LocationsWritten by: Morgane Rivoal and Hoang Thanh Vinh (UNDP Viet Nam); Cung Trong Cuong, Cao Quoc Hai and Nguyen Ngoc Yen Nhi (HueIDS); Jelmer Hoogzaad (Shifting Paradigms)
From Data to Policy: Thua Thien Hue’s Circular Transformation
August 8, 2025
Photo: Hau Nguyen/unsplash
Just a few days ago, Hue City approved its Plan to Implement the National Action Plan for Circular Economy (Decision No. 284/KH-UBND by the Provincial People’s Committee). This marks a major milestone for the newly designated centrally governed city, reflecting a strong and strategic alignment with Viet Nam’s National Action Plan on Circular Economy (CE). The plan localizes CE priorities and interventions across key sectors and systems in Hue, drawing heavily on the comprehensive analysis and methodology developed through the recent metabolic analysis.
Officially granted centrally governed status in January 2025, Hue is among the first cities in Viet Nam to finalize and launch a localized CE action plan. This article offers practical insights and lessons learned from Hue’s journey—spanning data collection, stakeholder engagement, and consensus building—to evidence-based policy formulation.
2025, year of the Snake in Viet Nam propelled the Circular Economy (CE) in the spotlight with the National Action Plan (NAP) on Circular Economy (Decision 222/QQ-TTg) approved by the Prime Minister in early 2025. The NAP sets out ambitious targets for long-term circular integration across sectors, promoting green transformation, digital innovation, and job creation, maximising local opportunities while ensuring social welfare and alignment with international standards. The plan further emphasises the role of enterprises, cooperatives, and communities in driving CE innovation, with the Government providing the regulatory environment. In addition, the NAP requests the Provincial People’s Committee to promulgate provincial action plans to make a circular economy a reality locally. The Government also recently approved Decision 540/QĐ‑TTg on ‘Science & Technology Plan for circular agriculture to 2030’, officially integrating circular models into agricultural strategies with a focus on the development of research, science and technologies to accelerating the circular transformation of agricultural practices.
Hue City didn't wait for the finalization of the national framework to make a significant leap in advancing CE at both the research and policy levels and starting its circular journey from 2022. Under the leadership of HueIDS, with UNDP’s support and Shifting Paradigms as the technical advisor, the province undertook the first-ever metabolic analysis in Viet Nam, while also implementing initiatives like promoting electric delivery vehicles and establishing low-emission zones near tourist areas, in order to contribute to the goals of the 16th Provincial Party Congress.
What came out of the study is that by implementing the 14 prioritized interventions, the city can reduce environmental degradation, enhance economic resilience, and achieve ambitious climate goals, such as reaching net-zero emissions by 2050.
Now is an opportune moment to reflect on the progress, share lessons learned, and chart the path ahead with actionable insights from this pioneering initiative.
The Foundation: What is a Metabolic Analysis and Key Results
A metabolic analysis examines the flow of materials, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and waste disposal volumes across a system. In Hue City, this analysis included mapping material flows—from extraction and import to consumption and disposal—to understand their relationship with natural assets and manufactured stocks like buildings and infrastructure. By identifying ‘hotspots’ of GHG emissions, resource use and socio-economic impacts, it provides insights which are critical for designing interventions that can reduce GHG emissions by improving resource efficiency. For example, the study analyzed how materials like clay, gravel, sand, and limestone, primarily used in construction, influence the natural ecosystem and economic activities. The study mapped 174 material flows, revealing critical insights:
- Key material flows include animal products and associated waste such as manure, vegetable products, fossil fuels, textiles, and wood products.
- Material flows in Hue City are dominated by construction materials, which make up 77% of all materials used;
- Other sizeable material flows are related to food production and consumption. Thua Thien-Hue produces around 580,000 tonnes of agricultural commodities per year. The main product is rice, at 340,000 tonnes per year, followed by cassava (100,000) and maize (58,000)
- In Hue City, fossil fuels comprise less than 2% of the resources used, but they are responsible for 28% of GHG emissions. In Thuan Hoa and Phu Xuan District, an estimated 87% of these fossil fuels are used to extract, transport and process materials and products;
- Most value-added contributions stem from garments, food, and construction products, underlining the economic significance of these sectors.
