Publications

Journal Articles

Assessing and Managing the Impact of COVID-19: A Study of Six European Cities Participating in a Circular Economy Project

Cristiana Parisi, Justyna Bekier

Accounting, Auditing and Accountability Journal

Purpose

This paper aims to explore the role of performance measurement systems as systems of technologies of government for the assessment and management of the effects of COVID-19 in the context of six cities involved in a large European project.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on the field study of a large European project, this paper relies on a comparative case study research approach. This research design allows insights into the role of central and local key performance indicators (KPIs) in managing the ongoing pandemic.

Findings

This paper explores the role of accounting in the assessment of the COVID-19 pandemic. Its findings illustrate how the “adjudicating” and “territorialising” roles of local and central accounting technologies rendered the COVID-19 calculable.

Originality/value

This paper connects central and local performance management systems in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. It relies on a governmentality approach to discuss how different programmes and the relative KPIs were impacted by the ongoing global crisis.

Parisi, C., & Bekier, J. (2021). Assessing and managing the impact of COVID-19: a study of six European cities participating in a circular economy project. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print). https://doi.org/10.1108/AAAJ-08-2020-4837

Public Deliverables

Project Impact Assessment

Deliverable 1.5 –Project Impact Assessment presents the quantitative and qualitative assessment of the social and economic impact of the Circular Economy practices implemented within the REFLOW project’s pilot cities. The deliverable reports on impact across three phases: (i) exploring and describing change, (ii) evidencing and measuring change, and (iii) valuing and monetising change which are presented in the deliverable’s three respective chapters: (i) Theory of Change, (ii) Key Performance Indicators, and (iii) Social Return on Investment.Firstly, this deliverable provides the final iteration of the pilot cities’ Theory of Change, including their accompanying narratives. Secondly, the achieved results of the pilot cities’ socio-economic and environmental Key Performance Indicators are reported. The deliverable closes off with presenting the Social Return on Investments for the pilot cities at the level of a pilot solution. The results and outcomes from this deliverable provide the pathways to change, the social, economic, and environmental indicators to measure and evidence change, and the social value creation of circular economy practices implemented within the REFLOW pilot cities which support the business case for adoption of circular economy strategies by other European cities.

Hayashi, Erika; Parisi, Cristiana (2022). Project Impact Assessment. Zenodo.

Collaborative Case Studies for Higher Education Curricula

This deliverable presents six case studies developed based on the learnings and outputsof the REFLOW project. The case studies take departure from the pilot cities in REFLOW. The purpose of this deliverable is present the methods behind the case study development, describe the diversity of topics associated with circular economy tackled in each case study and to present the content of the case studies that have been developed. The deliverable itself presents important processes and learnings for future actors to develop their own case studies within the field of circular economy and the casestudies present vital learning tools for students in higher education to apply theories to the practical application of circular economy in cities across a variety of topics and disciplines.

Hayashi, Erika (2022). Collaborative Case Studies for Higher Education Curricula. Zenodo.

Validation and Performance Evaluation

As the name suggests, this deliverable has a twofold purpose –on one hand, it provides an analysis and validation of pilot use case scenarios developed in REFLOW and,on the other hand, it provides an interimevaluation of the REFLOW project, taking a closer look at the experience of pilot cities with the REFLOW Platform, defined hereas “tools, resources and methodologies deployed in the project to support the development of pilot solutions” (see Glossary). The deliverable also evaluates the applicationof the REFLOW Platformin the project using results of a survey and interviews conducted with the consortium members from each pilot city. The full list of resourcesof the REFLOW Platform is presented in section 3.2.

Bekier, Justyna, Hayashi, Erika. (2021). Validation and Performance Evaluation. Zenodo.

