Toolkit for Circular Cities Week Organizers
Planning a CEC Circular City Week is an exciting opportunity to build your profile while helping the transition towards a circular economy. To help you run a smooth and successful event, we have put together a comprehensive checklist, with clear instructions and top tips from CEC’s experience hosting events in over 100 countries globally. Please review this checklist and refer back to it at every stage of the event planning, regardless if you are new or a veteran of event organizing, it will most certainly help you.
A) How to run the event
How do I develop a Circular City session? We will walk you through this step by step in the planning process.
What are the objectives of the session?
- Convince and support your city council to publish a local circular economy strategy with clear objectives; and
- Create an open-source report of challenges, opportunities and next steps for your city.
What does the agenda look like?
- 25 min – Registration and welcome drinks
- 10 min – Session starts: Introduce yourself, CEC, and explain how the session will work
- 95 min – Session
- 50 min – Open discussion and session wrap-up
- 40 min – Networking time
How are the materials for the session?
- Here are the slides. You will be unable to edit them online. To edit them click “File -> Save as PowerPoint” to save them in your desktop. Once in your desktop, please add your CEC local logo, and edit the slides at your convenience.
- Here is the Circular City canvas that you can print for your participants to write on it. You will be unable to edit the canvas online. Click “File -> Save as PDF” to save it in your desktop. The recommended size to print on is A3 or A2 (please use recycled paper when possible).
Bonus tip: Rehearse the session with your team before the event. Be yourself, enjoy the experience and be proud of you and your team.
B) Build your volunteer team
If you are going to organize a successful session, you will want to recruit a small but great team. Here are some tips:
Which roles are needed?
- Photographer: This person will take high-quality photos during your events and send them to following the event so that you can upload the best 10 photos of your event to the CEC Facebook group and CEC LinkedIn group. Before covering an event, photographers must know that by becoming a volunteer they accept to release the photos under the Creative Commons “Attribution-Noncommercial – Non-Derivs” license and authorize CEC YOUR CITY and CEC global to replicate and distribute their photos on the CEC website, social media and on any other CEC materials.
- Notetaker: this person will help you take notes of all the key points raised during the discussions in your event.
- Logistics Coordinator: this person can help you find venues and sponsors, and help set up the technicals (light, screen, etc), the catering for welcome and networking drink.
- Communications: find someone who can help spread the word about the event including sending press releases to the local newspapers, radios and TVs.
How to recruit volunteers?
- Set up a Volunteer post at CEC under the Jobs section by clicking “Add a Job Offer“. In order to write the volunteer position, you can follow this template. Once you have set it up:
- Tap into the CEC community: consider contacting local CEC members via the CEC LinkedIn Group and CEC Facebook Group. They are already part of the CEC community, so are passionate about CEC’s mission too. CEC groups:
How to brief my team?
- Host a meeting with your team to introduce them to the CEC brand, what it means to organize CEC events and discuss how you see them contributing and what are their inspirations for joining.
- Here are the template slides to introduce them to CEC. You will not be able to edit them online. Click “File -> Save as Power Point” and you will be able to edit them in your desktop.
- Rehearse your event with your team before it takes place.
- Keep things fun and thank them! Try to do team building activities: have potlucks with your meetings or go on a fun outing as a team after your rehearsal. Find ways to show gratitude to your team. A simple introduction to someone who can provide professional growth or a “thank you” onstage can go a long way.
C) Venue + sponsors & collaborators
What are the key tips to provide a CEC experience?
- Ensure that everyone gets to know each other during the networking time before and after the event. For example, you can create an innovation lab within the networking area, an area for attendees to try out new circular products. This is also a great way to integrate your sponsors/partners.
- Be considerate of the products you use, circular economy messaging should be consistent throughout the event. So provide tap drinking water in jars (rather than plastic bottles), use glasses and cutlery that can be washed (rather than disposable), use recycled paper when you have to print (but avoid handouts), use local food and donate the leftovers.
How to cover the expenses of my event?
- Look for in-kind collaborations offering free use of their space and catering. Speak to co-working spaces, incubators, event spaces, PR agencies, local businesses and universities. There is bound to be someone in your city excited to host a CEC event.
