Washington, DC/ Amsterdam, NL (May 18, 2022) — Five international organizations with a shared vision to enable the rapid and just transition towards a regenerative and equitable economy are announcing the launch of the Circular City Coalition.
PXYERA Global, Metabolic, Enel North America, Rheaply, and First Mile have formed the Circular City Coalition (CCC) to focus on action and implementation in laying the foundation for a circular economy, including through a new circular innovation ecosystem fund.
Cities occupy only 3% of Earth’s land surface, but they consume 75% of our resources while producing 60-80% of our total greenhouse gas emissions. With 55% of the world’s population living in cities and that number continuing to grow, urban environments are where some of the greatest inequities occur. By initiating a regenerative and equitable transition in urban hubs, the CCC can collectively tackle the issues at scale and with urgency.
“Our mission is to design out these environmental, social, and economic issues simultaneously, rather than one at a time, and to help bring regenerative and equitable solutions to scale in cities across the world,” said Deirdre White, CEO of PYXERA Global.
Composed of leading INGOs, MNCs, Social Enterprises, and circular start-ups, the CCC is driven by the spirit of collaboration needed to build a better world — starting with helping cities transform and enabling all communities to thrive. Together, the five organizations are experts in the field, boasting a global reach from 34 offices on six continents. They have advised more than 60 governments and cities on circular economy and climate policy, and have collectively facilitated and implemented multi-stakeholder programs representing local community interests in more than 110 countries.
“Cities are a powerful leverage point because of their immense resource use and concentrated populations,” says Eva Gladek, CEO and founder of Metabolic, which has proven experience working with coalitions to redesign cities. “That’s exactly why we have been engaging with cities for the past 10 years. If we restructure the economy towards a circular model, these resources can be the bedrock of a new economy, with more resilience, more jobs, and less environmental impact. We are working towards breaking down the financial barriers and creating enabling conditions to push the transformation, and tackle multiple problems at once, from inequality to pollution to resource management.”
From Krakow (Poland) to São Paulo (Brazil), and from Cleveland, Ohio (US) to Amsterdam (The Netherlands), cities across the globe are co-designing blueprints that provide the necessary mix of legislation and strategy to enable regenerative and equitable transitions towards the circular economy.
While there is a strong consensus to move these strategies from theory into practice, several roadblocks are stifling meaningful progress, including:
- The “Recycling is Enough” Mindset: In the United States, only 35% of trash is recycled (only 5% of plastic). By the time materials are recycled, they have already lost most of their value. Cities need to enable a repair/reuse mindset and incentivize these more regenerative activities higher up the value chain.
- Operational Funding Cycles: Cities are understaffed, under-resourced, and do not have the necessary funds to meaningfully invest in the enforcement of circular economy legislation and circular infrastructure at scale. Without reliable funding streams, significant change for citizens and their environment is severely limited.
- Meaningful Multi-Sector Collaboration: Due to stretched budgets and short-term solutions, cities lack the necessary resources needed to invest in building fruitful and authentic partnerships across public, social, and private sectors.
Using the Circular Innovation Ecosystem philosophy, the CCC will tackle these issues by creating a regenerative fund in and for cities across the world. The philosophy ties circular economy investments and innovation to impact outcomes through four key elements:
- Innovative Finance: Scaling high-value circular economy (CE) solutions, while accelerating and transforming businesses through the development of results-based finance mechanisms in collaboration with private and public financiers.
- Synergistic Acceleration: Accelerating a cohort of CE businesses that act synergistically towards shifting a target industry towards circularity.
- Partnerships: Collaborating with cities to leverage public budgets, implement circular practices, participate in public/private financing, and champion circular innovation at scale.
- Replication: Building local circular innovation ecosystems in cities across the globe by openly prototyping and sharing best practices.
To learn more about the Circular City Coalition, visit www.circularcitycoalition.com
Media contacts:
PYXERA Global – contact John Holm, vice president of Strategic Initiatives at PYXERA Global, [email protected] (or [email protected])
Metabolic – contact Andrew McCue, Circular Economy Consultant at Metabolic, [email protected] (or [email protected])
About PXYERA Global:
We leverage the unique strengths of corporations, governments, social sector organizations, educational institutions, and individuals to enhance the abilities of people and communities to solve complex problems and attain mutually beneficial goals. With 30+ years’ experience in more than 100 countries, our team is passionate and dedicated to navigating challenges and pinpointing purposeful global engagement opportunities for our clients and partners.(www.pyxeraglobal.org)
About Metabolic:
Metabolic advises governments, businesses, and NGOs on how to adapt to a fast-changing global context, while creating disruptive solutions that can dramatically shift how the economy functions. We crunch data, provide strategies and tools, build pilots, and create new ventures that develop scalable solutions to critical problems. Core to achieving our mission is the transition to an economy that is regenerative and ‘circular’ by design.(www.metabolic.nl)
About Enel North America:
Enel North America, part of the Enel Group, is a clean energy leader in North America and is working to electrify the economy and build a low-carbon future by decarbonizing energy supply, creating resilient grids, and promoting a just, equitable transition. Enel North America’s portfolio includes 7.8 GW of renewable capacity, 110,000 EV charging stations, 4.7 GW of demand response capacity and 11 utility-scale battery energy storage systems totaling 1,139 MWh of capacity under construction or in operation. The company proudly serves over 4,500 customers, which include businesses, utilities and cities. Enel operates in the US and Canada through five businesses: Enel Green Power, Enel X, Enel Energy and Commodity Management, Enel X Way and Gridspertise. Learn more about Enel North America by visiting www.enelnorthamerica.com | www.enel.com | www.enelx.com | www.enelgreenpower.com | www.evcharging.enelx.com | www.gridspertise.com
About Rheaply:
The Rheaply platform is a cloud-based resource exchange technology application for connecting people and organizations with resources, improving reuse outcomes, and catalyzing the circular economy. As the only market solution that combines an asset management system with an online marketplace, Rheaply’s platform enables organizations to exchange materials and resources more effectively, eliminating unnecessary waste and spend. To learn more about Rheaply, visit rheaply.com or follow @RheaplyInc.
About First Mile:
First Mile formalizes waste collection networks in low-income communities and bridges the gap for global brands to purchase from the value chain, while diverting plastic waste from leakage sites. Their work maps wastesheds and helps large corporations and NGOs alike understand how best to tackle the social and environmental issues inherent to informal waste economies, then helps them implement those solutions directly. First Mile has created value chains that have saved hundreds of millions of plastic bottles from landfills and the ocean, supported jobs for thousands of waste workers, and developed programming that has curtailed and remediated child labor in landfills, undercut bad faith practices like predatory lending, and ensured that families can safely make the transition to the formal economy, all while supplying over a dozen global brands with First Mile approved materials that they and their consumers can be proud of (https://www.firstmilemade.com)
