The circular economy (CE) is gaining momentum in cities. To ensure a sustainable CE, it is crucial to measure the environmental performance of CE strategies. However, environmental assessments overlook several strategies that are a key feature of urban CE practice. These include reuse and repair, sustainable built infrastructure and urban land use, green public procurement, smart information and access technology.

To provide insights into the environmental performance and potential of these strategies, industrial ecologists and municipalities should:

• collaborate with urban systems experts
• quantify the environmental impacts of entire urban systems
• combine environmental assessments with social and economic feasibility ones.

Ascendency analysis is a systematic method grounded on information theory which has been developed by ecosystem ecologists for assessing the sustainability of natural ecosystems. Here, we apply ascendency analysis to quantify the robustness of material and energy flow networks of the EU27. In line with other authors, we argue that ecological principles can be useful for developing robust circular human-made systems. Robustness against shocks is endowed by including a diverse set of stakeholders who provide a) resource-use efficiency through a cache of specialized know-how in capturing and processing a plurality of resources, and b) resilience by generating multiple paths that allow these vital resources to circulate throughout the urban network at different scales and rates.

Ascendency analysis is a systematic method grounded on information theory which has been developed by ecosystem ecologists for assessing the sustainability of natural ecosystems. Here, we apply ascendency analysis to quantify the robustness of material and energy flow networks of the EU27. In line with other authors, we argue that ecological principles can be useful for developing robust circular human-made systems. Robustness against shocks is endowed by including a diverse set of stakeholders who provide a) resource-use efficiency through a cache of specialized know-how in capturing and processing a plurality of resources, and b) resilience by generating multiple paths that allow these vital resources to circulate throughout the urban network at different scales and rates.

Ascendency analysis is a systematic method grounded on information theory which has been developed by ecosystem ecologists for assessing the sustainability of natural ecosystems. Here, we apply ascendency analysis to quantify the robustness of material and energy flow networks of the EU27. In line with other authors, we argue that ecological principles can be useful for developing robust circular human-made systems. Robustness against shocks is endowed by including a diverse set of stakeholders who provide a) resource-use efficiency through a cache of specialized know-how in capturing and processing a plurality of resources, and b) resilience by generating multiple paths that allow these vital resources to circulate throughout the urban network at different scales and rates.

Ascendency analysis is a systematic method grounded on information theory which has been developed by ecosystem ecologists for assessing the sustainability of natural ecosystems. Here, we apply ascendency analysis to quantify the robustness of material and energy flow networks of the EU27. In line with other authors, we argue that ecological principles can be useful for developing robust circular human-made systems. Robustness against shocks is endowed by including a diverse set of stakeholders who provide a) resource-use efficiency through a cache of specialized know-how in capturing and processing a plurality of resources, and b) resilience by generating multiple paths that allow these vital resources to circulate throughout the urban network at different scales and rates.