Urban Living Labs: Pathways of Sustainability Transitions towards Innovative City Systems from a Circular Economy Perspective

Abstract

Urban living labs (ULLs) are progressive forms of interventions that aim to fulfil the sustainability ambitions of cities and communities. They provide opportunities to translate new ideas into practice. The increasing interest among researchers, practitioners, and policy makers in understanding sustainability transitions (ST) has brought new forms of experimentation through which cities and communities can be governed. Recently, there has been increasing attention towards the concept of circular economy (CE). This term promises the creation of distinct city systems in which material flows can be managed efficiently. In this article, we explore how ULLs can become pathways of sustainability transition towards innovative city systems from a circular economy perspective. By adopting a series of systematic analyses, i.e., multiple correspondence analysis and content analysis, we demonstrate the main pathways of circular economy-oriented innovative city systems that have been used in the literature. As a result of this work, we identify the main pathways, namely knowledge production, policy making, co-creation, geographical embeddedness, urban transitions, networks of cooperation among institutions, culture change, and collaborative engagement.

Shaping Poultry Meat Quality Attributes in the Context of Consumer Expectations and Preferences—A Case Study of Poland

“…The basis for the criteria adopted in the study to assess the fillet defectiveness was the considerable scale of the occurrence of quality problems in meat produced in Poland. Similar assessment criteria were also the subject of a study by Banach [30] conducted on turkey meat. Statistical analysis of the obtained data involved the demonstration of the respondents' preferences related to assessments of meat quality attributes and their purchasing behaviours-the occurrence of small haematomas in poultry fillets.…”

“…The basis for the criteria adopted in the study to assess the fillet defectiveness was the considerable scale of the occurrence of quality problems in meat produced in Poland. Similar assessment criteria were also the subject of a study by Banach [30] conducted on turkey meat.…”

“…In the literature, you can find many different applications of correspondence analysis in various scientific disciplines [30][31][32][33][34][35]. The analysis made it possible to reconstruct the distance between the socio-demographic characteristics of the respondents and the assessment of the attributes/defects of poultry meat and purchasing behaviours in two-dimensional space.…”

Sourcing Sustainability Transition in Small and Medium-Sized Ports of the Baltic Sea Region: A Case of Sustainable Futuring with Living Labs

“…A recent record track on Living Labs (LLs) has shown their increasing deployment in sustainability research, in particular pertaining to sustainability transition [86][87][88][89][90][91][92]. Indeed, LLs developed as a response to drive innovation and economic development by more effective leverage of public investment in research, thus supporting closer exchange and collaboration [93,94].…”

Circular solutions for construction, renovation, and demolition waste in Toronto

“…There are many schools of thought that fall under the umbrella of CE, including the cradle to cradle(C2C) concept. C2C is a design philosophy which adopts a biomimicry-like approach by positioning resources as nutrients which feed into the broader 'food chain' or ecosystem of matter (Benyus, 2008;Florez Ayala & Alberton, 2020; Guide for Identifying, Evaluating and Selecting Policies for Influencing Construction, Renovation and Demolition Waste Management, 2019); (McDonough et al, 2008). Eliminating the concept of waste, materials are designed to decompose or be deconstructed into their elements and absorbed back into a cycle where they will 'feed' the system, to be used again to create new things .…”