Goal

Explore opportunities to implement circular economy strategies (e.g. pilot projects, infrastructure investments, policies) that are relevant to the focus sectors, materials, and impacts selected in the previous step. Assess how each opportunity can address local challenges.

Stage of development

Beta available. In testing.

To see in the tool

In this step, the Circle City Scan Tool presents a radar chart showcasing recommended opportunities of the circular economy given your selected focus sector, materials and impacts.

Opportunities are scored using a combination of expert and algorithmic scoring (see more info below). Opportunities with a higher score gravitate towards the center of the radar chart, while lower-scoring opportunities are located in the outer layers.

The opportunities are based on Circle Economy's Elements framework, which is continuously maintained.

To do in this step

1. Navigate the opportunity radar
   Explore the high & medium scoring opportunities that show in the highlighted blue circles in the middle of the radar (the "Recommended" area). Consider what these opportunities mean in relation to your city and selected focus area.
   
   
   Explore the opportunities in the periphery of the radar (the dots that are not showing a number directly, those out of the blue circles), as they might still be relevant for the challenges your city is facing.
   
   
2. Get inspired by case studies from around the world
   By clicking on each opportunity in the radar, the tool presents a list of case studies that show the implementation of certain circular strategies for a certain context. The case studies can help you to better understand what the opportunities presented in the tool can lead to in real-life situations, and what different circular strategies you could develop in your city.
   
   
   
   Next to case studies, the tool presents a list of 'Solution Providers', potential stakeholders that can provide a technology or a service for the execution of a pilot project. If no solution provider is available for your city, brainstorm on potential local solution providers. This can help you better understand the local context and make a decision on which opportunities to focus on.
   
   
   
3. Select the most relevant opportunities for the context of your city
   Sorting out relevant opportunities, reading about case studies, and identifying solution providers can help you contextualize opportunities to your city and select those that have the highest potential to be translated into practical circular pilot projects. To select opportunities click on the chosen opportunity, and press 'Select' on the bottom right corner. You can select multiple opportunities. Usually, in a Circle City Scan we recommend to choose 6 opportunities per focus sector.
   
   

How opportunities are scored

There are 70 + circular opportunities, and this list is growing and evolving. The methodology used to score opportunities in the opportunity radar combines expert knowledge and algorithmic capabilities towards the best recommendation for a project within the city. Our experts rate the extent to which opportunities are relevant to each focus selected, and our algorithm conducts an analysis of online content - including research, companies, and media, and measures the extent to which opportunities are relevant to your chosen city or to comparable cities. Comparable cities are determined based on the similarity of their economic profile.

The initial scoring can be considered a first recommendation, a starting point for further exploration. Users are encouraged to criticize and re-evaluate opportunities for their own contexts.

Expert scoring

Experts have been consulted to prioritise and map how sectors, materials, and impacts relate to opportunities, as well as how different profiles of cities relate to opportunities.

Algorithmic Scoring

Underlying the Circle City Scan Tool is a knowledge and data repository of case studies, policy implementations, research, and company websites linked to specific locations and opportunities around the world.

We analyse this body of text to create heat maps of how opportunities relate to sectors, materials and inputs and to what extent opportunities are implemented in specific locations.

Further, we use comparable city profiles to link circular activity across similar cities in order to provide recommendations to a city based on what similar cities are doing.

The elastic component of the score is designed to handle and process the increasing body of literature, and the diverse range of solution providers working towards a circular economy and provide a map indicating where there is a density of activity, but also where there is an inactivity in certain areas.

Challenges

• Choosing opportunities
  The opportunity radar of the Circle City Scan Tool provides you a list of opportunities and number of case studies. However, remember that the tool is meant to be used as a starting point for your research. The opportunity scoring framework may not accurately represent your scale of action, or your context. Therefore, please include different opportunities that are not shown in the opportunity radar, if you think that they are relevant for your city.

• Limited Case Studies
  There may not be sufficient case studies or information to correctly profile the city and the corresponding opportunities. To select the opportunities and define the strategies, it is important to think about the local context. Who are the key stakeholders in the sector? What kind of knowledge is needed to implement the strategies further? Who can help gaining that knowledge?