- The embodied carbon in imports is significantly larger than the footprints of all exported products. This implies that substituting imported carbon-intensive materials with secondary or regenerative materials sourced in Hue City can help reduce upstream environmental impacts.
A Landmark Result: The Action Plan for the Implementation of CE in Hue City by 2035
The rationale for this evidence-based research was to support policymakers in formulating targeted and effective local plans. The study successfully contributed to two major milestones. It successfully led to two key milestones.
Most recently, in July 2025, Hue officially adopted Decision No. 284/KH-UBND, which promulgates the Plan for the Implementation of the National Action Plan on Circular Economy by 2035 in Hue City. This plan aims to build a sustainable production and consumption system by maximizing the value of natural resources, minimizing waste generation, and reducing environmental impacts. It places strong emphasis on the development of circular economy (CE) models across business and production sectors, fostering innovation, enhancing labor productivity, and promoting green jobs and sustainable lifestyles. The plan adopts a systemic approach, integrating CE principles into production, consumption, and governance frameworks.
Notably, recommendations from the metabolic analysis were directly incorporated into the Hue CE Action Plan. First, the analysis identified construction, agriculture, tourism, transport, and waste as key material and energy hotspots, which are explicitly prioritized in the plan. Second, aligned with the recommendation to transition energy systems, the plan sets clear targets to increase the share of renewable energy and develop biomass power plants. Third, the plan supports the promotion of circular business models and innovation, including support for CE adoption in production and consumption, development of eco-industrial parks and circular clusters, and enabling access to green finance, technology transfer, and patents for recycling and reuse. These priorities correspond directly to the metabolic analysis interventions, particularly Intervention 11: Mainstream circular procurement, Intervention 12: Finance circular business models and start-ups and Intervention 13: Educate on the circular economy.
In addition, the concept of CE had been included into the development viewpoints and objectives of Decision No. 1745/QD-TTg, dated December 30, 2023, by the Prime Minister, which approved the Planning of Thua Thien Hue province for the period 2021-2030, with a vision to 2050.
Transitioning to a circular economy requires in fact collective action, and a metabolic analysis relies on comprehensive data across sectors: extraction, imports, manufacturing, retail, and disposal. Collaboration among provincial departments was therefore essential to access and share accurate and accessible data, which formed the foundation for analysing the footprint of materials and their GHG emissions and further designing the 14 effective interventions.
Key findings
- Reliable, Accessible Data and Multiple Steps of Contextualization Are the Cornerstone of Metabolic Analysis
HueIDS’s close involvement with the Provincial People’s Committee encouraged departments to work together. Ultimately, over ten provincial departments (such as the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development—DARD, the Department of Transport—DOT, and the Department of Natural Resources and Environment—DONRE) were involved in data collection and analysis. Challenges such as data gaps and lack of consistency across departments were addressed during two technical workshops co-hosted with UNDP. This process supported a high level of detail in the metabolic analysis. It also enabled the analysis of water footprints of all value chains. The provincial government requested insight in the water saving opportunities with circular economy approaches and the data indeed supported such an analysis.
The findings revealed that the construction sector dominates material consumption and GHG emissions, accounting for 77% of materials use and absorbing a substantial tonnage of materials extracted from mines and quarries, mainly for infrastructure projects. Out of this, 78% of construction materials go into new infrastructure, such as roads and hydropower stations. Agriculture, forestry, and fisheries have the largest GHG footprint and the largest water footprint.
These insights informed the selection of the promising circular economy interventions across six key sectors: agriculture, construction, industry, garments, retail, and transport, which then enabled the government departments and mass organizations, such as the Women’s Union, to conduct a second round of prioritizations to ensure the interventions' relevance and feasibility based on local needs, national policies, and expert consultations.
