Understanding the societal, entrepreneurship and economic aspects of developing a Circular Economy in cities : a case study of Coventry in the UK

One of the points of agreement emerging from international environmental policy debates is that people’s choices, behaviors and lifestyles will play a vital role in achieving sustainable development (Biwei, 2012; Fleischmann, 2016). There is strong evidence of the importance of a working Circular Economy (CE) to address sustainability challenges but there are different accounts and narratives in the CE literature which can cause confusion when trying to define and understand the concept. Urbanisation coupled with the fact that cities are resource inefficient (Agudela-Vera 2012) has given rise to the emergence of Circular Cities such as, Amsterdam but research to date has had a strong emphasis on the “supply side” (business, policy, science) with little attention being paid to the people or “demand side” (social, consumer). It would therefore be helpful to develop a better understanding of the role that citizens and not just City governments can play in a Circular City. To address this the paper uses an illustrative example of Coventry in the UK to examine the strategies and policy actions that drive CE relevant grass roots citizen driven practices and innovations. Through the lens of this example the paper provides insights into the role that citizens could play in developing Circular Cities through citizen driven innovation mechanisms such as social enterprise. The paper concludes that we are lacking sufficient socio-economic evidence of impact on the “demand side” and provides recommendations for further research into the social and citizen driven innovation aspects of CE relevant activities in cities.