Part 3: Assessing Circularity

Goal: Determine the status quo and circularity of the material flows in the city, by analysing and understanding the data and outputs. While data helps to size the problem, knowledge of local circumstances helps to enrich the analysis and the search for solutions.

Approach:

In a third part, after the material flow and stock accounting, you should evaluate the data gaps and quality. Thereafter, try to assess and benchmark the indicators (with the data quality in mind). Finally, in the overall circularity assessment, the interpretation of all results, including indicators, Sankey diagrams, as well as other visualisations, needs to be carried out and documented. Broken down in three steps, you can do:

The nature of the analysis is rather qualitative, due to the restraints of resources, as a more quantitative assessment would require more data for comparison. The following Handbook chapters introduce the ways in which benchmarking, focusing on trends, by comparing data in time and relating data to the local context assists with the interpretation of the data, including the indicators.