Change(K)now! Partner Liepāja Named Latvia’s Leader in Smart Resource Management

Liepāja shows that a circular city is built step by step, from the energy that heats homes to the cup in your hand at a summer festival. This year, the city was named Latvia’s leading municipality for smart resource management in the 2026 Latvian Circular Economy Index. It scored 802 points in this category, the highest result in the country. As a Change(K)now! partner, Liepāja is working to replace single-use cups with reusable ones in public spaces.

The Index is developed by Latvian researchers and published every two years. It looks at how municipalities put the circular economy into practice and how residents experience it. This year’s edition covered all 42 Latvian municipalities.

Liepāja stood out for a set of solutions that work together: biomass heating, solar panels, electric vehicles, the use of recycled materials and sustainable public procurement. With 654 points overall, Liepāja is also one of six municipalities in the Index’s top group of leaders.

This is also where the recognition connects with Liepāja’s work in Change(K)now!. What a city buys shapes what its residents use every day. When public buyers choose durable, reusable products over single-use ones, procurement can help turn reuse from a pilot into the norm. Through the project, Liepāja tested a deposit-based reusable cup system at the MAD Liepāja Youth Festival in August 2025. Since 1 January 2026, drinks at public events in the city can only be served in reusable cups.

The Index also points to the next step. According to the researchers behind the Index, Latvian municipalities already do well on efficiency, for example in waste sorting, digitalisation and energy-efficient buildings. The next stage is to change the model itself, with more leasing, sharing, repair and reuse. For Liepāja, this means moving beyond individual solutions towards reuse, repair and sharing systems, with more participation from residents and local businesses. This is exactly the direction Change(K)now! is working towards with its partner cities across the Baltic Sea region.

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