Circular Glasgow

Case study

Aims of the project:

Glasgow aims to be a leading circular city in the UK and globally.

Circular Glasgow is an initiative of Glasgow Chamber of Commerce. It is a movement to inspire businesses of all sizes to innovate and become future-proof by adopting circular strategies.

Connecting companies across the city, we help them to open up new revenue streams, increase competitive advantage and realise financial savings using a range of practical initiatives.

Focussing on a bottom-up approach, Circular Glasgow began from seeing innovation and collaboration as a starting point to building a coalition of the willing – recognising that collaboration is everything.

Circular Glasgow conducted a city circle and was the second city after Amsterdam to undertake  a city scan.  The scan revealed what’s unique to Glasgow and mapped resources from consumption to waste, where’s economic will in the city.

Two key initiatives include the Circular Hub and Circle Lab:

  • Circular Hub – citizen engagement in the city centre – everything repurposed and recycled in an ultra-sustainable mini building.
  • Circle Lab – encourage collaboration across cities, particular events and conference centre – crowdsourcing ideas, 200 solutions posed and 3 ‘solutions’ chosen to showcase and rollout across the city.

Beer from Bread:
JawBrew is an example of a circular economy collaboration brought about through Circular Glasgow, with local brewery Jaw Brew creating beer from surplus rolls from Aulds the Baker.
More about this case study: Jaw Brew beer from bread.

Key learnings:

  • The importance of storytelling to share what is possible.

  • Create an enabling environment to bring the right people together to initiate conversation, talk about funding, and share ideas

  • Local ambassadors – tap into who already does it – who care share the story? Create genuine connections and communities, sharing key messages and listening to feedback

  • Scalability – into Making Things Last strategy

Project details:

Glasgow Chamber of Commerce hosts Circular Glasgow and is responsible for delivering this programme alongside key stakeholders: Zero Waste Scotland, Circle Economy (global market experts based in the Netherlands), Glasgow City Council and the University of Strathclyde. Circular Glasgow is funded by the European Regional Development Fund.

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The Smart Sustainable Cities, a UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office initiative, brings together senior city experts and policymakers from selected European and UK cities to showcase UK best practice and provide a two-way opportunity for knowledge sharing and networking.

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