The BLUEPRINT to a Circular Economy Model
Welcome to the BLUEPRINT Model
Who is the BLUEPRINT Model for?
The BLUEPRINT Model supports senior managers, decision-makers, and officers at local authorities across England and France. It will help them to implement the right policies, strategies and plans to move towards a circular economy. The BLUEPRINT Model pulls together learning and expertise from across the BLUEPRINT to a Circular Economy Project, building on the existing foundation of industry best practice, to make the transition to a more circular economy as easy as possible. It can be used by any local authority in England and France.
How the BLUEPRINT Model can support local authorities
Self-help style guidance will support local authorities to understand how well they are performing with regards to a circular economy and identify gaps or opportunities to build greater circularity. The BLUEPRINT Model will provide local authorities with guidance, insight, and real-life examples. This will help them to influence their own policies and strategies, initiate training opportunities for not-for-profit organisations and vulnerable individuals, and inspire behaviour change in their residents. Best practice case studies from local authorities will provide detailed insights into activities that support a circular economy, as well as social innovation. Reports from the BLUEPRINT Project, meanwhile, will provide insight and evidence to outline the need for change and the many benefits of a circular economy.
It is recommended that local authority officers using the BLUEPRINT Model have a good understanding of the circular economy. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation has excellent resources that you may wish to view before applying the BLUEPRINT Model.
What is the BLUEPRINT Model?
The BLUEPRINT Model is a four-step process that aims to support local authorities to understand where they are now, where they can implement change, and how they can continuously monitor and evaluate progress. The following pages will guide local authorities through each step in more detail.
Step 1. Baseline: Understand where you are now. To enable progress to be monitored, local authorities need to know where they are starting. The BLUEPRINT Baselining Activity asks local authorities to score a series of questions, each supported by criteria to further guide answers.
Step 2. Focus: Outline your key areas of focus. After completing the BLUEPRINT Baselining Activity, the local authority can view their results and advice, to help understand current circular performance and support the local authority to identify areas of strengths, and areas of opportunity to improve. In addition to guidance on organisation-wide considerations, there are four key areas of focus: procurement, waste management, training and job opportunities, and changing behaviours.
Step 3. Implement: Implement activities and learning to transition to a circular economy. Local authorities can view guidance, insight, and best practice examples under each of the four key focus areas. The guidance will provide practical advice and share honest experiences of successes, challenges and lessons learnt to support other local authorities on their journey to a circular economy. How long this step takes will depend on the local authority’s current performance, ambition, and the types of activities implemented. The timeline will therefore vary between local authorities.
Step 4: Evaluate: Monitor and evaluate progress. Guidance on monitoring and evaluating progress after implementing activities. Local authorities can repeat the BLUEPRINT Baselining Activity and compare results. This is a quick and easy way to visualise where improvements have been made and consider where there are further opportunities. In addition, the BLUEPRINT Project’s Circulates tool offers great insight into waste flows and long-term impacts of circular economy activities.
Step 1. Baseline: Understand where you are now.
To measure progress made towards a circular economy, local authorities first need to understand where they are starting. The BLUEPRINT Baselining Activity has been designed to support local authorities to do just that. By completing the BLUEPRINT Baselining Activity, the questions and criteria aim to challenge local authorities to consider how the circular economy already fits in with the organisation's vision and practices. This will result in a clearer picture of what your local authority is doing well and where there are opportunities to improve.
A small group of officers or leaders with a good overview of the local authority should complete the BLUEPRINT Baselining Activity to provide the most accurate results. This should take around 1.5 hours to complete but may vary between each local authority.
Key areas the BLUEPRINT Baselining Activity will cover
The BLUEPRINT Baselining Activity will firstly ask questions about your organisation and then questions covering the following four key areas:
- Procurement
- Waste management
- Training and job opportunities
- Changing behaviours
How to score your local authority
Local authorities should consider how they currently perform across their own organisation. Local authorities should select a score of between 0 and 3 to indicate how they feel they are already performing and enter this into column F. 0 being the lowest, and 3 being the highest score (figure 1). Criteria is provided in the BLUEPRINT Baselining Activity to support local authorities to accurately assign a score. It is important to note that the more accurate the answers provided, the more value local authorities will be able to draw out of the BLUEPRINT Model guidance. This information is for the local authority use only, there is no need to share results unless you wish to.
Figure 1: Example page for procurement of the BLUEPRINT Model.