The REFLOW Framework

This report introduces the REFLOW Framework as a supportive model to enable agency and participation of municipalities, SMEs, and citizens’ associations in the development of CE practices and governance. After introducing the key terminology informing the REFLOW’s understanding of cities’ transition towards CE, this deliverable provides the most updated version of the REFLOW Pilot Cities’ Circular Action Plans, including their final list of key performance indicators, and main implementation challenges encountered so far. Based on insights from research and practice, as well as from the experience of the first two years of the REFLOW project, the REFLOW Framework integrates key concepts from systems thinking, management accounting, iterative design, and Circular Economy research to understand and describe circular transitions in cities. As a supportive model, the REFLOW Framework enables to unpack the inherent complexity characterising cities’ transitions towards Circular Economy, and inform management, governance and implementation of Cities’ Circular Action Plans. The Framework described in this deliverable will serve as a baseline to support Cities’ Ecosystem Design and the development of the REFLOW Legacy in the last year of the projectThis framework has been further enriched and adapted over time hand in hand with progress in the broader REFLOW project and the activities within the REFLOW Pilot Cities.

Bekier, Justyna, Beye, Andrea, & Parisi, Cristiana. (2021). The REFLOW Framework. Zenodo.

Urban Metabolism Analysis: Initial Assessments

This report presents the methodology and results of WP 3, Task 3.3 Environmental Systems Design within the REFLOW project. Its aims to communicate the outcomes of each pilot city ’s urban metabolism analysis -including the material flow analyses, initial impact assessments, and resulting recommended actions.

Corbin, Liz, Bichler, Tobias, Bolumburu, Pilar, Browne, Savanna, Chatel, Elodie, Coudard, Antoine, … Thibault, Fanny. (2021). Urban Metabolism Analysis: Initial Assessments. Zenodo.

Design and Development of REST API Application and Pub/Sub Interfaces

The purpose of the document’s corresponding task T2.4 is to define the points of access for machines to insert or request data from REFLOW OS. This document’s purpose therefore is to provide assistance in using the developed data endpoints and APIs. It serves as an accompanying document to the release of REFLOW OS’s components.Further, this document gives an overview about how the three main components interact within REFLOW OS, which public interfaces they expose and what purpose those public interfaces serve. Alongside this document, the components are released or deployed. The public interfaces are available externally and are linked from the corresponding sections of this document. This document delivers information about how the external resources are to be used and understood. Therefore,the intended audience for this document are technical staff in the pilot cities.

Burns, Adam & Bohlen, Vincent. (2021). Design and Development of REST API Application and Pub/Sub Interfaces. Zenodo.

REFLOW Portable Crypto Functions

This document and the free and open source software referenced sits at the core of the innovative developments in REFLOW technical work-packageand implements a novel signature scheme for the specific use-case of material passports whose integrity, provenance and portability is granted by means of provable cryptography.

The format of this document is that of an academic publication (Computer Science –Cryptography and Security, cs.CR) which being submitted to open publishing platforms and made freely available to the scientific community under the Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0), see:Creative Commons —Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International —CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

The latest version of this document is available on: https://github.com/dyne/reflow-crypto

Roio, Denis, Ibrisevic, Alberto, & D’Intino, Andrea (2021). REFLOW Portable Crypto Functions. Zenodo.

REFLOW Collaborative Governance Toolkit v1.0

This report presents the REFLOW Collaborative Governance Toolkit v 1.0. In its second iteration, the Toolkit is designed as a website hosted in the REFLOW web domain (www.reflowproject.eu) and featured as a sub-page within the REFLOW website (https://governance.reflowproject.eu/). Its architecture builds on the ‘collaborative governance’ framework captured in the beta version of the Toolkit, delivered in May 2020.

This framework has been further enriched and adapted over time hand in hand with progress in the broader REFLOW project and the activities within the REFLOW Pilot Cities.

Frosini, Valentina; Borchi, Riccardo; Martelloni, Laura; Pazaitis, Alex; Juarez, Milena; Munoz Unceta, Pablo. (2021, May 31). REFLOW Collaborative Governance Toolkit (RCGT) v1.0 (Version 1). Zenodo. htty://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4889840

REFLOW Circular Principles for Cities

In this publication, a set of Circular Principles and Indicators is presented that can help guide cities in the transition toward a regenerative circular economy. The circular economy has been widely employed to mean an economy where materials flow in loops or cycles, human activity runs on renewable energy, economic growth is decoupled from resource use, and natural capital is invested in.

