Circular food initiatives and Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes: A critical reflection on the potential of circular initiatives for systemic change in city regions.

The circular economy has gained traction as a solution to transform our food production and consumption system from a linear to a sustainable system. While such initiatives are effective in providing local ground level solutions, they do not always spread across larger geographical spaces, address structural inequalities and contribute to place-making. In this research, we examine the role of circular food initiatives in bringing transformative change in the context of place-making and a productive green infrastructure. We address this question in a front runner city, Brighton and Hove, located in the southeast of England. We present a preliminary analysis of four exemplar cases showcasing top-down and bottom-up food initiatives with a common goal to transition towards a sustainable and circular food system. Our analysis shows that while individually they contributed to positive social, environmental and economic impacts, the lack of collaborative opportunities between different initiatives within a city region is halting the scaling of circular initiatives. Nevertheless, the elements of place-making existed in all cases demonstrating system level impacts.