Policy: Circular city
Lease contracts for washing machines. Buildings that can be taken apart and reassembled elsewhere. Mushrooms grown in coffee grounds. These and other creative new ways of recycling and reusing materials can greatly reduce Amsterdam's dependence on fossil fuels. If we want to break the cycle of producing, buying, and then disposing of products and energy, then we have to come up with more sustainable solutions.
Amsterdam as a circular city
Transitioning to a circular economy will benefit Amsterdam in areas including employment, research, public health, and reducing CO2 emissions. Given all these benefits, Amsterdam’s city government wants to go circular as quickly as possible. The goal is to make Amsterdam into a truly green, low-waste city by 2050.
Innovation programme
How can we conserve natural resources and drastically reduce the amount of waste we produce? And how can we use renewable resources to generate power for our city? To answer these and other questions, the City of Amsterdam has launched the Circular Innovation Programme 2016-2018 (in Dutch), which encourages innovations that accelerate the transition to a circular economy.
Research
The City of Amsterdam’s Circular Innovation Programme has a strong foundation. It is based on a report commissioned by the city government to identify promising opportunities for circular development, which contains solid data and recommendations. For example, the report concludes that building 70,000 new circular homes before 2040 would contribute €85 million to the economy annually, create 700 new jobs, and reduce CO2 emissions by 500,000 tonnes per year.
Amsterdam leads the way
When it comes to transitioning to a circular economy, Amsterdam is one of the international leaders. In 2017, Amsterdam received the World Smart City Award. The awards organisation praised our city’s pioneering approach to circular development, and in particular our efforts to generate electricity locally, reduce fuel consumption and recycle waste more efficiently. Cities all across the world have begun asking Amsterdam for help in setting up their own circular programmes.
New ways of thinking and creating
A wide range of projects are included in Amsterdam’s circular innovation programme: from rooftop rainwater collection and filtration to evolutionary engineering, which involves using biological systems to develop valuable chemical substances.
Fast, low-cost 3D printing and free design software provide entrepreneurs with the tools, skills, and techniques they need to create and improve on their own designs. This allows them to tailor their products to specific needs and to make use of locally sourced materials, which is better for the environment.
Smart data
Most circular innovations, such as those designed to use energy more efficiently, are the result of insights gained from smart data. Examples include street lights that only switch on in the presence of cyclists or cars, or office lighting that only turns on when an employee’s mobile phone is detected.
Collaboration
As with any economic transition, businesses and institutions must be able to take an active role in the circular transition process. The City of Amsterdam serves as a facilitator, creating the right conditions for development, accelerating research and data acquisition, and working together with businesses and partners. These include research institutions such as the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions and the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, as well as the Amsterdam Economic Board, Amsterdam Smart City, and private partners.
The city government has also decided to make circular and innovation-oriented purchasing the new standard. For example, the rapidly developing area of Buiksloterham will be fully circular. The neighbourhood will feature a biodigester, which will be maintained by Waternet. In this way, the Buiksloterham area will serve as a test case for how to maximise the recovery of energy (gas and heat) and resources from wastewater. There are also many other, smaller-scale circular initiatives throughout the rest of the city. For example, the Betondorp (‘Concrete Village’) area was recently renovated using recycled concrete.
What’s next?
The projects featured in the circular innovation programme and the efforts of Amsterdam’s city government are expected to provide an enormous boost to the circular transition process. In addition to encouraging knowledge development and innovation, the City of Amsterdam is currently working to create the ideal conditions for the transition to a circular economy by identifying laws and regulations that are impeding progress and bringing them to the attention of the Dutch government.
In 2018, the various circular projects will be evaluated, and the city government will decide upon a medium- to long-term strategy.