Leuven Circular

The city of Leuven, in Flanders, is initiating systemic change in the city and society to achieve circularity and climate neutrality by 2050. In 2019 Leuven started to follow a Roadmap for 2025, 2035 and 2050, with 13 specific programmes, which will transform this unique plan into concrete actions and impact on the field. One of these programmes focuses on circularity, and it is named Leuven Circular Strategy. The Circular Economy Programme is structured around several strategic objectives: circular entrepreneurship; circular construction; recovery, sharing and reuse; sustainable and circular consumption; and developing knowledge and policy. Each objective was defined in close collaboration with key stakeholders, united in the Leuven Circular platform. Leuven municipality pioneers a new governance model of “radical participation”. This aims to accelerate and scale circular action started from the existing circular initiatives and further develops a systemic collaboration between educational institutions at all levels, research centres, NGOs, circular businesses and citizen associations. This promotes partnerships between bottom-up and top-down initiatives.