Results for your local authority
While every effort has been taken to use inclusive examples, with a glossary included on the first tab of the BLUEPRINT Baselining Activity, there may be questions or criteria you feel are not appropriate. Where needed, some questions will have a ‘not applicable’ box. Please use this function instead of entering a score, this will then remove the question from the overall average to provide a more accurate result. While examples have been provided for some questions you may need to make a comparison between equivalent activities at your local authority.
Partners from the BLUEPRINT Project and subject matter experts from each of the local authority partners have supported the development of the questions and criteria to ensure accuracy and deliverability. A group of external local authority officers also shared their experience and expertise to challenge assumptions and ensure inclusive terminology.
How to get started with the BLUEPRINT Baselining Activity
Download the BLUEPRINT Baselining Activity to get started and save a copy for your records. By saving a copy, you will be able to compare your local authority’s performance after implementing the relevant policies, strategies, and approaches to move to a more circular economy. Once you have completed scoring for your local authority, you should view the ‘your results’ tab alongside the guidance for step 2 below.
Step 2. Focus: Outline your key areas of focus.
As you have now completed the BLUEPRINT Baselining Activity to understand your local authority’s current circular performance, you are now ready to review the ‘your results’ tab of the BLUEPRINT Baselining Activity. View the ‘your results’ tab alongside this guidance for step 2 (outline your key areas of focus) to support decision-making on which areas to focus your attention: procurement, waste management, training and job opportunities, and changing behaviours.
The ‘your results’ tab will summarise your local authority’s average score for each key area. Based on your score, accompanying advice will be generated (figure 2), along with a graph to visual your local authority’s results. This graph should be a good indicator to the areas where your local authority is performing well, and the areas where there are opportunities to improve which may be useful in guiding decision making (figure 3). It is important to consider whether the results are as expected, and, if not, why results may differ to expectations.
Figure 2: the BLUEPRINT Baselining Activity ‘your results’ tab with advice for each key area based on a local authority’s average scores. From the average score for each section, advice is generated to support local authorities to identify where they are performing well, and where there are opportunities to improve. Green indicates a high score where the local authority is performing well, amber a middle score, and red a low score indicating that there may be opportunities to improve circularity.
Figure 3: BLUEPRINT Baselining Activity ‘your results’ tab graph visualising a local authority’s current circular performance for each key area. For this example, the local authority is performing well for changing behaviours, with opportunities to improve on the training and job opportunities and procurement areas.
While the BLUEPRINT Baselining Activity should provide a useful guide on which key areas to focus efforts, it is important to consider local factors such as the organisation’s vision and priorities. Once a local authority has decided on the key area(s) to focus attention, the local authority can move onto step 3.
Step 3. Implement: Implement activities and learning to transition to a circular economy.
Local authorities should now have a clearer understanding of the areas where they are performing well, and where there are opportunities to embed greater circularity. Detailed information and guidance can be viewed under each key area. The guidance aims to provide practical advice and share honest experiences of successes, challenges and lessons learnt to support local authorities on their journey to a more circular economy. Guidance for each key area will:
- Outline findings from BLUEPRINT Project research and reports.
- Share insight from relevant project pilots that support a circular economy, such as behaviour change initiatives.
- Link to circular economy solutions from across England and France collated as part of the project to map circular activities and share inspiration.
- Incorporate industry best practice, such as from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
View information for each of the key areas
Each local authority can find out more about each key area:
The about your organisation page details information about what a circular economy is and how it can link with local authority ambitions, policies and strategies. It also outlines the importance of circular economy expertise, people and funding resource and how collaboration and partnerships can accelerate progress. Visit the about your organisation page to find out more.
The procurement page shares information on the procurement hierarchy and outlines the role of policies, strategies and plans in circular procurement. It also identifies opportunities to gain circular economy expertise and resource, how processes and communications can support circularity, and introduces monitoring and evaluation ideas and tools. Visit the procurement page to find out more.
The waste management page details opportunities on how waste management can support a circular economy and the role of policies, strategies and plans. It also shares learning from the Waste Strategy for Essex development, and the value of collaboration and partnerships in achieving shared benefits. The idea of leading by example is introduced as well as data analysis, monitoring and evaluation opportunities. Visit the waste management page to find out more.
The training and job opportunities page shares information on circular jobs and growth opportunities and identifies the role of local authorities in supporting these opportunities. It also describes the opportunity for businesses, schools and residents to support the development of circular skills, as well as insight from the BLUEPRINT training programme. Visit the training and job opportunities page to find out more.
The changing behaviours page describes the role of behavioural science in encouraging a shift towards more circular behaviours, and the role that policymaking and educational campaigns play in driving this changing. It also shares how local authorities can create successful behaviour change interventions, with case study examples from the BLUEPRINT Project. Lastly, the changing behaviours page summarises data analysis, monitoring and evaluation opportunities for local authorities. Visit the changing behaviours page to find out more.
