Circular Turku

A project by ICLEI and the City of Turku, Finland

The current linear economy relies on intensive resource extraction where the majority of materials are wasted after a single use. This generates huge amounts of emissions, destroys ecosystems and threatens the long-term availability of key resources.

The Circular Turku project aims to design a regional roadmap to operationalize circularity in the Turku region with the support of local stakeholders and ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability and to equip local governments around the world with tools and methodologies to design their own circular transitions.

Aims

The Circular Turku project builds on four pillars:

Ambition: Turku and ICLEI are elevating the level of ambition of circularity in cities by focusing on the circular transition of infrastructures, city operations and services, businesses innovations and lifestyles.

Integration: Turku is committed to becoming carbon neutral by 2029 and is using circular economy principles to address GHG emissions in a systemic manner. The Circular Turku project showcases how circularity supports climate action in practice.

Collaboration: Turku prioritizes a bottom-up and multi-stakeholder approach to the circular economy, based on the needs and strengths of regional stakeholders. The city also collaborates with other local governments of the Green Circular Cities Coalition to ensure local efforts can be inspired by and inspire circular economy efforts elsewhere.

Inclusion: Turku is working with ICLEI to ensure the actions identified as part of the roadmap are inclusive, build on community initiatives and create opportunities for all residents. This will offer tangible learnings for other local governments globally and replicable guidelines to incorporate social equity into circular economy planning.

Activities

Through Circular Turku, ICLEI is:

Supporting the identification of circular economy interventions across 5 priority sectors (food, water, buildings and construction, energy, transport and logistics) through multi-stakeholder engagement and international knowledge transfer
Informing the design of residents and businesses engagement campaigns to facilitate the uptake of Circular Turku by local communities
Developing a framework and advocacy strategy for Turku and peer cities to integrate circular economy interventions and considerations into its climate planning
Designing a tool to embed social equity into the Circular Turku roadmap to ensure each interventions outlined in the roadmap is inclusive
Identifying best practices and learnings from Turku for international dissemination

Report 30 July 2020

Circular Turku: A blueprint for local governments to kick start the circular economy transition

Policy brief 30 July 2020

Towards carbon-neutral circular economies at the regional level

Case Study 30 July 2020

Multi-stakeholder collaboration for a Circular Turku

Case Study 30 July 2020

Supporting circular food systems through public procurement

Case Study 30 July 2020

From extraction to resource recovery, a systemic water concept in Turku

Circular Turku is implemented by the city of Turku, ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability, the Finland Futures Research Center and Valonia – Service Centre for Sustainable Development and Energy of Southwest Finland. The project is supported by the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra.

Associate Partnership

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Associate Partnership is available to non-governmental organizations, universities, state and national government agencies and not-for-profit research institutions. The purpose of Associate Partnership is to facilitate dialogues between local governments and these partners, to provide knowledge transfer in line with ICLEI's Mission and Charter, and an avenue for which partners can support ICLEI's work and mandate.

HARNESS the power of the ICLEI Network! " Governments need to give (the sense of) direction, as Business leaders we don't make the wind, we sail the boats. So policy should set the winds in the right directions if you want the boat going fast to the right harbor." Philippe Joubert Senior Advisor, World Business Council
on Sustainable Development

Click here to view a full list of our associate partners

All India Institute of Local Self Government
Center for Environmental Studies Foundation
Central New York Regional Planning and Development Board
China Center for Urban Development (CCUD)
Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission
Council of Wards in Tokyo
Fondation Biladi pour le Developpement Durable
German Federal Association for Sustainability
The Guangzhou Award
ICDI - International Climate Development Institute
IGOB-lnteressengemeinschaft okologische Beschaffung
International Association for Medina-Mary
Local Government Network-LG Net
National Institute of Urban Affairs
National Procurement Ltd.- Denmark
Natureparif
North-West University, Potchefstroom
RADP - Rural Area Development Programme
Selenyi Kirov
Southern Nevada Regional Planning Coalition
Taiwan Environmental Action Network
TCO Development
The Ideas Bank Foundation
VITO-Vlaamse Instelling voor Technologisch Onderzoek
Water Research Commission

Rates and Dues

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Eva Madeira Head of ICLEI Global Membership & Governance

Got any questions? I will be happy to assist. Please contact me at iclei(at)iclei.org