Pathways to circular and regenerative urban agriculture through stakeholder-informed approaches.

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Erin Untereiner, Johannes Langemeyer, Juan David Arosemena Polo, and 2 more This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-8710625/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Under Review Version 1 posted 8 You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Conventional agriculture typically relies on linear production systems that degrade soil and undermine sustainable resource management and climate change mitigation. Urban and peri-urban agriculture has the potential to shift from conventional approaches towards circular strategies that enhance soil health. However, this transformation requires changes beyond agricultural practices to include institutional, cultural, and governance dynamics. This study identifies systemic barriers, stakeholder actions, and transformation pathways to healthy soil and sustainable urban agriculture through carbon and nutrient circularity. By combining the Three Horizons framework with grounded theory analysis, this study derives cross-sectoral themes and tangible actions for systemic transformation. Stakeholder mapping demonstrates the need for distributed leadership and intersectoral collaboration to enable circular practices such as implementing decentralized and proximity-based waste management, community led agricultural food networks, as well as supporting environmental stewardship through procurement and land policy. Moreover, three interlinking pathways for the implementation of circularity on a wider scale are identified to address system complexity: 1) localized material and knowledge flows; 2) socio-economic reconfiguration through communities and markets; and 3) policy and planning integration for resilience. These findings highlight that advancing circularity requires not only technical innovation but also participatory governance, market realignment, and regulatory adaptation. By integrating stakeholder perspectives into transformation design, the results demonstrate how a transformation to healthy soils for sustainable urban agriculture can be positioned as foundational infrastructure for regenerative urban and regional futures. Soil Health Regenerative Agriculture Circular Urban Systems Carbon and Nutrient Circularity Multi-Actor Governance Sustainability Transformations Figures Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4 Figure 5 Figure 6 1. Introduction Healthy soils are essential to resilient food systems, climate mitigation, and support the achievement of multiple Sustainable Development Goals (European Commission, 2021 ; Eyhorn et al., 2019 ; FAO, 2020 ). Soils host over a quarter of the world’s biodiversity (FAO, 2020 ), whose biological activity facilitates organic matter decomposition and contributes to carbon sequestration (Van Zwieten, 2018 ), making soils the largest terrestrial carbon reservoir (European Commission, 2021 ). These nutrient and carbon cycling functions suggest soils are necessary to the development of a circular economy and climate neutrality within the European Union (Directive (EU) 2025 /2360, 2025). Though fundamental to climate stability and food security, soils continue to deteriorate. Approximately 70% of all European soils are degraded (European Commission, 2021 ), and up to 90% of global soils may be degraded by 2050 (United Nations, 2022 ). In Europe, soil degradation reduced net carbon removals by 20% between 2013 and 2018 (European Commission, 2021 ), despite their capacity to store 11–39 MtCO 2eq annually (Lugato et al., 2014 ). In croplands, degradation is largely attributed to agricultural intensification, resulting in nutrient imbalances, biodiversity loss, soil acidification, and heavy-metal accumulation (Banerjee et al., 2021 ; Gregory et al., 2015 ). In urban and peri-urban areas, soil sealing and landscape fragmentation compromise farmers’ livelihoods and intensify flood risks and urban heat island effects (Pistocchi et al., 2015 ). Reversing soil degradation trends could generate 1.2 trillion Euros in global economic benefits per year (European Commission, 2021 ) through soil ecosystem services such as nutrient cycling, water regulation, carbon storage, and crop production (Bartkowski et al., 2020 ). European sustainability agendas increasingly promote circular and localized food systems, as seen in the European Green Deal, Farm to Fork Strategy, the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact, and the Revised Waste Framework Directive. However, the foundational role of healthy soils in achieving these goals remains overlooked. The EU Soil Monitoring Law attempts to address this gap by integrating soil protection into existing frameworks, and requiring national soil monitoring and restoration objectives for unhealthy soils (Directive (EU) 2025 /2360, 2025). Nevertheless, a disconnect remains between EU-level ambitions and local implementation capacities. Municipalities, primary producers, and small enterprises often lack the financial, technical, and regulatory support to adopt regenerative and circular practices (Lühmann, 2020 ; Muscio & Sisto, 2020 ). Barriers include high upfront investment costs and uncertain market incentives that undermine the feasibility of scaling soil-restorative innovations (Aarikka-Stenroos et al., 2023 ; Gottinger et al., 2020 ). Top-down approaches tend to prioritize quantitative methods and technological or economic innovation, often overlooking the socio-cultural and institutional dimensions of change (Faulkner et al., 2024 ; Mangnus et al., 2019 ; Toboso-Chavero et al., 2025 ). This