Guidance on increasing NDC ambitions through circular action
Updated on 05.08.2025
The primary objective of this Guidance is to assist countries in increasing climate ambitions through integrating circular economy (CE) activities within their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC).
This document seeks to provide national governments, especially those involved in updating and implementing NDCs, with examples of CE measures and a methodology to include them. It will enable NDC developers to identify, combine, develop, integrate and monitor CE activities and strategies, ultimately increasing climate ambitions while at the same time advancing the circular transformation.
This Guidance document aims to provide a practical way forward for the inclusion of circularity in NDCs and address potential challenges while suggesting enabling conditions for successful implementation. Ultimately, it aims to equip countries with the knowledge and resources needed to effectively increase their NDC targets through circular action.
Relevance for Circular Systemic Solutions
The Guidance on Increasing NDC Ambitions through Circular Action targets a wide range of value chains and sectors, especially those with significant greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and material footprints. Its practical value for cities and regions lies in providing a structured methodology and Circular Activity Sheets that support mapping existing circular economy (CE) measures, designing new ones, and integrating them into Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).
For circular systemic solution development, the report’s insights are highly relevant to both the mapping and design stages: it helps identify sectoral priorities, select suitable CE measures based on climate and policy contexts, and estimate their climate impact. It also offers tools like multi-criteria analysis (MCA) and contextualization steps that support decision-making and stakeholder alignment at local levels.
How to use this tool or method
This Guidance provides a step-by-step methodology on (1) identifying CE activities within existing NDCs and (2) developing new CE measures that can be included in NDCs to increase climate ambitions.
The Guidance is complemented by a catalogue of CE activities for potential inclusion in NDCs in Annex A. These are described in more detail, including potential indicators and emission factors in the accompanying Circular Activity Sheets. In addition, Annex B articulates the main impacts of CE measures on climate change mitigation across product categories.
CO2 neutrality/decarbonisation
<5 000
large 500 000-200 000, medium 200 000-50 000, and small cities 50 000-5 000
large metropolitan area >1.5 million, metropolitan area 1.5 million-500 000
predominantly urban regions, intermediate and predominantly rural regions, refer to TERCET typology NUTS 3 region
e.g. commercial, residential, service, industrial
