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Circular Economy and Circular City for Sustainable Development

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Urban and Rural Development".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 April 2025) | Viewed by 2209

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
1. Department of Architecture, University of Naples Federico II, Via Roma, 402, 80132 Napoli, Italy
2. CNR Institute for Research on Innovation and Services for Development, 80134 Napoli, NA, Italy
3. Institute for Research on Innovation and Services for Development of National Research Council, Pegaso University, 80100 Naples, Italy
Interests: urban design; urban planning; environmental impact assessment; heritage conservation; landscape planning; circular city; circular economy.
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Guest Editor
Ingegneria Department, Pegaso University, 80100 Naples, Italy
Interests: environmental impact assessment; heritage conservation; landscape planning; circular city; circular economy; innovative materials for reuse of cultural heritage; life cycle assessment

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Nowadays, the challenge of climate change and ecological transition is substantially an energy challenge for every city, which should become as energy self-sufficient as possible.

In this perspective, the model of circular city is capable to produce different multidimensional benefits, related to the economic, environmental, and social aspects.

The circular city is the “adaptive and flexible city” capable of organising and reorganising systemic synergies, is the city that increasing cooperation and integration with public, private, and social actors, through synergies and symbiosis. However, it is also the city that promote the use of innovative technologies in the digital and energy fields, through the use of bio-material and nano-technologies for the built environment sector. The circular city promotes different types of symbiosis: within the industrial district, between the industrial district and the city, between the city and the port area (if any), between the industrial district and the port (if any), between the city and the non-urban territory (agricultural/forestry), as well as agro-ecological symbiosis in the non-urban territory. Similarly, the circular city contributes as much as possible through the renewable energy of the sun to lowering pollutant and climate-altering concentrations, purifying the air with appropriate planting, generating oxygen, sequestering/reducing carbon dioxide, dust, combustion residues, mitigating heat islands, and thus contributing to improving the local microclimate, as well as providing fibre, fruit, and wood. Water, as a precious resource, must be managed with great care.

In the circular city the built environment plays a fundamental role in reducing CO2 emissions. In 2020, the European Commission launched a new initiative to make operative the aims of the “Green Deal” referring to the built environment: New European Bauhaus. This is a transversal project aimed to improve quality of life without losing sight of green and digital innovations. A “new sustainable and circular movement” is advocated to make the built environment sector “green”, through the use of renewable energy, the use of bio-materials, the reuse of waste materials, the protection and conservation of bio-diversity. The aim is to create a “new design movement”, which uses new technologies as a tool to enhance city liveability (European Commission, 2019). Moreover, this movement recognizes that cultural heritage can contribute to the development goals of the new European Bauhaus: beauty, inclusion, and sustainability are able to contribute to the green transition (according to the New Green Deal), through the energy retrofitting of the historic buildings (European Commission, 2020).

The regeneration/reuse of architectural/cultural/landscape assets can be proposed as an entry point for the implementation of the circular city due to its multiple structural interdependencies with respect to many sectors of the economy (Leontief, 1986, CLIC Outcomes Horizon 2020).

The need for a “suitable” modernisation of the built environment consistent with the ecological transition and, thus, with the ability to reduce energy consumption and emissions raises the critical question: what innovative, effective/efficient (i.e., high-performance) solutions should be proposed to contribute to the definition of sustainable urban regeneration strategies? It is necessary to produce answers to these questions in order to contribute to an ecological modernisation of the existing heritage. The circular model promotes new forms of architecture through innovative technology, in order to create new formation of spaces. A lot of good practices about resource regeneration, waste management, etc., are already available around the world to show how innovation in energy/ecology is a source of new architectural forms.

New forms of ecological regeneration, energy recovery and waste management are the matrix of original and creative architectures that combine the old and the new in a creative synthesis.

On the basis of the above, contributions are welcome from the scientific community on issues related to the innovative approach for the circular city with particular reference to:

The circular city model: experiences and assessed benefits;

Circular metropolitan strategies to realise “inclusive, safe, resilient, sustainable, and beautiful cities";

The beauty of the city is interpreted as a beauty public spaces: as a civic beauty that stimulates a civic spirit;

Good practices about projects within the circular model that become significant in the perspective of configuring the space of architecture in an innovative way;

Good practices in the renovation/reuse of historic buildings through the use of new materials and technologies;

From macro to micro scale: from city regeneration to material regeneration. The reinforced concrete, according to the most recent studies, is characterised by a much shorter service life than stone masonry. For this reason, many buildings constructed between the two world wars are at risk of seeing accelerated degradation processes due to the erosion of iron sections, starting with Unité d'Habitation of Le Corbusier, etc.