- The 14 CE Interventions Yield Tangible Economic, Environmental, and Social Benefits
Implementing the 14 prioritised interventions by 2030 will significantly contribute to Hue City’s sustainability goals. These include reducing GHG emissions by 16%, cutting waste by 89%, and conserving 14% of water use (compared to the business-as-usual scenario). Moreover, these interventions could boost the gross regional domestic product (GRDP) by 4.5% and create an additional 2% of jobs, demonstrating the potential of CE practices to balance economic growth with environmental stewardship.
Specifically, Intervention #2, expanding offsite and modular construction capacity, addresses the construction sector, which is responsible for 77% of material use and 24% of GHG emissions. The sector contributes 7% of GDP and provides 11% of jobs. By pivoting to wood-based and off-site construction, the intervention can reduce embodied carbon by 80% and waste by 70%.
Intervention #4 targets the expansion of decentralized processing of organic residues, given that 42% of GHG emissions from agriculture in Hue stem from rice cultivation. Emissions from organic waste and manure management are responsible for 480,000 tons of CO2. This intervention includes improving source separation, introducing composting yards for urban farming, installing bio-energy systems, and supporting methane recovery from landfills.
- This Cross-Sectoral Research Enhances Policy Alignment
The metabolic analysis contributed to sharing information and research initiatives that supported multiple policies, such as the Green Growth Plan for the 2021-2030 period in the province (Decision No. 1745/QD-TTg, December 30, 2023) and included climate change adaptation, CE strategies, and socioeconomic development plans. By aligning priorities across sectors, HueIDS helped build a cohesive framework for sustainable development. This cross-cutting approach not only streamlined policymaking but also strengthened the foundation for future initiatives.
- The Analysis Serves as a framework for operationalising projects and local policies
HueIDS has promoted investment projects that meet circular economy criteria, operationalising the 14 priortized interventions.
The city is already implementing waste sorting at source policies, aiming to reduce food waste and has supported a company to address construction waste [Interventions 1, 4, 8].
Transitioning to green transportation in the city can reduce 360,000 tons of greenhouse gases by 20230,. Hue has integrated low carbon transportation to the City’s Transport Development Plan and two green transport projects have been approved by end of 2024. Currently, Hue City is working with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to implement a project aimed at developing green transport infrastructure within the city, covering both road and river transport. In addition, the city is carrying out a project to convert 10,000 motorbikes to electric motorbikes (for shippers) during the period 2025–2030. [Interventions 6, 7]
Hue has also accelerated its communities-based tourism programme, aiming to support sustainable and circular Eco-tourism. Hue is also piloting a sustainable tourism tour using e bicycles and participating to environmental protection activities. [Interventions 1, 4, 8]
Hue City has also invested into the so-called ‘enabler interventions’. These help strengthen the foundations for the long term adoption of the circular principles by communities and the businesses. Hue develops programs to foster an innovation ecosystem and promote the development of circular and green enterprises, with the establishment of the Hue Circular Economy Hub. This hub is organizing SME trainings and it supports enterprises with the adoption of circular practices [Intervention 13]. A total of 7 million USD has been invested by the City for innovations and start-ups since 2020 [Intervention 12].
Looking Ahead: Scaling the Circular Economy in Hue City
The recent promulgation of the National Action Plan on Circular Economy provides a strategic framework for scaling these efforts, and Hue City’s experience can serve as a model for other provinces and cities, showcasing the benefits of integrating CE principles into policy and practice and directing funding into strategic interventions.
The metabolic analysis journey in Hue City has been a transformative experience, highlighting the power of data-driven policymaking and the potential of circular economy practices. HueIDS and UNDP invite development partners, investors, NGOs, and the private sector to join hands in the actual implementation of these priority interventions to continue supporting Hue’s transition to a circular economy.
NB:
This metabolic study was funded by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) through the Ending Plastic Pollution Innovation Challenge Project (EPPIC). EPPIC is an ASEAN-wide competition spearheaded by UNDP, aiming to contribute to the reduction of plastic pollution in the coastal areas of Viet Nam, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Lao PDR, and Cambodia.
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