- You can charge an entrance fee for your event.
- Keep things simple, you just need a room with: tables, chairs and screen/TV with USB entry or a plug to connect your computer and project the slides.
- Remember that branded circular products may be given away. However, CEC@-branded products may not be sold. The local CEC logo/brand may not be licensed for commercial purposes.
Which sponsors can I approach and how?
- You may not approach any sponsors that fall under our prohibited industries list: adult-oriented products/services; tobacco/cigarettes; weapons, oil companies, ammunition and defence. If any of your sponsors fall into these industries, your license will be removed immediately.
- Look at more tips and the email template to approach sponsors here.
- Collaboration agreement: Make sure to put together a sponsor/partner agreement (this is the CEC Template for sponsor/partner agreements), to be signed by the sponsor and lead organizer. It is important to clearly outline what the sponsor is agreeing to provide to your CEC local (not to CEC global), and what they will get in return (from you directly, not from CEC global itself).
D) Promotion
With the support of the CEC brand, you can be confident that you will have a full session. However, promoting your session in a smart way can drive up your attendance.
How do I build a registration page?
- Set up an Eventbrite.com event page for free to keep track of registrations. Usually, the ratio of attendees for free events is 50% of those registered. If 100 people registered, you can expect around 50 to show up.
- Here’s the event description template. You will not be able to edit it online. Please copy the text and add it to your Eventbrite.com event registration page.
- Here is the image banner. You will not be able to edit it online. Please click “File” -> “Download as PowerPoint” to edit it in your desktop. Add your CEC local logo, your event date, the logos of your sponsors and then click “Save as JPG or PNG”. Then you can upload the image to your Eventbrite event description.
Who do I invite?
- Consider inviting your local entrepreneurs, researchers, professors, sustainability change makers, business local leaders and investors should be the inspiration centers of your CEC events. Selecting, inviting, and inspiring them to attend the Circular Week will be your main initial task.
- Once you have your prospect list of emails, LinkedIn profiles etc, do a first round of email invites to 50 of your top choice attendees. Give yourself a designated amount of time for replies and send another round to the following 50 choices.
- Here are email templates and more tips on how to send invitations.
How do I promote my CEC event?
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- CEC website: Sign in to the CEC website and click “Add Event” to add your event description, banner and CEC local logo.
- Blogs: If you have a personal or professional blog, write a post about the circular economy and your CEC event. If you know of sustainability bloggers interested in writing about your CEC event, brief them about the event and ask them to publish a guest post on their blog.
- Press is an exciting way to bring attention to your session.
- CEC local chapter social media channels: Your personal or company social media as well as your CEC local social media channels. Check the CEC brand and social media guidelines before opening a CEC local social made page or group.
- CEC global social media channels: If you would like CEC global to help spread the word, write to sara@CircularEconomyClub.com with your registration link. Send also 3-4 organizations (e.g.: potential or current sponsors) you would like to be tagged in the post.
Club member groups: 
E) Completed the Circular City Week, what next?
- Send a Thank you email to your audience, team members, sponsors and collaborators.
- Send the Letter to the Mayor asking them to issue a local circular economy strategy.
- Send the information gathered during your event (ideally in the canvas format) and the high-quality photos from your event to sara@circulareconomyclub.com to ensure they appear on the CEC gallery for this global event.
- Select the best 10 photos and upload them to the CEC Facebook and LinkedIn groups with a title: ‘CEC (YOUR CITY) Week”, by CEC (YOUR NAME) – Date’.
- Read the Circular Cities Week Report 2020
- Host a Webinar to share the Circular Cities Week Report 2020 Findings (slides here). We recommend Zoom, that is free up to 100 participants. Watch this video on how to run a webinar on Zoom
If you have any question or need further support, please do not hesitate to contact sara@CircularEconomyClub.com
Thank you for your interest in CEC and your passion for the circular economy. If we work collaboratively and act globally, we can have a real impact and, that’s why we have come together on this exciting journey.
Return to the main page of Circular Cities Week, by CEC