The circular economy (CE) has emerged as a central paradigm in the governance of urban sustainability, assigning local governments a crucial role in the transition towards regenerative models of production and consumption. However, the success of CE initiatives depends not only on the design of regulatory strategies and instruments, but also on the ability of public institutions to disseminate knowledge effectively to citizens and stakeholders. However, the literature has devoted greater attention to the design of CE policies rather than to the processes through which such policies are made accessible and socially embedded.
This study investigates the knowledge dissemination strategies adopted by three Italian regional capitals (Florence, Turin and Genoa) through their institutional channels. The analysis draws on the framework of Green et al. (2009), which articulates the dissemination process into five constituent dimensions: the source, the content, the medium, the user and the context. The research design is based on a multiple-case approach, involving the collection of qualitative secondary data, primarily institutional websites, project documentation and official reports, analysed through direct qualitative content analysis.
The findings reveal that, while sharing a formal commitment to the circular transition as signatories of the European Circular Cities Declaration, the three cities are developing structurally distinct dissemination strategies. Florence adopts a civic dissemination strategy towards citizens’ behavioural compliance. Turin develops a business-oriented ecosystemic strategy, in which knowledge is co-produced within a permanent urban innovation platform. Genoa presents the most complex architecture, characterized by a dual-track system that explicitly differentiates the registers intended for citizens and economic actors.
The study contributes to the literature by extending the application of Green et al’s framework to the domain of CE governance in local public administration, demonstrating how choices across the five dimensions do not operate independently but constitute coherent epistemic architectures that encode distinct governance philosophies.