fragmentation reflects a lack of cross-sectoral knowledge exchange and coordination, further slowing the uptake of circular practices (Faulkner et al., 2024 ; Kivimaa & Kern, 2016 ). From a systems perspective, transformative change extends beyond technical innovation and includes institutional learning, capacity building, and inclusive participation across sectors and governance levels (Díaz et al., 2019 ; Rogge & Reichardt, 2016 ). Within this process, policy change is essential for reshaping economic conditions and destabilizing incumbent structures (Turnheim & Geels, 2012 ; Weber & Rohracher, 2012 ), and is often driven by disruptive innovations created by entrepreneurial and organizational actors (Christensen, 1997 ; Soete & Ter Weel, 1999 ; Tushman & Anderson, 1986 ). These dynamics highlight the role of human agency (e.g., decisions, actions, and capacities), particularly in place-based contexts where locally embedded and ecological knowledge can shape regenerative outcomes (Folke et al., 2002 ; Hahn & Tampe, 2021 ). Consequently, current literature emphasizes the need for participatory and co-produced knowledge processes to bridge persistent knowledge–action gaps in complex transition contexts (Argyris, 1993 ; Roux et al., 2006; Stern et al., 2021 ). Within this landscape, the Three Horizons (3H) framework has emerged as a practice-oriented approach to support stakeholders in contextualizing complex systems through dialogue across temporal horizons: dominant present conditions, emerging alternatives, and desired futures (Sharpe et al., 2016 ). It is applied through facilitated engagement rather than predictive modeling, enabling participants to reflect on systemic constraints while encouraging experimentation and articulating long-term transformation pathways across sectors and scales (Câmpeanu & Fazey, 2014 ; Sharpe et al., 2016 ). The 3H framework has been applied to the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the Global South (Aguiar et al., 2020 ; Collste et al., 2023 ), to agricultural futures in rural Spain (López-Rodríguez et al., 2024 ), and to regional sustainability scenario planning in biodiverse agricultural landscapes in Australia (Schaal et al., 2023 ). Throughout these studies, 3H has been used to identify temporal trade-offs, policy incoherence across governance levels, and articulate alternative socio-economic development pathways, including diversification through ecological agriculture, mixed rural livelihoods, eco-tourism, and teleworking in agricultural regions (López-Rodríguez et al., 2024 ). While these applications demonstrate the framework’s transferability across regions, scales, and governance settings, they remain largely oriented toward rural or regional objectives and emphasize shared visions and policy alignment. Moreover, they give limited attention to cross-sectoral integration of material flows or the translation of long-term visions into concrete, actor-specific pathways; particularly in urban and peri-urban food, waste, and planning systems. Building on this body of work, this study presents the 3H framework as a novel approach to developing systemic transformation pathways for urban and peri-urban nutrient and carbon circularity, an application not previously examined in literature. Therefore, following the 3H structure, this study poses the following research question: How can systemic barriers and stakeholder actions be synthesized into transformation pathways that support urban soil regeneration? To address this question, two objectives were pursued: 1. identify the barriers and challenges preventing nutrient and carbon circularity at the municipal scale; and 2. develop actionable pathway scenarios for urban nutrient and carbon circularity that align with urban and peri-urban soil health and regulatory frameworks. These objectives are addressed through the stakeholder workshops of the project NUTRISOIL (Healthy Soil for Urban Agriculture through Nutrient and Carbon Circularity) (NUTRISOIL, 2026 ). The following sections describe the methodological application of the 3H framework to engage practitioners and city representatives in identifying themes for systemic transformation. The results then present the barriers to nutrient and carbon circularity, the mapping of eight stakeholder groups and ten enabling actions that address these barriers and converge into three transformation pathways. The discussion situates these findings within a broader context, highlighting pathway interconnections and shared responsibility across sectors. 2. Case Study Developed under the ERC-funded URBAG project, NUTRISOIL builds off existing datasets, networks and field experiments conducted in the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona (AMB) to test circular solutions for soil regeneration. Located in northeastern Spain along the Mediterranean Sea, the AMB is characterized by a coastal plain that inclines northwards towards the Collserola mountain range (Fig. 1 ). Between 1956 and 2018, the AMB lost 80.5% of agricultural land, and experienced a 24% decline in primary sector employment from 2010 to 2019 (Herrero & Moragues-Faus, 2025 ). However, this trend has begun to reverse, with regional plans to expand its urban agricultural surface area from 8% to 12% (Camacho-Caballero et al., 2024 ). Currently, compost in the AMB supplies less than 7% of synthetic mineral fertilizer demand (Arosemena Polo et al., 2024 ). Meanwhile, nutrient recovery such as struvite from wastewater remains underdeveloped despite the potential to meet the region’s fertilizer needs fivefold (Rufí-Salís et al., 2020 ). Previous URBAG work identified persistent knowledge gaps regarding local soil conditions and fragmented coordination between key stakeholders including farmers, waste managers and planners. Therefore, this positions the AMB as a strategic case study for identifying systemic barriers and co-developing pathways to enable circular nutrient and carbon flows for urban and peri-urban soil regeneration. 