Circle Economy has partnered with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the World Bank Group initiative Solutions for Youth Employment (S4YE) on jobs in the circular economy. S4YE is a multi-year initiative to generate and share evidence and data for a better understand of how the circular economy can help lead to a more just and inclusive world.

This report systematically documents the literature on circular economy and jobs, identifying gaps and suggesting ways to simultaneously promote environmental sustainability and good quality jobs. It provides valuable insights for policy makers to move towards a better environment that is just for all, helping to create win-win situations that are so urgently needed for the planet, its prosperity and its people.

This paper analyses CE policies and discourses in three European cities to draw critical insights and recommendations.

It first reviews the academic literature on urban CE policies to develop a new conceptual framework for analysing CE discourses and policies. This is then used to analyse and compare the CE policies of Glasgow, Amsterdam and Copenhagen.

Results show that technocentric approaches to the CE are dominant in the three cities. Moreover, they have very limited social justice policies for fair distribution of the costs and benefits of a CE transition. Key policy recommendations to address these shortcomings are thus proposed.

The insights offered by this paper are valuable for practitioners and academics seeking to improve urban CE policies.

The report Avoiding Blind Spots: Promoting Circular & Fair Business Models by Circle Economy, European Environmental Bureau (EEB) and The Fair Trade Advocacy Office (FTAO) provides an overview of the blindspots - the unintended, unaddressed or underexplored negative impacts - of promoting circular business models.

The aim is to get a holistic understanding of the impacts of circular business models, specifically taking into account the social sphere.

The report considers three circular business models (repair, resale and product as a service - PaaS) and four types of blindspots (governance, market, social and environmental).

Recommendations for (EU) policy makers, public procurers and businesses are then formulated to address these blindspots.