With the term regenerative circular economy, it is aimed to emphasize three main themes. First, the use of the term regenerative to place emphasis on net-positive outcomes and expand beyond the narrow focus of system optimization towards more generative, creative system outcomes. Second, the vision of a regenerative circular economy also foregrounds the importance of place-based and context-specific analysis and action. Rather than a one-size-fits-all approach to circular economy principles, an emphasis on the principles that frame the economy as a nested system spanning local, regional, national, and global scales of production and consumption. In particular, local and regional scales are where latent regenerative potential can be found. Third, inspiration is taken from living systems by foregrounding change and adaptive management of socio-ecological systems. It is proposed that learning from the way
resources in natural ecosystems flow leads us away from a mindset of engineering tightly controlled closed loops of materials that are isolated from living systems to designing our products to be nutrients for living systems at local and regional scales.

Cities' Circular Action Plans

The Cities’ Circular Action Plans (CCAP) are roadmaps for the transition toward circular and regenerative cities. The report containing the CCAP gathers the competences of the consortium to create viable ways for the pilot cities to implement CE practices and ensures replicability. In line with the overall structure of the project, The REFLOW Cities’ Circular Action Plan operates on two levels: Project Level and Pilot Level. On a Project Level, the CCAP is described as the overall Roadmap that determines the general direction and modes of organising of the whole consortium. On a Pilot Level, the CCAP refers to the specific action plans created by the REFLOW cities, within the broader Roadmap of the project. The action plans are mainly concerned with the management and implementation of local activities aimed at achieving the pilot-specific objectives. The CCAP gathers the resources created and implemented by the project consortium to overcome the challenges encountered or expected by the pilot cities thus fostering replicability. The CCAP will turn into a living, online document that will provide resources for cities to become regenerative and implement circular economy practices. The CCAP as a digital resource will last beyond the life of the REFLOW project.

Parisi, Cristiana, Beye, Andrea, Bekier, Justyna, & Keremis, Anestis. (2020). Cities’ Circular Action Plans. Zenodo.

Collaborative Governance Toolkit (beta version)

First, the REFLOW Collaborative Governance Toolkit, outlines the design framework and overall journey which underpin the development of collaborative governance arrangements in the six pilot cities of the REFLOW project. Furthermore, it describes the core activities that, along the journey, will represent the concrete ground for collaborative governance experimentation and learning, and thereby the terrain for the development of specific tools and supporting resources which will feed the Toolkit over time. Lastly, this document also explains how the Toolkit is meant to be implemented over time in order to crystallize our progress and make it accessible to both the REFLOW partners and other interested cities and stakeholders. The current outlook of the Toolkit reflects a number of activities implemented in the first year of the project, including exploratory research on collaborative governance, pilot cities’ policy review, mapping of existing tools and guidelines for the circular economy in cities, analysis of the Pilot Cities Action Plans developed by the REFLOW Cities, as well as scoping out of their core challenges and opportunities.

Frosini, Valentina, Niaros, Vasilis, Pavlaki, Kelly, Pazaitis, Alex, Martelloni, Laura, Juarez, Milena, & Unceta, Pablo Munoz. (2020). Collaborative Governance Toolkit (beta version). Zenodo.

Use Case Analysis and Requirements

This document contains the use cases and requirements for the technical tools that support the pilot cities in Reflow becoming more sustainable by incentivising circular practices in local ecosystems through monitoring and optimization of urban metabolic processes. This document describes the effort undertaken within the context of Task 2.1 Use Case Analysis and Requirements and points out in detail the methodology used to create the use cases and to collect the requirements for both tools, ReflowOS and the Open Data Dashboard.

Bruns, Lina, Dittwald, Benjamin, Minutillo, Ivan, & Unceta, Pablo Muñoz. (2020). Use Case Analysis and Requirements. Zenodo.

Co-Production Practices in Pilot Cities

This deliverable summarizes and validates new CE production and the technological
infrastructure within REFLOW, including the description of the possible outcomes around the adoption of CE practices in the pilot cities.