3. Methodology This study presents a novel qualitative analysis of circular economy transformations by incorporating multi-sectoral stakeholder engagement with the 3H framework (Sharpe et al., 2016 ) and grounded theory analysis (Corbin & Strauss, 2015 ). Grounded theory was used to inductively interpret stakeholder narratives. This bottom-up methodology enabled the identification of transformation pathways for nutrient and carbon circularity in urban soil regeneration, rooted in empirical evidence. Two workshops were designed based on the 3H framework to identify present-day systemic barriers, emerging innovations, and co-develop long-term visions as described by (Sharpe et al., 2016 ). The first workshop, dedicated to the practitioners, occurred in November 2024 and January 2025 with the objective of understanding barriers, drivers, and actions required to transition towards circular practices for urban and peri-urban soil regeneration. The findings from the practitioners’ workshop structured the second workshop, comprised of city representatives from various countries, which took place in March 2025. This second workshop extended the findings beyond the AMB and examined the role of governance and policy. Data from these workshops were then combined to identify the barriers to systemic transformation in seven themes, and to map the actions and stakeholder roles required to address them. The analysis resulted in three interlinked transformation pathways. This methodological flow is demonstrated in Fig. 2 . 3.1 Practitioners’ Workshop The Practitioners’ workshop centered on four sectors contributing to circularity for urban and peri-urban soil regeneration: urban community, waste and wastewater management, agriculture, and soils. For workshop purposes, the agriculture and soils sectors were consolidated due to their overlapping roles. Participants were recruited through targeted outreach using existing URBAG and NUTRISOIL networks, followed by snowball sampling. A total of 62 participants (51.6% male, 48.4% female) included municipal representatives, urban planners, research organizations, waste and wastewater facility managers, farmers, cooperatives and unions members (Fig. 3 ). The agricultural and soils group was the largest, with 29 participants (62.1% male, 37.5% female); the urban community group included 20 participants (45% male, 55% female); and the waste and wastewater group was the smallest, with 13 participants (38.5% male, 61.5% female). Breakout discussions were co-designed by two professional facilitators with expertise in participatory methods, along with researchers specializing in transformation planning. Each group was led by sector-specific moderators and supported by a designated notetaker. Sessions were recorded with prior consent and took place in Catalan and/or Spanish. Discussions followed the 3H framework, and while facilitators were provided with supplementary prompts on potential barriers, discussions were centered around the following core questions: Horizon 3 (H3): What progress has been made in [ sector ] in 2030 to improve soil health, resource circularity, and resilience (urban/food)? Horizon 1 (H1): What obstacles and difficulties are currently hindering progress toward this vision? Horizon 2 (H2): What needs to be done to promote the circularity of nutrients from the [ sector ] (planning, consumption, waste generation)? Before each discussion, participants reflected individually and recorded ideas on post-it notes. Facilitators conducted real-time content analysis by clustering the notes, which were used to structure dialogue and build consensus across each horizon. 3.2 Sectoral-Horizon Mapping and Thematic Area Development Workshop audio recordings were transcribed using TurboScribe©, translated into English, and verified by project team members. Qualitative data were analyzed in NVivo v13 (2020) through open and axial coding to identify systemic barriers, shared visions, and actionable pathways. Data was first organized by stakeholder sector and horizon categories. Open coding of participants’ narratives revealed substantial overlap between sectors, which was further examined through axial coding. This process grouped recurring mentions to barriers, enablers, actions, and values in broader conceptual categories. Categories were iteratively aggregated until further consolidation risked oversimplifying nuances. At this saturation point, seven themes were inductively derived, representing key dimensions of systemic transformation across sectors and horizons. A stakeholder-horizon matrix query was used to examine variation in themes across H1, H2, and H3. To account for differences in group sizes, normalized weighted frequencies were calculated as follows: $$\:weighted\:frequency\:\%=\:\left(\frac{Total\:references\:in\:thematic\:area}{Total\:references\:across\:all\:thematic\:areas}\right)\times\:100\%$$ Sentiment coding of H1 discussions was applied to identify perceived drivers and barriers. Positive sentiments (e.g. “ canteens are provided by local and bio food”, “we have regulations from the EU to go in that direction”) reflected supportive practices or policies; negative sentiments (e.g. “problems with generational change”, “disconnection between production and consumption” ) indicated inefficiencies, policy gaps, or harmful practices. Neutral sentiments were characterized by explanations or descriptions. Aggregated sentiment frequencies were exported and visualized using Python. The themes and sentiment analysis derived from this process were used to structure the subsequent Policy and Governance Workshop. The same analytical procedure was applied to the recorded discussions from that workshop to extend the interpretation of results beyond the AMB context. 