Designing Co-Creation in the Circular City

Circular Economy (CE) is embedded in cities to promote inclusive, resilient, and sustainable lifestyles by design. Nevertheless, the transition from a linear to a circular lifestyle requires the collaboration of various stakeholders. Co-creation contributes and promotes unconventional methods as well as helps integrate resources from the city’s key stakeholders. However, despite its prevalence in the private sector, the concept of co-creation has not been widely adopted in circular cities. As a continuation of previous studies, this paper aims at verifying the Circular City Co-creation Framework, chiefly constructed on the case studies of four prestigious circular cities. It delineates nine co-creation initiatives with actors involved and tools adopted to aid cities in transferring from linear to circular cities. To validate this framework, two circular cities – Gothenburg and Ljubljana – are examined extensively through case study analysis and semi-structured interviews. The results of this study revealed four main advantages of applying this framework.