With more than 155,000 residents, Tartu County is the second largest county in Estonia, and the city of Tartu is the centre of attraction for all of Southern Estonia; the development strategy is an agreement of the eight local governments of the county and partner organisations drawn up under the coordination of the Association of Municipalities of Tartu County (Tartumaa).

The strategy includes four focus areas: well-being, living environment, entrepreneurship, and mobility.

As part of the living environment focus area, Tartumaa is developing policies to implement circular economy principles, develop green communities, raise environmental awareness and plan and build infrastructure for the functioning of sustainable living environment.

Several areas of actions have already been identified within the policy instrument to implement this focus area vision, and Tartumaa is currently starting a circular economy roadmap as part of it.

The City of Jyväskylä is committed to achieving comprehensive resource-wisdom in its activities through the following visions: Jyväskylä will be a zero-emission, zero-waste city of sustainable prosperity without overconsumption in 2040 and carbon-neutral in 2030. The city strives to decrease the amount of waste generated. Additionally, the city aims to halve consumption-based greenhouse emissions by 2030 compared to 2005 levels.

These visions have been incorporated into the Resource-wise Jyväskylä 2040 Programme (approved in 2019 and updated in 2022), that outlines strategic measures. It provides a comprehensive framework for resource-wisdom work of the city and its subsidiaries, from goals to measures for implementation and monitoring.

Achievement of the goals and measures is monitored by the City’s Environmental Watch Service, a website-based monitoring service where anyone can monitor the progress.

The policy instrument is strongly linked to GOOD CITIES objectives, presented in these elements:
1) Create city-owned facilities, equipment, development of open spaces for citizens and improving library accessibility (pilot action)
2) Promote resource-wisdom events
3) Make resource-wisdom communication more visible, e.g through the creation of a website, digital portal etc.
4) Make services available for the circular economy in everyday life - Sustainable future for city centres / sharing economy
5) Achieve international recognition and pilot international solutions

The “Environmental Programme for the City of Malmö 2021-2030” (EP) is Malmö's local agenda for the work with the ecological dimension of Agenda 2030 and sets the direction for the City of Malmö's environmental work. The EP governs the city's committees and companies and will also support and inspire Malmö residents and actors in the private and public sectors. The EP consists of twelve objectives with indicators divided into three target areas.

- A Malmö with the least possible climate impact
- A Malmö with a good living environment
- A Malmö with rich and healthy nature

These have been prioritised based on the national environmental quality objectives and Malmö's environmental and climate challenges. The overall climate target area includes the following goals:
1. Emissions of greenhouse gases in Malmö as a geographical area have decreased by 70 percent.
2. The City of Malmö's organisation has net zero emissions.
3. By 2030, Malmö's consumption-based greenhouse gas emissions are well on their way to a sustainable level.
4. Malmö is supplied with 100 percent renewable and recycled energy.

The Municipal Council goals in the City of Malmö's budget 2021 states that the City of Malmö shall be a pioneer in terms of reduced greenhouse gas emissions. Within the GOOD CITIES project, Malmö will as such focus on goal 3: Lowering of consumption-based greenhouse gas emissions.

The Circular Economy Implementation Program 2021-2025 is an action plan, set up by the City of Tilburg, which aims to achieve the ambitious goal to be fully circular by 2045, five years ahead of the central government. This involves an absolute minimum of non-renewable materials entering the economy, being reused in the highest possible quality and minimal loss of raw materials.

29 interventions were identified by the City of Tilburg, to stimulate the transition to a circular economy. Those interventions are organised around 6 different themes:
1) Municipal organisation
2) Circular construction and infrastructure.
3) Biomass and food.
4) Manufacturing and textiles.
5) Circular logistics.
6) Innovation & location policy

The Implementation Program captures a selection of interventions that the City of Tilburg will actively work on until 2025, including the allocation of funds. During GOOD CITIES, the focus will be on intervention action 5 “encouraging sharing concepts in Tilburg”, included in sub-theme 1.2 “involve residents & entrepreneurs”.
The program embraces the sharing economy, quoting the intervention number 5 “by introducing additional sharing concepts, the municipality of Tilburg stimulates the transition from possession to use and inspires its residents to work with good alternatives in their daily lives.”

Concrete examples are even mentioned in the policy instrument: “Further possibilities of sharing concepts are shared tools or home appliances.”

To date, the Regional programme 2021-2027 Dytiki Makedonia (total budget of € 394,110,958.00) has published several calls for proposals aimed at transforming the skills and capacities of citizens and the local workforce in the region with a focus on sustainable development including teh ciruclar economy. However, almost none of them focus on the sharing economy and in particular on the development of a whole ecosystem of SMEs, larger enterprises or citizen initiatives around the sharing economy. Therefore, within the GOOD CITIES project, the local partner CluBE, working together with the Region of Western Macedonia, will structure and validate a new call for projects on the sharing economy, which will finance initiatives in this field from the budget linked to this policy instrument. The call will support the PROGRAMME PRIORITY "Supporting clean energy and green sustainable growth" and will be part of the SPECIFIC OBJECTIVE "Supporting the transition to a circular and resource efficient economy". Good Cities contributes to the training, upgrading and increasing the competitiveness of small enterprises in a circular economy - one of the key activities of the Regional programme 2021-2027 Dytiki Makedonia - by structuring the call for proposals for the region with modified participation conditions to ensure the participation of small enterprises or citizen initiatives in the regional sharing economy of goods.

The development of the Bartók Quarter is a key urban initiative by the Municipality. It involves expanding the former Cultural City Centre and establishing its management, aiming to create a vibrant ecosystem. The aim is to revitalise the area, provide a high-quality living environment, foster community and cultural initiatives, and offer shops and services for residents, workers, students, and visitors.

The management of activities has been rather unsystematic over the last decade. As such the Municipality of Újbuda in 2022 passed the Bartók Quarter development and management action plan to structure the further development. The underlying priority in this action plan includes a specific social target area for a cohesive community. The action plan identified the need for a more "solid environmental and sustainability dimension for local culture".

The action plan outlines activities and the participants including public authorities, private partners and civic stakeholders (i.e. citizens, civic organisations).

Several activities outlined overlap or will be further shaped (i.e. Good City Day) with the GOOD CITIES activities including:
- Conversion of the Hadik barracks into a cultural centre (peer-to-peer learning with Jyväskylä's pilot action)
- Preparation and organisation of citizens' idea competitions and implementation
- Mobilisation programmes for residents
- Emblematic events - Bartók Fest
- Car-free days, street closures with events
- Other community programmes