3.3 Policy and Governance Workshop The Policy and Governance Workshop brought together representatives from eight cities (Glasgow, Scotland; Greater Manchester, England; Rotterdam, Netherlands; Thessaloniki, Greece; Athens, Greece; Granollers, Spain: Padova, Italy; and Ramallah, Palestine), selected through an open call by the Resilient Cities Network. Discussions were recorded with prior consent and were conducted in English. The objective of this workshop was to validate the themes beyond the AMB context. Following a presentation of the themes identified from the Practitioners’ Workshop, participants engaged in a structured weighting exercise (Fig. 2 ) using the “pebble distribution method” (Langemeyer et al., 2020 ). Each theme was introduced with illustrative examples, and participants individually assessed its present relevance (as a current priority or existing strategy) and future relevance (its potential to enable or hinder future circularity) on a scale from 0 to 10. Participants first assigned weights based on their local contexts. A moderated discussion followed, where they explained their scoring rationale and provided concrete examples to support their assessments. The exercise concluded with a facilitated group dialogue on opportunities, trade-offs, and long-term goals, leading to a consensus on the present EU-level relevance of each theme. 3.4 Enabling Stakeholder-Action Mapping and Transformation Pathways Following validation of the themes, the analysis shifted toward identifying tangible actions and enabling stakeholders required for systemic transformation in urban and peri-urban soil regeneration. This process drew on discussions from both the Practitioners’ and Policy and Governance Workshops, prioritizing data from Horizon 2 (H2) and Horizon 3 (H3). Transcripts were re-coded using open coding to move beyond the 3H framework and toward concrete, operational actions. These actions were grouped through axial coding into ten broader action categories aligned with the validated themes. To identify enabling actors, NVivo “case” classifications were created to represent stakeholder types discussed in the workshops. Matrix queries were applied to generate two key relationships: 1. a stakeholder-action matrix, linking specific actors to corresponding actions; and 2. an actions-theme matrix linking actions to themes. Normalization was applied to prevent overrepresentation, with stakeholder contributions within each action and actions within each theme weighted to sum 100%. This data was visualized using Sankey diagrams generated with eSankey. Finally, a cluster analysis was conducted to group themes into three transformation pathways based on the actions required to advance each theme. NVivo matrix queries were then used to examine how actions and enabling stakeholders connect across these pathways, revealing cross-sectoral interdependencies and opportunities for systemic coordination. 4. Results The seven themes identified are: 1. Urban waste is valorized for agricultural application ; 2. Education and skills meet the labor demand of a circular economy ; 3. Incentives and disincentives influence circular economy adoption ; 4. Value added by sustainable practices is communicated effectively ; 5. Infrastructure supports circular economy practices ; 6. Regulations are adapted to local realities to facilitate carbon and nutrient circularity ; and 7. Policies are integrated across the entire cycle of nutrient and carbon circularity . These themes span the participating sectors (agriculture and soils, waste and wastewater management, urban community, and city representatives), reflecting interconnected domains of circularity (see Supplementary Information 1). This section presents the barriers preventing systemic transformation of each theme, the stakeholder actions to overcome these challenges, and the three systemic transformation pathways. 4.1 Barriers and Enablers to Circularity (H1) As shown in Fig. 4 , H1 discussions revealed a strong perception that current systems hinder circularity, with negative sentiments outweighing positive and neutral sentiments across all themes ranging from 79% in Theme 7 to 100% in Theme 5. The most frequently cited challenges emerged in Theme 3 ( incentives and disincentives ), where 98% of mentions were negative. Stakeholders emphasized that linear, globalized markets fail to internalize socio-environmental costs, rendering sustainable and local practices economically uncompetitive. Institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) and Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) were viewed as reinforcing large-scale industrial agriculture, to the detriment of small-scale circular initiatives. Barriers were interlinked across themes. In Theme 1 ( waste valorization ), key challenges included restrictive regulations for biofertilizers, compost contamination (e.g., microplastics), and third-party contracts that divert organic materials from local agriculture. Theme 2 ( education and skills ), stakeholders noted a disconnect between formal education and practical knowledge. Formal training was seen as overly technical and detached from on-the-ground realities, leaving younger generations unprepared for the future and