Prof. Dr. Luigi Fusco Girard
Dr. Mariarosaria Angrisano
Guest Editors

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Keywords

  • circular economy
  • circular city
  • cultural heritage
  • built environment
  • new materials and technologies

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

32 pages, 1653 KiB  
Article
How to Plan for Circular Cities: A New Methodology to Integrate the Circular Economy Within Urban Policies and Plans
by Simona Tondelli and Giulia Marzani
Sustainability 2025, 17(12), 5534; https://doi.org/10.3390/su17125534 - 16 Jun 2025
Viewed by 248
Abstract
Circular economy principles applied at the city scale represent an opportunity, both in environmental and sociocultural terms, to pursue sustainable urban development. While the circular economy approach has gained huge attention and become the basic framework to boost innovation in many research fields, [...] Read more.
Circular economy principles applied at the city scale represent an opportunity, both in environmental and sociocultural terms, to pursue sustainable urban development. While the circular economy approach has gained huge attention and become the basic framework to boost innovation in many research fields, its application to the urban scale is still fragmented. Therefore, a more holistic and spatial-related approach is necessary. Following a systematic literature review, this paper first proposes four guiding principles that should inspire policymakers in drafting circular urban plans. By following the Strategic Environmental Assessment phases, and considering the instrument as a methodology for the drafting of plans and not an ex post evaluation of their effects, the different plan creation steps are analyzed and enriched with circular-related considerations, suggestions, and proposals. In particular, a list of 35 strategic objectives for strategic municipal spatial plans is presented. A list of indicators for the monitoring of urban transformations is also developed. The results could contribute to integrating circularity into the different phases of plan creation, moving towards circular-inclusive spatial plans. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Circular Economy and Circular City for Sustainable Development)
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29 pages, 4660 KiB  
Article
The Rural Village Regeneration for the European Built Environment: From Good Practices Towards a Conceptual Model
by Francesca Ciampa, Giulia Marchiano, Luigi Fusco Girard and Mariarosaria Angrisano
Sustainability 2025, 17(7), 2787; https://doi.org/10.3390/su17072787 - 21 Mar 2025
Viewed by 892
Abstract
In the European Green Deal and Renovation Wave framework, cities should be more self-sufficient and sustainable, promoting investment in the regeneration and maintenance of the built and natural heritage. The New European Bauhaus reinforces this vision, promoting the value of beauty as a [...] Read more.
In the European Green Deal and Renovation Wave framework, cities should be more self-sufficient and sustainable, promoting investment in the regeneration and maintenance of the built and natural heritage. The New European Bauhaus reinforces this vision, promoting the value of beauty as a product of environmental harmony/sustainability and participation. Many cities are already working to improve infrastructure and public services, with the aim of creating better socio-economic and environmental conditions in urbanised areas. At the same time, they aim to increase and relocate attractiveness and competitiveness to less densified rural areas, and to reduce overcrowding problems in cities. The aim is to propose a virtuous model of circular regeneration, by identifying virtuous strategies of the regeneration of rural villages capable of aligning the transformation of the built environment with climate objectives, social cohesion and local economy strengthening, and the integration of historical and identity values. Rural villages in marginal areas are left behind places. They require new economic development strategies, grounded in a circular bio-economy model for reducing/avoiding spiraled down processes. The application of European evaluation criteria to the main topic literature background allowed for the construction of a virtuous practices observatory about regenerated rural villages, which is elaborated using registry, systemic, and analytical/analysis forms. From the ex-post evaluation analysis of the case studies, it was possible to identify a number of dimensions/clusters in which investment is being made today for the regeneration of rural villages. By reasoning on the investment clusters, it was possible to identify a circular regeneration model for rural villages, transferable to other realities in order to implement the broader vision of circular settlement development. The “Rural Village Regeneration Model” represents an operational tool for regional transformation, suitable for reactivating lost connections between rural villages and larger towns in functional areas, characterised by greater self-sufficiency and exploration of the potential of digital tools to improve services, connections, infrastructure, and cooperation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Circular Economy and Circular City for Sustainable Development)
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