For many islands, the answer to the question “why a locally, self-sustaining, and regenerative economy is needed?” is clear. The struggle often lies in the “how”. Here, we argue that tools from regenerative economics, which follow an island economy-as-an-organism analogy, offer valuable and complementary insights to socio-metabolic research. Indicators from flow-based and information-based ecological network analysis can quantify properties of an island's socio-economic metabolism (SEM) which are related to cycling, resilience, and degree of mutualism, among others. To illustrate the applicability of these methods, we select Samothraki in Greece as a case study. Results show that over the years the island became very efficient in streamlining imported resources, experiencing physical growth as indicated by a substantial increase in its total material throughput. This growth was attributed to a high degree of order (i.e., network efficiency) endowed by the constraining (ordered) part of the linear structure of the island's SEM. The disordered part of its SEM which is related to resilience, played a much smaller role which became progressively more important over the years, albeit to a limited degree. While the island exhibits an increasing trend in its robustness, its value over the years studied was well below what is typically observed for healthy natural ecosystems, and its current SEM has a very low ability to generate internal flow activity and cycling of resources per unit input. This limited robustness is due to the island's dependency on imports but also due to its linear SEM which had a very small number of feedback loops in its network. A scenario analysis showed that a reticulated network structure would theoretically endow the island with increased resilience, and hence robustness, by allowing for more internal resource flow activity to be circulated as regenerative re-investment. This article highlights that methods from regenerative economics can be used as diagnostic tools to assess and monitor the impact of strategies related to circular economy interventions on network properties, and to illuminate their effect on the regenerative potential of islands.

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Considering its relatively low circularity rate (11.8% in 2019), the EU set several waste management targets as part of its roadmap to a circular economy yet the decision about which transition pathway to follow is not trivial. The maximization of circularity in human made systems is intended to function as a catalyst for this transition albeit at the risk of establishing fragile techno-economic systems. To provide insights for a balanced transition to a circular economy its link with the ecological concepts of “resilience” and “robustness” is illuminated by assessing the theoretical robustness of the material and energy flow networks of the EU27 countries between 2010-2018 using Eurostat data. Results show that despite the high degrees of order (efficiencies) which all European countries developed over the years studied, none of them achieved near-maximum robustness. The identified relationships between the average circularity rate and the average energy efficiency with the theoretical robustness of these material and energy flow networks (for the years studied), respectively, suggest that ascendency analysis is a credible tool for supporting policy making. Both on a national and on a local level for developing circular and robust urban waste management systems given data availability. The contribution to the underlying theory of ascendency analysis is the introduction of the concepts of “technological boundaries” and “windows of efficiency” of these human-made networks which are juxtaposed with the “window of vitality” that is often used to describe healthy natural ecosystems. Finally, the limitations of ascendency analysis and directions for future research are presented.@en

The rapid high-speed railway development in China has faced many institutional challenges for the integrated development of transport and land use in station areas. This paper aims to gain insight into the institutional rules that structure the actors’ interactions and how they influence the integrated development in station areas. The Institutional Analysis and Development framework has been applied to a specific action situation, named Lanzhou West HSR station area in China. The findings from interviews, document analysis, and field visits reveal that Chinese institutional rules obstruct interactions between actors, thereby hampering the integrated development of functions in HSR station areas.@en

This paper introduces an indicator system to measure and assess smart city readiness. Analyzing smart city initiatives in Iran as case studies, the theoretical framework we present reflects on how cities explore the possibility of becoming smart, and prepare themselves to begin implementing the transition towards becoming a smart city. This theoretical framework is then applied to four Iranian cities aspiring to become smart and that already possess credible smart city brands. The findings reveal that the most significant difficulty in Iran is associated with the political context. The changing urban governance model is the most important factor in Iranian smart cities’ readiness. Utilization of open data policies and data sharing, as well as making reforms in government structures are all considered a sine qua non to gain momentum. Based on the results of our empirical analysis a Theory of Change is developed to address the cities’ technological, socio-economic, and political readiness vis-à-vis the desired transition. The framework for measuring smart city readiness and the Theory of Change provide practical guidelines to developing systematic roadmaps for developing and implementing smart city policies.

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