The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Energy and Environment jointly founded the CSCP in 2005. As a non-profit organisation, the CSCP focuses on the promotion of sustainable patterns of consumption and production.

It is based on the work of international research projects as well as regional groundwork on circular cities. Learning from the activities of what cities across the globe are doing, the authors have come up with an eight-step process which every city could undertake to become circular.

The guidebook provides examples across value chains and sectors, including the built environment, energy systems, urban mobility, urban bioeconomy, and local production systems. Building upon these examples, it suggests practical guidelines to move towards a circular economy in cities.

The guidelines include recommendations for multiple sectors and value chains, elaborating on various stakeholders and their roles. The guidebook provides useful information and guidelines for cities that are at the beginning of their circular journey and are looking for methodologies and examples of circular implementation in cities.

This publication provides a step-by-step process to becoming circular, which cities can follow as a guide. In the guidebook, cities have been classified into four broad categories of whether a city is a legacy city or a pioneering city in a developed or an emerging economy: a) Developed economy legacy city, b) Emerging economy legacy city, c) Developed economy pioneering city, and d) Emerging economy pioneering city. Based on the classification a number of examples from cities across the continents have been documented.