Maffei, Stefano, Bianchini, Massimo, De Salvo, Veronica, Carraro, Martina, & Leoni, Stefano. (2020). Co-Production Practices in Pilot Cities. Zenodo.

Circular Principles and Indicators

Circular Principles and Indicators lays out the key concepts and components of WP3’s Circular Urban Metabolism framework – (1) Circular Principles, (2) principle-level and pilot-specific key performance indicators, and (3) urban metabolism assessments – as well as the methodologies undertaken to derive them and the resulting outcomes. In doing so, it chronicles the activities undertaken and results derived by WP 3 within the first year of the REFLOW project.

Corbin, Liz, Coudard, Antoine, Garmulewicz, Alysia, Powell, Zoe, Singh, Apurva, Smith, Charlene, & Bolumburu, Pilar. (2020). REFLOW_D3.1_Circular Principles and Indicators. Zenodo.

REFLOW Architecture and Manual for Distributed Network Setup and Maintenance

This deliverable provides an introduction and a manual to the REFLOW OS, a system designed to operate federated nodes constituting the REFLOW network backend infrastructure. It is targeted for adoption by the Free and Open Source communities at large and consists of a living document that is publicly available online and maintained through the course of the REFLOW project.

Minutillo, Ivan, De Borniol, Mayel & Roio, Denis. (2021). REFLOW Architecture and Manual for Distributed Network Setup and Maintenance. Zenodo.

Detailed Pilot Planning & Evaluation Framework

This document describes the overall Pilot Cities Framework (general and city-specific objectives, activities, deliverables, KPI, and roles of partners) as well as the foreseen management and monitoring methods. It will also include (i) internal communication tools, in order to coordinate the progress of tasks, align the development of each Pilot and share feedback, lessons learnt, outcomes, and (ii) a set of potential indicators to measure Pilots’ effectiveness.

Ista Boszhard, Taco van Dijk, Lotte Geeraedts, Daniel Heltzel, Max Kortlander, Minh Man, … Meia Wippoo. (2020). Detailed Pilot Planning and Evaluation Framework (Version 1.0). Zenodo.

The REFLOW Handbook

The REFLOW Handbook is a practical resource designed to assist cities in their transition to circular and regenerative cities. This Handbook is open, iterative and participatory. The Handbook contextualises REFLOW and offers an initial investigation into the element of urban governance innovation, particularly with respect to the circular economy. Specifically, this document builds on exploratory research aimed at ‘collaborative governance design’, which will be further explored and expanded on within the REFLOW pilot cities. The Handbook concludes with an initial series of tested tools meant to assist cities in navigating the first steps of the transition.

Laura Martelloni, Milena Juarez, Sally Bourdon, Ida Jusic, Erwan Mouazan, Vasilis Niaros, Tomas Diez, Pablo Muñoz & Zartashia Ahmed. (2019). The REFLOW Handbook. Zenodo.

Data Management Plan

The Data Management Plan (DMP) of the REFLOW project outlines how the project data will be handled during the lifetime of the project and after the project is completed. It gives an overview of which data will be collected, processed and/or generated, which methodology and standards will be applied, whether and how this data is shared and/or made open access, and finally how it is curated and preserved. This initial version of the DMP provides a set of standard guidelines to ensure that all the REFLOW partners manage their data following the FAIR Data principles while being compliant with the EU GDPR. The DMP is a living document and will be updated, whenever significant changes arise, to support the data management lifecycle for all data generated in the project.

Milena Juarez, Guillem Camprodon, & Pablo Muñoz. (2019). Data Management Plan (Version 1.0). Zenodo.

REFLOW Case Studies

Wasted Efforts in Amsterdam?

This case is based on a real organisation that has carried out activities as part of the European Union Horizon 2020 project, REFLOW.

