financial levers and a designated Curator could come in handy here, for example in moderating resource management between businesses (from storage to distribution chains and necessary data systems).
In a Nutshell Urban manufacturing has the potential to play a crucial role in a city’s transition to a circular economy. For manufacturers to optimise resource and waste flows and to make use of local materials, public leadership and support are needed. Oftentimes, businesses alone don’t have the capacity, technology, or space to effectively close cycles. Public authorities can leverage the change by providing the infrastructure and suitable space, and by appointing a Curator to help businesses establish symbiotic relationships both with other companies and the city.