Winning hearts and minds: A commentary on circular cities

• Published date: 01 November 2018
• Author: Daphne Comfort,Peter Jones
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1726
• Date: 01 November 2018

COMMENTARY

Winning hearts and minds: A commentary on circular cities

Peter Jones

1

|Daphne Comfort

2

1

Professor of Management, The Business

School, University of Gloucestershire,

Gloucester, UK

2

The Business School, University of

Gloucestershire, Gloucester, UK

Correspondence

Peter Jones, The Business School, University

of Gloucestershire, Oxstalls Campus,

Gloucester, Gloucestershire GL2 9HW, UK.

Email: pjones@glos.ac.uk

There is growing interest in the concept of the circular city, which looks to embed the

principles of the circular economy across all urban functions. This commentary paper

outlines the concept of the circular city, explores how 3 European cities, namely,

Amsterdam, London, and Paris, are currently looking to develop a vision and an action

plan for the transition to a circular city, and offers some general reflections on the role

public relations and communications may play in the transition process. The findings

reveal that each of the action plans has its own distinctive flavour but that a number

of common elements can be identified. The paper suggests that public relations and

communications will have an important role to play to in raising and building aware-

ness and changing attitudes, with the ultimate goal of changing behaviour, within

the corporate world and amongst public sector decision makers and policy makers

and the general public.

1|INTRODUCTION

The concept of the circular economy, which looks to reduce the demand

for raw material inputs and natural resources and to recover, reuse, and

recycle those inputs and resources as an integral part of the production

process, has attracted increasing attention from business corporations

(Jones & Comfort, 2017). As such, the circular economy is contrasted,

by its proponents, with the traditional “linear economy,”which turns

raw materials into waste in the production process and which is seen

to lead to environmental pollution and the removal of natural capital

from the environment. At the same time, there is also growing interest

in “pioneering the application of circular economy approaches to

address today's urban challenges”(Ellen MacArthur Foundation,

2016). In justifying its claim that claimed “cities are key to going circu-

lar,”the World Economic Forum (2018) suggested that “more than

80% of global GDP is generated in cities,”which “makes them ideal

testing grounds for circular economic models.”More specifically, the

World Economic Forum (2018) argued that “the confluence of business,

resident and government actors creates live innovation labs for address-

ing the complex challenges of linear economic models.”At the same

time, Williams (2016) has outlined a number of potentially daunting

economic, cultural political, and regulatory challenges facing the transi-

tion to the successful functioning of a circular city. With these thoughts

in mind, this commentary paper outlines the concept of the circular city,

explores how three European cities, namely, Amsterdam, London, and

Paris, are currently looking to develop a vision and an action plan for

the transition to a circular city, and offers some general reflections on

the application of circular thinking to urban development.

2|THE CIRCULAR CITY

The World Economic Forum (2018) argued that “the foundations of a

circular economy derived from several theoretical concepts over time

and are not attributable to a single work or author”and that although

the origins of the concept can be traced back to the 1970s when

applied to economic systems and industrial processes, it now has

much wider currency. Further, the World Economic Forum (2018) sug-

gested that the concept now embraced a range of related concepts

including sustainable development, life cycle thinking, the green econ-

omy, eco‐design, and shared value and that it offered the opportunity

“to create a more sustainable future that allows the natural environ-

ment to restore resources and protects it from the negative effects

of industrialized waste.”Much more optimistically, the Wrap, London

Sustainable Development Commission, Mayor of London and London

Waste and Recycling Board (2015) argued that

the circular economy means enough for everyone, a direct

challenge to the take, make, waste mentality of the linear

economy. The benefits of a circular economy for

companies are endless; reducing dependency on scarce

natural resources; increasing their competitive

advantage; and realising significant financial savings.

DOI: 10.1002/pa.1726

J Public Affairs. 2018;18:e1726.

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1726

© 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa 1of7