Cities are experiencing a new wave of innovation, driven by emerging practices in governance and participation, new technologies, the availability of data, and new sources and forms of capital investment.

As governments modernize, can they catalyse circular economy (CE) efforts? Examining the Canadian Smart Cities Challenge (SCC) applications, this research paper found that CE thinking was not at the forefront of Canadian municipalities and Indigenous communities who submitted proposals, with only five of 102 applications involving CE principles (which, for the purposes of this paper, consist of regenerate, share, optimize, loop, virtualize and exchange).

This paper offers suggestions for ways to enable circular economy thinking throughout the advancement of smart city technology