contributing to the ongoing failure to address generational renewal in the agricultural sector. Theme 4 ( communication and awareness ) reflected weak consumer connection to food systems and difficulty competing with imported products, obscuring the value of local circular practices. Concerns in Theme 5 ( infrastructure ), included limited access to arable land due to urban expansion and land speculation, as well as logistical constraints and assistance in distributing recovered organic matter to agricultural soils. In Theme 6 ( regulatory adaptation ) participants criticized over-standardized policies, with macro-level policy development lacking local relevance and creating misalignment between agricultural and waste management sectors. Theme 7 ( policy integration ) emphasized industrial influence over regulatory decisions and misalignment across climate, agricultural, and urban development policies, particularly regarding soil health. Examples of drivers to circular practices for theme 1 included selective waste collection (e.g., door-to-door collection), specialized green waste contractors, and municipal waste quality assessments to educate citizens. In Theme 2, soil regeneration research and youth-focused agricultural programs contributed to skill development and knowledge transfer. Public spaces facilitated direct sales between farmers and consumers supported Theme 3, and education campaigns and agricultural parks were enablers of Theme 4. Theme 7 was the most significant driver, primarily due to EU directives that require administration and industries to incorporate environmental considerations into decision-making. 4.2 Themes and Enabling Stakeholder Actions Analysis of H2 and H3 identified ten priority actions linked to the seven themes, supported by eight stakeholder groups. As shown in Fig. 5 , responsibilities are widely distributed, reflecting the complex nature of circular transformations in urban and peri-urban soil systems. For Theme 1 ( waste valorization ), waste and wastewater managers were identified as key enablers for implementing selective waste collection and agronomically aligned treatment processes. These included door-to-door collection, smart bins, and GPS-based tracking to individualize waste taxes, reduce contamination, and improve the quality of compost for agricultural application. Participants emphasized the need for decentralized, proximity-based treatment facilities located strategically between waste producers and agricultural users, such as agricultural parks. Industries were expected to contribute by managing their own waste streams and reducing reliance on public infrastructure. With regards to education and skills (Theme 2), public administrators were seen as important actors in professionalizing regenerative support systems, particularly by managing and distributing the territories’ carbon rich materials to agricultural fields and assisting farmers with administrative and regulatory compliance. Farmers and agricultural unions play a central role in advocating for compensation for organic waste management, as well as fair wages, work-life balance, and stable land tenure contracts that incentivize long-term soil stewardship. Civil society actors (e.g., cooperatives and educators) were seen as essential in establishing mentorship schemes to support intergenerational knowledge transfer and practical skills development. Citizens, farmers, and entrepreneurs were considered drivers in creating demand for skills in direct marketing, cooperative development, and regenerative business models. For incentives and disincentives (Theme 3), the dominant action was for public administration, policymakers, and urban planners to fund and support environmental stewardship (e.g., tourist taxes, tariffs on imported goods), implement public procurement of local products cultivated with regenerative practices, and reform land-use policy. Entrepreneurs, researchers and educators could support these actions through food labeling reform, applied research and advisory services to increase transparency and promote informed consumer choices aligned with circular regenerative practices. Communicating value-added (Theme 4) centered on community-led food networks, which could be supported by school programs and municipal partnerships to frame regenerative agriculture as a tool for public education and social cohesion. Researchers and entrepreneurs could take the lead in designing awareness campaigns focused on soil health, biodiversity, and the socio-economic benefits of localized food systems. Infrastructure for circular adoption (Theme 5) included repositioning farming as a dignified and accessible profession with the agricultural sector, urban planners, and citizens supporting access to prime agricultural land, offering long-term leases for farmers, and supporting shared machinery programs to lower the cost of regenerative transformations. Equally important was small-scale, locally adapted infrastructure (e.g., trucks and machinery suited for urban and peri-urban agricultural landscapes) to enable decentralized and proximity-based waste management. Policymakers, public administration and urban planners could support these efforts through environmental stewardship land policies that reward long-term regenerative practices. Regulatory adaptation (Theme 6) emphasized participatory, place-based regulation. Policymakers were perceived as critical to enable stakeholder involvement in designing flexible and contextual territorial frameworks that reflect local waste composition, soil conditions, and crop needs. Researchers, urban planners, and farmers could help align food waste, and planning regulations through bottom-up governance mechanisms that integrate soils and circularity into cross-sectoral (e.g., food, waste, urban planning) sustainability policies. Policy integration (Theme 7) focused on embedding soil and circularity into climate, food, waste, and sustainability policy frameworks. Policymakers and administrators were perceived as critical in collaborating with practitioners to elevate soil health within broader resilience strategies. Funding mechanisms for ecosystem services (e.g., carbon sequestration and food security) were perceived as essential to recognizing and institutionalizing the value of regenerative practices. 