Across Scotland, local areas and communities are exploring models that reduce waste, retain value and strengthen resilience within their places. Two approaches – the circular economy and community wealth building – are increasingly recognised as a way of creating fairer, greener places.
Earlier this year (2025), Zero Waste Scotland teamed up with EDAS (The Economic Development Association Scotland) to develop a think-piece ‘Circularity: a material development in economic innovation’ which argues for greater alignment between economic development and circular economy principles.
As part of Scotland’s Towns Conference 2025, Neil McInroy, Chair, EDAS and Dr Jane Beasley, Director of Circular Economy Delivery at Zero Waste Scotland, delivered a presentation to highlight how the circular economy and community wealth building are helping to create sustainable places, and how towns and cities across Scotland can learn from existing examples.
Circular Economy in action
Some examples of local action which showcases the impact of circular economy and community wealth building principles can be taken as exemplars that places across the country can learn from:
ReTweed is a social enterprise based in the Scottish Borders that works with women to deliver training in upcycling and textile crafts. Participants learn sewing, design and craft skills, working with donated or discarded fabrics (at least 80 % of materials are upcycled) to produce furnishings, clothing and crafts. By diverting textiles from landfill and turning them into locally crafted, ethically made products, ReTweed embodies a circular-economy mindset while generating meaningful social and economic value locally.
Edinburgh Tool Library (ETL) brings the sharing economy and circular principles directly into urban life. As the UK’s first tool-lending library, ETL enables individuals and community groups to borrow tools for DIY, gardening, repair, and building projects, rather than buying rarely used expensive tools. This ‘sharing not owning’ model reduces waste and resource use. ETL also offers workshops, community-build projects, and a “Tools for Life” programme to support young people facing employment barriers.
Grounds for Recycling, founded in Glasgow through a collaboration between hospitality businesses, the local chamber of commerce, and environmental stakeholders, demonstrates how circular economy ideas can scale across entire sectors. During its 2023 pilot which was timed to coincide with the world cycling championships, over 60 coffee shops and roasters committed to diverting their used coffee grounds from waste. Instead, the grounds were collected by e-cargo bikes and transported to Glasgow botanic garden, where they were composted and used to enrich soil.
Key takeaways:
- Circular economy can be a driver of local prosperity. A circular economy is not about creating new things, but rather doing things smarter, focusing on reuse, repair and reducing consumption. Communities often achieve more when they start small – making one realistic change at a time. Examples given include tool sheds, repair hubs, shared assets and local supply chains.
- Community wealth building strengthens the impact of circular economy initiatives by directing local procurement towards local businesses, supporting community ownership of local assets, encouraging anchor institutions to reduce waste and reinvest savings locally, locking in spend to local and regional economies.
- Focusing on collaboration as key to unlocking success. When local anchor institutions, social enterprises, businesses and communities come together, learn from each other and recognise shared ambitions for their places, great things can happen.
