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This report presents the methodology and results of WP 3, Task 3.4 Environmental Impact Assessment within the REFLOW project. Its aims to communicate the outcomes of each pilot city ’s circular interventions and strategies -including an environmental impact assessments, and a discussion on these interventions may affect the urban metabolism of each of the Pilot Cities.

This report presents the methodology and results of WP 3, Task 3.3 Environmental Systems Design within the REFLOW project. Its aims to communicate the outcomes of each pilot city ’s urban metabolism analysis -including the material flow analyses, initial impact assessments, and resulting recommended actions.

In this publication, we present a set of Circular Principles and Indicators that can help guide cities in the transition toward a regenerative circular economy. The circular economy has been widely employed to mean an economy where materials flow in loops or cycles, human activity runs on renewable energy, economic growth is decoupled from resource use, and natural capital is invested in. With the term regenerative circular economy, we aim to emphasize three main themes. First, we use the term regenerative to place emphasis on net-positive outcomes and expand beyond the narrow focus of system optimization towards more generative, creative system outcomes. Second, our vision of a regenerative circular economy also foregrounds the importance of place-based and context-specific analysis and action. Rather than a one-size-fits-all approach to circular economy principles, we emphasize principles that frame the economy as a nested system spanning local, regional, national, and global scales of production and consumption. In particular, local and regional scales are where latent regenerative potential can be found. Third, we take inspiration from living systems by foregrounding change and adaptive management of socio-ecological systems. We propose learning from the way resources in natural ecosystems flow. This leads us away from a mindset of engineering tightly controlled closed loops of materials that are isolated from living systems to designing our products to be nutrients for living systems at local and regional scales.

D3.1 Circular Principles and Indicators lays out the key concepts and components of WP3’s Circular Urban Metabolism framework - (1) Circular Principles, (2) principle-level and pilot-specific key performance indicators, and (3) urban metabolism assessments - as well as the methodologies undertaken to derive them and the resulting outcomes. In doing so, it chronicles the activities undertaken and results derived by WP 3 within the first year of the REFLOW project.

Unidad de excelencia María de Maeztu CEX2019-000940-M The COVID-19 pandemic unveiled the fragility of food sovereignty in cities and confirmed the close connection urban dwellers have with food. Although the pandemic was not responsible for a systemic failure, it suggested how citizens would accept and indeed support a transition toward more localized food production systems. As this attitudinal shift is aligned with the sustainability literature, this work aims to explore the tools and actions needed for a policy framework transformation that recognizes the multiple benefits of food systems, while considering local needs and circumstances. This perspective paper reviews the trends in production and consumption, and systematizes several impacts emerged across European food systems in response to the first wave of pandemic emergency, with the final aim of identifying challenges and future strategies for research and innovation toward the creation of resilient and sustainable city/region food systems. The proposal does not support a return to traditional small-scale economies that might not cope with the growing global population. It instead stands to reconstruct and upscale such connections using a "think globally act locally" mind-set, engaging local communities, and making existing and future citizen-led food system initiatives more sustainable. The work outlines a set of recommended actions for policy-makers: support innovative and localized food production, training and use of information and communication technology for food production and distribution; promote cross-pollination among city/region food systems; empower schools as agents of change in food provision and education about food systems; and support the development of assessment methodologies and the application of policy tools to ensure that the different sustainability dimensions of the food chain are considered.