4.3 Emergent Systemic Pathways Cluster analysis of the themes identified three interlinking systemic pathways (Fig. 6 ) for advancing nutrient and carbon circularity in urban and peri-urban soil regeneration and food production: 1) localized material and knowledge flows , 2) socio-economic reconfiguration through communities and markets , and 3) policy and planning integration for resilience . Building on previously described actions and enabling stakeholders, this section focuses on the interconnection between themes, and the synergistic relationship between actions and stakeholders. 4.3.1 Pathway 1: Localized Material and Knowledge Flows Pathway 1 links Themes 1 ( waste valorization ) and 5 ( infrastructure ), emphasizing the need to decentralize not only organic material flows but also technical knowledge and decision-making. Selective collection and proximity-based treatment require alignment between waste managers, farmers, and local administrations to ensure compost meets local agronomic needs. Farmers also raised concerns about compost contamination, particularly microplastics, affecting soil health and consumer safety. Addressing these challenges requires responsive governance, where policymakers incorporate local feedback and adapt regulations according to real-world conditions. Researchers could contribute through applied science and field-based advisory, improving treatment processes to enhance nutrient composition, supporting carbon sequestration, and reducing contamination. This pathway is characterized by maximizing local resources, with circularity depending as much on institutional learning and trust as on technical innovation. 4.3.2 Pathway 2: Socio-Economic Reconfiguration Through Communities and Markets Pathway 2 connects Themes 2 ( education and skills ), 3 ( incentives and disincentives ), and 4 ( communicating value-added ), centering on a reconfiguration of how economies value ecological labor, and community resilience. It shifts away from standardized, industrial models that favor large-scale production, toward enabling small farms, local enterprises, and civic food networks to thrive in increasingly globalized markets. This approach fosters localized innovation by linking educational institutions with urban and peri-urban agriculture. Entrepreneurs, farmers, and citizens are empowered to co-develop circular supply chains grounded in biocultural heritage and regional identity to redefine value through proximity, regeneration, and participation. Community-led initiatives and intergenerational mentorship programs are essential infrastructure for learning, especially in current contexts where formal education has lost its practical application. To support this transformation, policy and fiscal mechanisms must prioritize professions that generate public goods (e.g., farmers, composters, educators) over extractive or speculative sectors such as real estate. Financial recognition for environmental stewardship (e.g., soil health requirements in land leases), accessible entry points into food production (e.g. affordable land), and transparent product labelling are structural levers for embedding circularity into everyday practice. Ultimately, this pathway recasts consumers and producers as co-creators of place-based economies aligned with social and ecological wellbeing. 4.3.3 Pathway 3: Policy and Planning Integration for Resilience Pathway 3 combines regulatory adaptation and integration (Themes 6 and 7) by embedding local knowledge and circularity within institutional structures and territorial governance. Stakeholders stressed that treating climate change, agriculture, waste, and land-use as separate policy domains has limited the effectiveness of sustainability efforts, particularly by overlooking potential co-benefits, including carbon sequestration, biodiversity enhancement, reduced environmental contamination, and healthier living environments. Stakeholders advocate for cross-sector councils to facilitate coordinated, place-based decision-making. Improved soil health not only enhances nutrient cycling and reduces reliance on synthetic inputs, but also supports water retention and drought resilience, creating synergies across food, climate, and water strategies. While Pathway 1 centers on technical coordination and feedback loops, this pathway focuses on translating local knowledge and applied research into integrated, responsive policy. To address these gaps, stakeholders proposed policy instruments that formally recognize and compensate ecosystem services supported by regenerative practices and environmental stewardship. Public procurement, land-use policy, and environmental fees can be leveraged to redistribute the costs of transformation from practitioners (e.g., farmers) and establish ecological restoration as a shared public responsibility. Institutionalizing these mechanisms through national and municipal budgets reframes environmental health as a public good and human right, while insulating policy design from industrial influence that undermines local priorities and long-term resilience. 