The Fab City Index

The Fab City approach means that an urban economy is gradually developing into a fully circular economy until 2054, where local demand is met by local production. However, it is unclear at which point a Fab City currently is in this transition. The concept of the Fab City Index is a measure that could somehow quantify its state. It was first developed in France in 2018. The Fab City Index toolkit aims to capture how different economic sectors are performing with regards to the Fab City goal of a fully circular economy and to make this self-sufficiency comparable among existing Fab Cities. However, the French approach is closed source. Thus, we describe an alternative approach based on publicly available data taking Hamburg as an example, and we identify 16 macro-sectors whose development could inform a Fab City strategy. Preliminary results show that Hamburg still has a long way to go, though there is potential for self-sufficiency in some sectors. Measuring consumption and recycling thoroughly should be a high priority. A visual tool like the Fab City Dashboard could document the progress being made. The insights can inform both city administrations in deciding which sectors should be strengthened and statistical offices in expanding their future data collection.