What infrastructure will we need in a circular economy?
By: Dr Helena Wright
Tags: Nature, Climate Change, Energy, Circulareconomy, Infrastructure

Disclaimer: The views in this article are not attributable to any organisation.

Infrastructure — such as for energy and transport — currently makes up 60% or more of greenhouse gas emissions. The world now faces the challenge of building infrastructure to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) but at the same time, reducing emissions to zero, and preventing the global extinction crisis.

Do we need to be more radical in designing infrastructure to meet global climate and nature goals? Design principles such as circularity, energy efficiency, and resource efficiency could become a first principle for infrastructure planners to reduce the need for built infrastructure in the first place. As this blog highlights — that could save costs, save material resources, and sustain natural ecosystems whilst meeting societal needs such as providing energy and water.

The ‘mitigation hierarchy’ has already been widely applied to waste management, and similarly, the ‘avoid-shift-improve’ approach — below — has been applied to transport by some development banks. The basic principle is to avoid the need for building costly infrastructure in the first place whilst still meeting our needs. But can we apply this thinking to all types of infrastructure (including transport, energy, water, waste)?

Source: SLOCAT

Infrastructure can become part of a ‘circular economy’ that meets societal needs while avoiding crossing dangerous planetary boundaries. For example, water infrastructure can be designed to work with natural ecosystems and the water cycle. The same can be applied to other sectors like energy — since clean energy is obviously a renewable resource.

Infrastructure design becomes all the more important in the context of COVID19 and the much-stated objective to ‘build back better’. For example, the COVID19 pandemic has shown us we do not always need to travel to work. In fact, working from home can in some cases reduce the need for new transport infrastructure and lower demand for oil. Analysis by S&P found that oil demand may have already peaked in 2020 if the crisis leads to permanent changes in telecommuting. In the UK, motoring association AA noted the £37 Billion of road construction cost may not be needed if home working becomes more popular.

This means digital connectivity can be considered a core service we need to access. Broadband access is not currently available for everyone and we may need to meet the digital divide and overcome barriers to access. Looking systemically, working from home might reduce transport demand but can increase energy demand in some places, so further analysis is need to check how far this is a sustainable way to meet climate goals.



In the transport sector, in Europe, more than €1 billion has been spent on cycling infrastructure across Europe since the outbreak of Covid-19, whilst Singapore has also seen a recent cycling boom. Providing cycling infrastructure, pedestrian walkways and green corridors are particularly important in a context where working from home becomes more commonplace.



In terms of energy demand, we can also reduce the need for cooling systems in cities by bringing nature back into cities. Amazingly, urban trees can reduce the temperature by around 6 degrees which reduces the need for air conditioning.



We can meet global energy demand through renewable energy but this demand can also be lower, cheaper and use less materials by adopting the ‘efficiency first’ principle. The ‘efficiency first’ principle has already been widely adopted in Europe. The E3G paper on ‘Energy efficiency as infrastructure’ points out that energy efficiency reduces the need for costly power plants to be built in the first place.

Also in terms of water, adopting the ‘avoid’ principle to first save water could mean features like low water flushes are integrated into buildings. At city-scale, trees and vegetation also avoid the need to build concrete water infrastructure. For example, in the fantastic example of New York City’s water supply, water is provided by the upstream watershed. This is the largest unfiltered water supply in the United States and provides award-winning quality water. By protecting natural ecosystems, the water supply is much cheaper than a filtration plant would be. Meanwhile in Singapore, the water catchment area has increased from half to two-thirds of Singapore’s land surface.

There are huge economic benefits to applying circular economy principles. In the UK, which has announced creation of a National Infrastructure Bank, a report by AECOM recently found that “adopting circular economy principles can significantly enhance productivity across the global construction industry and contribute a further £35bn to the UK economy by 2036”. Not only will this reduce emissions and help the UK get to net zero, it will also save money by reducing overhead costs.

Practically implementing this principle of circularity and ‘efficiency first’ can be done through the use of alternatives analysis at the planning stage. An interesting example here comes from the Equator Principles. The EP4, updated this year, requires financial institutions to conduct an alternatives analysis, including “evaluation of technically and financially feasible and cost-effective options available to reduce Project-related GHG emissions during the design, construction and operation of the Project”. However, the principles do not yet go far enough in promoting a circular economy.

As an example of practical implementation, Kate Raworth’s eye-opening work on the ‘Doughnut Model’ (see below) shows how we can meet our needs without putting too much pressure on Earth’s life-supporting systems. This has inspired city planners in Amsterdam to develop a circular economy strategy with the aim to be a thriving city while being inspired by natural systems. Perhaps the same model could be useful for other cities?

Source: Kate Raworth



In terms of waste, urban planners could also guide businesses into clusters based on inputs and outputs, where resources are cycled instead of permanently used up. This should mean less need for expensive landfill sites. Recycling and re-using can also be done at community-scale. In major cities, if residents of condos and apartment buildings had access to a website or ‘app’ to sell unwanted furniture or toys, perhaps it would reduce need for skip hire and landfill?

Looking more broadly to the food sector, agricultural systems can also be regenerative and circular by design which is a key concept for organic agriculture. This is useful because, for example, scientists have warned that the world faces a crisis in the supply of phosphate, a critical fertiliser that underpins the world’s food supply.



Using circular economy thinking for infrastructure guides us to consider what services we need first and then provide them with less built resources, and at lower cost, by integrating, considering and being inspired by nature.

This will be a vital objective for coming decades to sustain life on earth, since, as the head of the CDB mentioned in a recent speech, nature and biodiversity is the ‘infrastructure that supports all life’. Clean air, clean water and pollination are all examples of essential services that we receive free from nature, and we will need to sustain these services in order to survive.