The protagonists in this case are the Amsterdam pilot team. The overall long-term goal the team seeks reach is to transition their textile stream in the city towards becoming circular and regenerative. Short-term, the pilot team focuses on empowering citizens and changing linear behaviours associated with textiles across two key aims:

Discarding of fewer textiles by extending their life through reuse, repair, revaluing, and reducing
Increasing the collection of home textile waste at the city-level by informing and engaging citizens to discard correctly

The case goes over key insights into the decision-making process of the Amsterdam team, including facts on linearity in the textile industry at the global and local level, information about the citizens of Amsterdam, and a list of potential activities the team needs to decide on. The Amsterdam team is faced with a timely decision where they need to pick five key activities that would allow them to reach specific project targets in the short-term and that would also induce long-lasting change in the future.

This is a decision-based case. It asks the students to step into the shoes of the Amsterdam pilot team. The case study challenges students to formulate recommendations regarding which key activities the pilot should carry out and to assess the activities that could lead to behavioural change.

Hayashi, Erika; Lingås, Dina. (2022). Wasted Efforts in Amsterdam? REFLOW Academy

Is Berlin getting into hot (waste)water?

This case is based on a real organisation that has carried out activities as part of the European Union Horizon 2020 project, REFLOW. The case is fictional but, inspired by real events that have occurred.

The protagonist of this case is the head of the Wastewater Heat Department at the water agency Berliner Wasserbetriebe (BWB). BWB is responsible to providing drinking water and wastewater treatment for the city of Berlin. These services and supplies are considered critical infrastructures, and any disruptions to their operations could cause a series of challenges and risks for the city and Germany as a whole. The case focuses on the dilemma of the head of the Wastewater Heat Department as they assess whether to release data on these critical infrastructures in the name of a greener and more circular and regenerative future.

The case is set 2.5 years into the 3-year timeline of the REFLOW project, centring around a solution that the Berlin pilot team has developed to harness the potential of wastewater heat as a climate-neutral source for the city through the power of data. BWB’s R&D Department is a key member of the Berlin pilot team, where they have played an instrumental role in giving access to key data for the development of the solution, the Wastewater Heat Radar. As things were on the way to finalising the development of this solution, the Waste Heat Department, a department in BWB that were outside of the REFLOW project informed the Berlin pilot team that they need to put a halt to their solution. With the rising concern of critical infrastructure (in)security and the obligations for BWB to ensure that these supplies of water and wastewater services are not interrupted by threats or attacks, they needed to discuss the pros and cons of releasing this critical infrastructure data.

Students are asked to put themselves in the shoes of the head of the Wastewater Heat Department at BWB and to consider the question: should a stop be put on the release of wastewater heat potential data or risk the potential security threat to critical infrastructure in Berlin? Pros and cons are outlined in the case study including climate-neutral goals alongside the risks and vulnerabilities associated with publishing information and data on critical infrastructure.

Hayashi, Erika; Hahnemann, Christian. (2022). Is Berlin getting into hot (waste)water? REFLOW Academy

Energetic Efforts in Cluj-Napoca

This case is based on a real organisation that has carried out activities as part of the European Union Horizon 2020 project, REFLOW. While the case is based on a real organisation and other elements, the case is fictionalised. The main protagonist is the coordinator of the Cluj-Napoca pilot city, Mihai Barbu. The coordinator and his team encounter a barrier to accessing energy consumption data needed for a technological solution which they believe could help to raise awareness on energy consumption and lead to the increased energy efficiency, reduction in energy consumption, and towards the overall energy and circular transition in the city. The gatekeepers of the data, the partly state-owned energy distributor, does not want to release their data needed for the technological solution. With the clock ticking on the REFLOW project’s timespan, the coordinator must now figure out what the next steps of the Cluj-Napoca pilot will be. The students are asked to assess what could be done in this situation. Could there be any potential for making a convincing argument or should they go in a different direction, if so, what?

Hayashi, Erika. (2022). Energetic Efforts in Cluj-Napoca. The REFLOW Academy.

Planning a Circular Paris

This case is a fictionalised account of a real organisation of partners that have carried out activities as part of the European Union Horizon 2020 project, REFLOW.

