Abstract Body

The concept of circular economy (CE) offers an innovative and systematical approach to address a number of urban sustainability issues, via exploring symbiotic ways to design circular urban systems and optimizing the materials and energy metabolism of cities, so as to mitigate environmental footprints. Urban sustainability is highlighted as critical issues in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) proposed by United Nations, hence in nature, circular economy could offer a number of solutions towards SDGs in urban scope. As trade-offs, circular economy also potentially causes negative impacts to business as usual scenario, which is easily to be ignored. To highlight this scientific issue, this paper identified and matched the role of circular economy in realizing 17 SDGs and 169 their sub-indicators in urban scope. How circular economy strategy could potentially affect the SDGs, whether positive or negative, were comprehensive evaluated. Hong Kong as a global mega city, is applied as case study to illustrate how an inclusive circular economy could be achieved. We expect such findings could support an equilibrium decision making on circular economy promotion in cities, rather than optimum solution to single target under the triple bottom line of sustainability.