With 90% of the world's urban areas situated on coastlines, cities are at high risk from some of the devastating impacts of climate change, but at the same time are on the frontlines of global climate change and are also well-positioned to play a leading role in driving the global transition to circular economy implementation. In fact, city governments often have closer relationships with their businesses, residents and institutions than state and national governments, allowing new policies to be implemented more quickly and decisively. The paper focuses on promoting and implementing a systemic solution for a territorial deployment of circular economy based on the industrial symbiosis, urban metabolism and regenerative cities principles in Med Coastal cities. The approach aims at overcoming the sectorial and value chain approach of the present circular economy application paradigm, looking, with an integrated and holistic vision, to the multilayers framework of the resources flows within a specific area of intervention. The paper shows how ports represent the perfect intervention areas for the application of the proposed approach in the coastal cities. In fact, they are representative of the main city's features, vibes and resource flows dynamics and small enough to guarantee a detailed resources flows and economic actors mapping.
Urban areas consume over two-thirds of the world's energy, and more than 75% of the overall primary resources. Moreover, they account for more than 70% of global CO2 emissions and for more than 50% of the waste global production. Furthermore, cities have been (and still are) the hot spots of the COVID-19 crisis, both at sanitary and economic level, but at the same time they have sanitary and research infrastructure to fight it. Cities are also well-positioned to play a leadership role in driving global transition to circular economy implementation, since city governments often have closer relationships with their businesses, residents and institutions than state and national governments, allowing new policies to be implemented more quickly and decisively. The market opportunities offered by circular economy initiatives have become fully evident because of the COVID-19 pandemic, that has revealed many vulnerabilities of global production and supply networks. In fact, circular economy can make companies resilient to such disruptions that may occur in the future, especially through the development of local production and supply networks and can also trigger a sustainable post-pandemic economic renewal, having the capability of preventing waste generation by closing the loops in industrial ecosystems. This transition is fundamental to decouple economic growth from resources use and meet the requirement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and in particular of SDGs 8, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15. Numerous barriers can hamper the implementation of circular solutions at territorial level. Recent reviews highlighted that technological barriers did not result among the most pressing barriers to CE deployment. "Cultural barriers" (lack of interest, knowledge/skills and engagement at company level and among ordinary citizens) need a targeted effort for a massive transition towards a circular economy. Almost 50% of the EU population lives less than 50 km from the sea. This figure is intended to increase based on the outlook of trans-border immigration and national movement from internal areas to the coastal areas, pushed by economic attractiveness. These areas are extremely important for the EU economy, since almost 40% of the EU's GDP is generated in maritime regions, and 75% of the volume of the EU's foreign trade is conducted by sea, through nodal points represented by ports. Moreover, coastal areas are of paramount importance for the conservation of EU Natural Capital, providing ecosystems services that are increasingly jeopardised by human activities, and being the frontlines of climate change effects. European cities integrating ports can therefore be considered, as complex living systems, the ideal locations to demonstrate the transition towards a resilient and regenerative circular economy, increasing the economic benefits of port and coastal activities while mitigating their negative impacts on the surrounding urban and natural areas. Port cities, thus, can represent an ideal testbed to demonstrate how transition to a regenerative circular economy can generate sustainable growth and economic recovery. They are, in fact, particularly suffering a severe economic impact because of the pandemic, due to the downturn of global trade.
