Launch of the “Circular City Transition Indicator”: Visualizing Circular Economy Progress Across Japan’s Municipalities

As a follow up initiative to the “Circular City Transition Guide” published in October 2024, we have jointly developed the “Circular City Transition Indicator” with Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank, Limited, and have launched a dashboard for municipalities nationwide.

Overview of the Circular City Transition Indicator

The circular economy is positioned as a national strategy to achieve sustainable growth while addressing environmental and resource constraints. Within this context, “local circulation” and “regional revitalization” are among the most important themes. It is considered essential for municipalities to take proactive action based on their regional characteristics and to co-create initiatives with a diverse range of stakeholders from industry, government, academia, and civil society in order to realize a sustainable society.

In October 2024, Harch released the “Circular City Transition Guide” as a practical guidance to support municipalities in transforming their regions into “Circular City” on their own.

The current “Circular City Transition Indicator” is positioned as an advanced initiative building on this guide. By utilizing generative AI, data have been collected, organized, and visualized for all more than 1,700 municipalities nationwide. In addition to already systematized indicators such as recycling rates and regional economic circulation rates, the indicator also includes data that had not previously been systematized, such as the presence or absence of strategies and the status of local activities. As a result, initiatives actually undertaken by municipalities are reflected in the indicators within a short period of time, enabling the PDCA cycle to be implemented more quickly and effectively.

The indicators consist of three frameworks: “Strategy,” “Action,” and “Impact.”

• Strategy: The status of circular city policy promotion by municipalities
• Action: The status of circular economy related activities by major regional stakeholders
• Impact: The outcomes generated within the region as a result of municipal strategies and stakeholder activities

This dashboard is not intended to serve as a ranking. Its purpose is to enable municipalities to objectively and quantitatively understand their current situations and to connect that understanding to their next actions.

The dashboard can be viewed on the website below.
https://ccti.cehub.jp (in Japanese)

Example of the dashboard display

This dashboard is released as a proof of concept. Going forward, through continued discussions with a wide range of municipalities, companies, and governmental organizations, it will be updated into a practical indicator framework that can be utilized by a broad range of stakeholders.

【Related Site】Circular Economy Hub (in Japanese)