Circular cities: Analyzing bottom-up initiatives for making Amsterdam more circular

Abstract

Circular economy is becoming ever more widespread sustainable concept for promoting efficient resource usage; Amsterdam is one of the first cities to implement this approach to solve waste management problems. While the circular transition is mostly examined from a top-down perspective, the role of bottom-up initiatives is often left unstudied. This article determines the contribution of bottom-up initiatives to Amsterdam’s circular transition by assessing their environmental, economic, social impact together with their commitment to circularity. The study utilizes the survey method followed by a statistical analysis to investigate the influence of such initiatives on public awareness, involvement, and behavioral change. The content analysis of initiatives’ official documentation and news articles allows revealing the environmental and economic impact and analyzing initiatives’ commitment to circularity. The results communicate that bottom-up initiatives mostly create an economic value and positively affect citizens’ involvement. However, the environmental impact, the influence on public awareness and partly on behavioral change is insignificant due to their small local scale and inconsistency between the declared and actual priorities. Such initiatives might still serve as trendsetters thereby indirectly tackling waste problem and facilitating Amsterdam’s circular transition.