Amsterdam: A model for circular economy policies
By Olivia Merritt, Undergraduate at North Carolina State University
There are cities in the world that have concrete plans to implement the circular economy model into their communities. One of the most notable is Amsterdam. Amsterdam is known for its beautiful canals and cycling-friendly streets. Now they will be known as one of the first cities in the world to create a comprehensive plan to implement circular practices. Amsterdam has a plan called the Amsterdam Coalition Agreement which requires that the city reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030. In their Amsterdam Circular 2020-2025 Strategy document, the city outlines its focus on three supply chains: city construction, consumer goods, and food and organic waste.
Circular Construction
One area that both Amsterdam and Circular Triangle are tackling is circularity of construction materials. Yesterday, Circular Triangle launched a Circularity in the Built Environment Community of Practice (CIBE CoP), made up of local construction professionals and companies, to build support and pilot solutions to reduce construction and demolition (C&D) waste. The U.S. produces more than double the amount of C&D waste than regular trash, but many people are unaware of the scale of this problem because you don’t see that waste unless you work in the industry. If construction were to become more circular, then an extensive amount of waste would be diverted from landfills.
Amsterdam is several years ahead of the Triangle in this process and has created guidelines for planning the entire process of a construction project, from raw materials, reuse and, if applicable, deconstructing the building. Where there are buildings that are not under Amsterdam’s authority, the city will financially reward projects that use circular properties. Amsterdam’s target is to reduce their raw material use by half by 2030. They will do this by focusing their material purchases on recycled and bio-engineered materials. Amsterdam will first try not to build new buildings at all; instead, they will try to lengthen the building life of the current building, or reuse the buildings, traffic lights, and other “municipal assets” in another area of the city. To achieve the Amsterdam Coalition Agreement target, hundreds of thousands of buildings will have to be renovated to make them more energy-efficient and expand the use of reused materials.
The Vivaldi building, a building in Amsterdam with a concrete core and a wooden exterior. Wood is a more circular product than concrete, and Amsterdam has plans to include more timber in their building construction.
Consumer Goods
Amsterdam as a city will take control over the recycling and waste facilities by 2022, which are currently owned and operated by private companies. If the city operates their own waste facilities, they give themselves more incentive to reduce waste. Private companies, however, are incentivized to take in as much waste as possible to increase profits. To fulfill their goal of reducing consumer waste and promoting reused materials, the city will buy only used or easily refurbished furniture and electronics. By 2025, Amsterdam will have 50% of their products used in a circular fashion—that is, able to be refurbished or reused in some way instead of directly taken to the dump. By 2030, 100% of products will be used circularly.
To provide consumers with circular products, Amsterdam will invest in circular infrastructure. This includes libraries for clothes, websites for shared power tools and other types of products, and a larger market for repair shops and even circular shopping malls. Finally, the city will have educational campaigns teaching its citizens about reusing products and using products that they already have instead of buying new.
The Triangle can also make a concerted effort to apply product circularity to its markets. Forming a committee to tackle a circular products campaign would allow the Triangle to educate consumers about reusing and repairing products. Creating incentives for more repair shops to open instead of new clothing stores could encourage consumers to use products for longer.
Food and Organic Waste
Finally, Amsterdam will make the city’s food chain shorter. This means more locally-grown food. Amsterdam doesn’t have a lot of space for agriculture, but in its outskirts the city plans to promote regenerative agriculture. They will also increase urban gardening, whether that be vertical gardening on apartment building walls or small garden plots in underused green areas in the city. Amsterdam will spur more local agriculture by buying only regionally sourced foods.
Additionally, Amsterdam plans to encourage a circular food system. Through social campaigns like AIDAS (awareness, interest, desire, action, satisfaction) and education, the city will make it easier to separate food and garden waste from regular trash. There will be a specific focus on reducing food waste in the first place as well as working with restaurants and hotels so that their food waste is separated. Amsterdam plans to halve its food waste by 2025,
Amsterdam will invest in the proper infrastructure to process the food waste produced from residential homes and restaurants. This is similar to what NC State University did a year ago. Amsterdam will create a larger market for food waste processors that includes composting and fermentation.
The Triangle could enact similar policies to streamline food waste reduction and support local agriculture. Where there are empty lots or underused green spaces, cities can fund small agricultural plots. Durham has already piloted a municipal curbside composting program, and the rest of the Triangle could make compost collection an addition to recycling and trash collection. Finally, the Triangle could work with stores and restaurants and subsidize local farmers’ produce to make the price compatible with large name-brand foods.
Through the three areas I have outlined, Amsterdam’s circular economy plan will create many more jobs for people to work in the circular industries. Examples of circular jobs include construction jobs in deconstruction, and repair and refurbishment professionals. Using the three key principles of circular economy, Amsterdam will soon be implementing the circular economy model:
- Designing waste out of the system with short food supply chains, reducing overall consumption, circular building architectural design and adapting buildings to new use
- Obtaining the maximum value of materials by promoting reuse and repair, such as solely buying used or refurbished furniture and electronics and creating more opportunities for reusing construction materials
- Regenerating nature by replacing unused green space with sustainable agriculture plots
Now it’s the Triangle’s turn!