5. Discussion This study demonstrates that existing circular economy frameworks fail to address the territorial, institutional, and material complexities of urban and peri-urban circularity where food production, land use, and waste valorization converge under fragmented governance structures. Findings from stakeholder workshops indicate that effective implementation requires overcoming policy silos and distributing leadership across sectors and scales, while aligning place-based strategies with local conditions and capacities. 5.1 Thematic Insights into Transformation Pathways The seven themes identified in this study address critical gaps in literature by demonstrating that transformations towards circular regenerative practices are not solely technical or economic initiatives, but are embedded in governance, access, knowledge, and labor. This study contributes to a practice-based, actor-oriented framework to overcome the lack of operational details often found in policy standardization (Faulkner et al., 2024 ). It shifts the focus from sectoral problem solving to systemic coordination. The material and knowledge flows in Pathway 1 (Themes 1 and 5) highlight the infrastructural and logistical foundations necessary for waste valorization and regenerative agriculture. As demonstrated by participants in the workshops, sectors such as waste management and agriculture remain underfunded, with limited policy support for research and development and insufficient representation in policy-making, a pattern also reflected in literature (Faulkner et al., 2024 ; Lühmann, 2020 ; Muscio & Sisto, 2020 ). Regulatory frameworks further complicate circular practices. Under the Waste Framework Directive, compost, digestate, and sludge are classified as waste (Directive (EU) 2018 /851, 2018), limiting its re-use (Stegmann et al., 2020 ). Meanwhile, insufficient control of microplastics in compost contributes to heavy metal accumulation and erodes farmer confidence in compost safety and quality (Rodrigues et al., 2020 ). Furthermore, the Nitrates Directive restricts the application of organic fertilizers (as opposed to synthetic mineral fertilizers) application in nitrate-vulnerable zones (Council Directive of 12 December 1991 (91/676/EEC), 1991). Despite being central to the implementation of policies, farmers that participated in the workshops reported limited involvement in policy design and described being treated as beneficiaries or end users rather than contributors (NUTRISOIL, 2026 ), as corroborated by other sources (Faulkner et al., 2024 ; Lühmann, 2020 ). While earlier 3H applications emphasized governance coordination and policy alignment (Aguiar et al., 2020 ; Collste et al., 2023 ), this pathway extends those insights by grounding transformation in material and logistical systems (specifically waste valorization and soil regeneration) where regulatory fragmentation directly constrains circular practices. Pathway 2 (Themes 2, 3, and 4), socio-economic reconfiguration through communities and markets, underscores the need to reshape how knowledge, incentives, and values support sustainability transformations. Current education and innovation programs tend to favor institutions and digital skills, overlooking the sector-specific and hands-on training required by smaller-scale farms, composters, and sustainable enterprises (Bezama et al., 2019 ; Hinderer & Kuckertz, 2022 ). Access to financial support remains uneven, with smaller actors excluded from grants and subsidies due to limited resources and administrative capacity (Muscio & Sisto, 2020 ; Recanati et al., 2019 ). For instance, the CAP and WTO systemically reward scale and technological investment, marginalizing the two-thirds of European farms operating on less than five hectares of land (Curry et al., 2014 ; Eurostat, 2022 ; Recanati et al., 2019 ). This aligns with previous 3H studies which highlighted the need for socio-economic diversification through ecological agriculture, mixed livelihoods, and teleworking to counter structural bias toward large-scale actors (López-Rodríguez et al., 2024 ). Similarly, regulatory frameworks regarding hygiene and traceability standards are designed for large-scale industrial systems that place disproportionate compliance demands on small-scale producers (Myers et al., 2009 ; Purnhagen et al., 2018 ; Steines et al., 2024 ). This reinforces systemic disadvantages for small-scale actors who are central to enabling regenerative transformations in local economies. Additionally, narratives of innovation often emphasize technological advancement and market competitiveness, while overlooking care-based labor, community-driven knowledge, and cultural practices that sustain long-term community and ecosystem regeneration (Rahman et al., 2024 ; Stern et al., 2021 ). Pathway 3, based on regulatory adaptation and integration (Theme 6 and 7) identifies the need for institutional integration and policy coherence. Effective sustainability transformations require horizontal alignment across policy domains and vertical coherence across scales, from EU directives to regional implementation and municipal practice to comply with cultural contexts (OECD, 2007 ; Sutcliffe & Ortega Alvarado, 2021 ). Territories are especially well-positioned to drive long-term transformations, as they manage regional planning, distribute EU funds, and have legal authority to adapt national goals to local contexts (Barbero & Pallaro, 2018 ). The recent EU Soil Monitoring Law takes steps to integrate soil health into climate mitigation, land-use planning, and environmental policy frameworks by requiring Member States to monitor soil health using harmonized indicators, report on soil degradation and restoration needs, and design national measures for soils considered unhealthy (Directive (EU) 2025 /2360, 2025). However, the law leaves decisions on territorial prioritization, implementation pathways, and coordination mechanisms to Member States, placing the burden of cross-sectoral integration at national and sub-national levels. Soils represent a critical but underutilized entry point for advancing these transformations. Integrating soil regeneration into broader climate, health, and land-use policies would reframe it as a foundational public good, enabling circularity to serve multiple policy agendas simultaneously. 