Good practice:

Incorporating a Circular Economy strategy into a political instrument (Waste Management Plan)

In summer 2019, with the objective to secure a high level of circular economy and eco-innovative actions, Kolding Municipality’s Committee for Climate and Technicalities and the local waste management department Redux realized a strategy for circular economy on the field of waste management. The „Zero Waste Kolding 2019-2022“ strategy holds a total of 20 actions distributed on five strategic categories. The strategy itself completes objective number 1, which was to create a local framework for working with circular economy on the waste management area, in order to speed up the circular and eco-innovative transition of the area.
All 20 actions represent in total 20 objectives which will be pursued from 2019-2022 by the responsible project managers and action coordinators with the strategy’s steering committee responsible for following up on actions and coordinating internal and external communication.
So far 15 of the 20 actions are either in progress or completed. Some objectives are based on data such as weight or number of users while other objectives are of a more political character (e.g. securing the implementation of a specific service). Not all actions are considered eco-innovations but many of them are of a very innovative nature (since the waste management area has for many years lacked a circular transition including the development of more eco-innovative actions) and could prove to have big positive environmental impacts if succeeded.

1 project manager to lead the strategy.
1 steering committee with management and director.
1 Project team with broad representation.
Close collaboration with development of local Waste Management Plan.
Close collaboration with development of municipal sustainability strategy.

Initial results include:
 Municipality became a partner in a local project to facilitate Zero Waste approach in future city developments
 4 circular economy events organised: Dept. meeting on circular economy, Creative Summer Camp, Beeswax workshop & Repair Café
 5 circular partnerships established e.g. Network for Circular Resource Use South Denmark, SHEworks employment project on upcycling of waste and leftover textiles
Monitoring will continue until final evaluation in summer/fall 2022

Step 1: Get political support to begin the work.
Step 2: Make sure stakeholders are familiar with the topic.
Step 3: Include the right stakeholders (from floor to management, from internal to external) at the right time and in the right way to get the best input and feedback.

Not many organizations working in the field of waste management have a strategy for circular economy with eco-innovative measures. Having such strategy means having a politically supported framework to be working within.
Territories with the objective to increase successful eco-innovations can look at this experience, as the circular transition supports, to a large degree, the development of eco-innovative solutions.
A strategy for circular economy, especially with an added amount of money to support it, could prove to be one way to present the circular transition to employees, citizens, companies, politicians for a given area (e.g. waste management). Such a strategy will become a common political tool that, with different actions, will include a broad array of stakeholders working on circular transition. It has the potential to become a platform that first experiments with and evaluates circular and/or eco-innovative actions, and then presents them and their results.