Urban sustainability issues - Resource-efficient cities: good practice
EEA Technical report 24/2015
Cities are key players in minimising the use of resources and in developing the circular model. Local authorities have the capacity to implement responses at multiple scales. This report analyses both the supply and the demand issues. It is divided into two parts: the first is devoted to how to avoid, prevent and reduce the use of resources; the second addresses reuse, recycling and harvesting.
The report presents a wide range of examples drawn from European cities to illustrate innovative approaches to resource efficiency. Even small cities with limited budgets have developed powerful solutions. It emphasises the integrated approach and highlights the capacity of cities to change their way of thinking, decision-making and acting. Cities that are successful in this respect cooperate, collaborate, experiment, innovate and finally develop a new model. They succeed in finding solutions despite administrative, financial and technical constraints.
The first part of the report is focused on 'avoiding, preventing, reducing' the use of resources. It analyses how a city can be planned and urban flows managed in order to use less resources. In general, it is relatively easy to take action at the small scale (e.g. a building) and in infrastructure having only one function
(e.g. housing), but there is no significant effect on the urban metabolism. The impact of change increases with the degree of complexity, involving the spatial scale (building, block, neighbourhood, city, region, country), a mix of functions and sectors, and a number of different stakeholders and institutions.
The second part of the report analyses the potential for improvements in reusing and recycling local resources. It addresses not only the circular approach to the urban system but also ways of producing energy and harvesting food and water. Cities can be considered as a source of resources. In this perspective of 'productive' cities, the potential resource flows and self-production have to be identified so that they can be integrated into urban planning to allow efficient harvesting and self-production by reducing the distance between the source and the demand.
Quelle: EEA (2015): Urban sustainability issues - Resource-efficient cities: good practice. EEA Technical report 24/2015. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union.