The protagonist in the case is Amelie, an urban planner for the Paris region. Amelie stakes lie in the municipality’s vision for urban development and growth – including a focus on ensuring that the city has affordable housing to address the socioeconomic gap growing in the city, sustainable active mobility, multifunctionality, urban economic growth, and ensuring that the Paris vision towards circular economy is upheld. She is approached by the REFLOW Paris pilot team who are interested in a site in the city that could be used as a storage facility – something that they deem as a crucial component towards transitioning the city towards the circular economy. The case introduces four personas who all each have their own stake in the site and their own take on the future direction of Paris’ urban development.

The case concludes with Amelie providing her recommendations on the future development of the site.

Hayashi, Erika; Lingås, Dina. (2022). Planning a Circular Paris. The REFLOW Academy.

Finding the Bread and Butter in Milan's Circular Solution

This case is based on a real organisation in Milan that has carried out activities as part of the European Union Horizon 2020 project, REFLOW.

The Milan REFLOW team, comprised of system designers, researchers, makers, and municipal actors, set out to tackle the overwhelming amounts of food waste being produced across the city of Milan. The team decided to focus on the fruit and vegetable wholesalers within Municipal market, SogeMi. In co-creation with the market, the team developed the innovative circular solution, BOTTO, that would enable the recovery of surplus fruits and vegetables.

While the REFLOW project and its funding was coming to an end, Milan´s transition towards a more circular and generative urban food system has just begun. Therefore, to sustain the Milan team´s solution beyond the REFLOW project, they needed to find new sources of income and new investors to further develop and ensure the solutions scalability.

The case provides key insights on the complex structure of the Milanese redistribution network for surplus food, including a short description of key actors in the network – wholesalers, re (distributors) and charities. It goes over how the Milan Team intends to assist the network with a more efficient handling of surplus food, that ultimately can be redistributed to those in need. Throughout the case, stakeholders’ potential benefits from using the platform as well challenges concerning their willingness to pay for the service is briefly considered.

Students are asked to put themselves in the shoes of Eva, a freelance consultant with experience in business modelling, to consult the Milan Reflow team on choosing a revenue model for the BOTTO solution. Having in mind the different needs of actors in the urban food network, Eva needs to recognize the balance between each actor’s value capture and risks, and accordingly, their ability and willingness to pay for the service.

Skjold Frøshaug, Andrea; Hayashi, Erika; Lingås, Dina. (2022). Finding the Bread and Butter in Milan’s Circular Solution. The REFLOW Academy.

Vejle's Road to Becoming a Circular Plasti-city

This case is based on a real organisation that has carried out activities as part of the European Union Horizon 2020 project, REFLOW. The protagonists in this case are the Vejle pilot team. The team needs to choose one particular focal area, namely a specific industry with a respective micro-test site where they will develop and implement a circular intervention to close the loop on their circular plastic streams in the city. The team has four key focal areas, each targeting a specific industry (construction, food retail, healthcare, and households) which is paired with a micro-test site where the team will carry out their circular intervention. Each key focal area/test site is unique and targets certain demographics, types of plastics, and has their own challenges.

The case goes over key insights that feed into the decision-making process of the Vejle team. The ultimate goal for the Vejle team is achieve a circular plastics in the city. In order to do this, they are implementing this small experiment, but want to ensure that while this is a micro-test that it is still impactful in the long-term, can reach short-term targets, and can also be scaled in the future to help to foster further circular transitions across the city, the region, and beyond.

This is a decision-based case. It asks the students to step into the shoes of the Vejle pilot team. The case study challenges students to formulate recommendations regarding which key focal area the pilot should choose and why.

Hayashi, Erika; Lingås, Dina. (2022). Vejle’s Road to Becoming a Circular Plasti-city. The REFLOW Academy.

Presentations

City Science Initiative
Circular Economy - Virtual Workshop
REFLOW Project: Milan Pilot City

Presentation for the City Science Initiative’s Circular Economy Virtual Workshop (25 May 2020) where PCO and Associate Professor Cristiana Parisi and the Municipality of Milan’s Project Manager, Rosanna Torri presented the REFLOW Project and the Milan Pilot City.

Cristiana Parisi and Rossana Torri. (2020). REFLOW Project: Milan Pilot City. City Science Initiative Virtual Workshop on Circular Economy.