Step 4. Evaluate: Monitor and evaluate progress.
Your local authority should now have completed and reviewed the BLUEPRINT Baselining Activity in step 1 and 2, then implemented activities and learning outlined in step 3 of the BLUEPRINT Model. Your local authority is now ready to monitor and evaluate progress made towards a circular economy.
Repeat the BLUEPRINT Baselining Activity
A quick and easy way to monitor a local authority’s progress made towards a circular economy is to repeat the BLUEPRINT Baselining Activity. Local authorities can use the same BLUEPRINT Baselining Activity completed in step 1 by adding scores to column H for step 4. Again, selecting a score of between 0 and 3 to indicate performance for each question, and using the criteria to guide scoring.
The ‘your results’ tab will summarise your local authority’s average score for each key area. If using the same BLUEPRINT Baselining Activity sheet from step 1, the ‘your results’ page will now show a local authority’s ‘before’ and ‘after’ step 3 (figure 4). If you no longer have the original copy of the BLUEPRINT Baselining Activity, you can also download another copy.
Figure 4: Example graph from the BLUEPRINT Baselining Activity ‘Your results’ page. The blue line indicates the local authority’s score in step 1 and 2, and the orange line indicates the local authority’s score after implementing circular activities in step 4. For this example, an improvement can be seen in almost all areas.
You have now reached the end of the BLUEPRINT to a Circular Economy Model. This is a great opportunity for local authorities to reflect on where progress has been made, and where there are more opportunities to improve. It is important to identify and celebrate progress made towards a circular economy. However, there are always opportunities to improve, that could be expanding an activity across your whole organisation or choosing to focus on a new key area. You can revisit any of the BLUEPRINT Model pages at any time.
- About your organisation
- Procurement
- Waste management
- Training and job opportunities
- Changing behaviours
For local authorities focusing on implementing circular economy interventions to reduce waste, there is also the Circulates tool which is described below.
Circulates tool
In addition to repeating the BLUEPRINT Baselining Activity, the Circulates tool can support local authorities to plan, monitor, and evaluate progress made towards a circular economy.
What is the Circulates tool?
Developed by BLUEPRINT partner, EcoWise, the Circulates tool offers insight into waste flows and the long-term impacts of circular economy activities. This service enables local authorities to track their performance in alignment with the BLUEPRINT Model and supports local authorities to reach their circular economy targets in a cost-effective manner.
The Circulates tool can also be used to track waste prevention, reuse and recycling projects, for combined impact and budget planning, monitoring and evaluation. Local authorities will receive reports that will make it easier for officers to understand changes or trends, continuously monitor project performance, implement project improvements, and share progress updates with stakeholders.
Who is Circulates for?
Circulates has been designed for local authority officers in waste management delivering, or looking to deliver, household waste prevention and recycling projects.
How can local authorities use Circulates?
Once local authorities install the Circulates software, they can enter local and service information on their dashboard (figure 5). With integrated collections data, Circulates can be used to set targets for recycling and waste prevention to allow for quick performance assessments.
Figure 5: Circulates dashboard example (left) and example overview (right).
How does Circulates support local authorities?
Waste prevention can be challenging to monitor. It is notoriously difficult for local authority officers working to reduce household waste, to prove that an intervention delivered waste reduction. Circulates aims to make it easier to report on the impacts of waste prevention, reuse and recycling activities.
How can I find out more about Circulates?
Please email eco-wise.co.uk if you would like to find out how your local authority could benefit from using the Circulates tool. You can also visit www.circulates.co.uk.
Please note, unlike the rest of the BLUEPRINT Model assets, there will be a small charge associated with Circulates to allow for software maintenance and improvements.
A big thank you…
Creating the BLUEPRINT to a Circular Economy Model has been an incredible collaborative effort.
- Thank you to local authorities from across the UK for giving their time to share their thoughts, ideas and expertise during three workshops in 2021 and 2022.
- Thank you to the BLUEPRINT Project partners for their support and knowledge on a range of topics, research and reporting in England and France.
- Thank you to the industry leading organisations, such as the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, Local Government Association, and ReLondon for sharing their feedback and expertise, to challenge our thinking and support the delivery of a model that is fit-for-purpose.
And finally, to you, the local authority officers and leaders who have shown interest in the delivery of this piece of work. We hope the BLUEPRINT Model supports your local authority to accelerate towards a more circular economy.
