Innovation Project:
Circular Cities

Circular Cities is an innovation project involving six circular frontrunner cities in Denmark, namely Aalborg, Fredensborg, Fredericia, Kolding, Copenhagen, and Odsherred.

The cities’ role in the circular transition

Design thinking as a catalysator

The two-year-long innovation-driven project allows the municipalities to work systematically and in practice with local circular challenges, collaborate with companies, research environments, and citizens, and have close contact with the five other cities.

The municipalities can make their local challenges and action plan their starting point and help scope the process. For example, they can work with challenges from their climate action plan.

Based on design and matchmaking with the right actors and partners, the courses meet the cities’ need for a more systemic, cross-sectoral, and holistic approach to the circular transition.

The process focuses on:

• Increasing collaboration and development across areas of responsibility
• Strengthening competencies and knowledge of systems thinking and circular solution models
• Ensuring political anchoring of knowledge via a follow-up group for politicians from the participating municipalities
• Creating and testing specific circular solutions together with industry, business, research, and civil society
• Supporting inter-municipal cooperation, where sparring and knowledge sharing between cities about circular solutions and systemic development, takes place in a ‘community’ of ambitious municipalities

The project is driven by DDC and CLEAN, and supported by Realdania.

Read more about the challenges of Odsherred and Fredensborg here and the City of Copenhagen here.