5.2 Regeneration of Soil Through Governance, Culture, and Care An innovative feature of this research was to determine how stakeholders reframed circularity through the lens of regeneration, not only as a technical intervention but as a cultural, territorial, and relational process. Soil was described as a living interface connecting ecological integrity, community health, and intergenerational knowledge, echoing scholarship that frames regeneration as rooted in local stewardship, care work, and identity (Folke et al., 2002 ; Guthey et al., 2014 ; Rahman et al., 2024 ). Across the workshops, stakeholders consistently linked regeneration to future-oriented responsibility and practices of care, emphasizing intergenerational knowledge transfer, long-term soil stewardship, and producing within ecological limits rather than maximizing short-term output. Participants highlighted mentorship, regenerative entrepreneurship, and locally embedded enterprises as key mechanisms for sustaining soil health over time, while stressing that such practices require supportive governance and financing structures. Governance was therefore seen as something that could be leveraged less through standardization and control, and more through enabling functions: empowering locally embedded actors, mobilizing ecological knowledge, and coordinating public resources to reduce the economic risks borne by farmers during transition. In this framing, care extends beyond individual practice to collective responsibility, where public institutions play a role in supporting regenerative livelihoods and safeguarding soil as a shared asset for future generations. This emphasis on regeneration as a relational and cultural process resonates with 3H applications in biodiverse agricultural landscapes in Australia, where long-term land stewardship was framed around intergenerational responsibility, shared values, and place-based identity rather than technical optimization alone (Schaal et al., 2023 ). These dynamics challenge dominant circular economy discourses that focus on resource efficiency and innovation, revealing the need for approaches rooted in care, interdependence, and ecological justice (Barca, 2020 ; Escobar, 2018 ), particularly as sustainable transformations addressing how people live, work, and connect to land (Herrero et al., 2019 ). 5.3 Methodological Contribution, Implications, and Limitations Through the 3H framework, this study qualitatively mapped systemic complexity, by facilitating and analyzing stakeholder dialogue barriers and enabling actions across urban agriculture and waste systems, emphasizing institutional coordination and co-produced solutions. Dialogue with city representatives expanded this analysis beyond the AMB, providing a comparative lens on shared challenges, actions, and long-term goals. The resulting three pathways illustrate how coordinated actions across governance, infrastructure, markets, and knowledge systems can enable integrated strategies that embed soil health within climate, land-use, water and economic policy domains. Limitations encountered in this study include its contextual focus on the AMB and a subset of European cities, which may not reflect the diversity of urban-rural and agricultural contexts across Europe. While the 3H framework linked present barriers to future visions, it does not quantify material or economic flows, or assess environmental trade-offs (Escobar Cisternas et al., 2024 ; McDowall et al., 2017 ). The analysis identified several areas for future research: Optimizing waste and recovery processes to enhance nutrient and silicates for SOC stabilization (Xu & Tsang, 2024 ), alongside technologies to reduce microplastics (Rodrigues et al., 2020 ). Strengthening citizen engagement and soil literacy to improve waste separation and understanding of soil regeneration (Pereira et al., 2019 ; Stern et al., 2021 ). Assessing environmental and economic impacts of regenerative practices using life cycle and economic assessments (Chen et al., 2018 ; Lal, 2004 ). Evaluating policy, governance and valuation mechanisms such as soil valuation and ecosystem service payments to support circularity and resilience at scale (Faulkner et al., 2024 ; OECD, 2007 ). 6. Conclusion This research demonstrates that advancing carbon and nutrient circularity for soil regeneration entails more than technical interventions to address systemic constraints across governance, markets, and cultural domains. The inclusion of city representatives confirmed the broader relevance of the findings beyond the AMB case study, indicating its applicability across diverse territorial contexts. By integrating the 3H framework with grounded theory analysis, the research identified seven themes requiring systemic transformation. Further synthesis operationalized ten stakeholder-informed actions that were mapped to enabling actors, revealing that long-term sustainable transformations require distributed leadership and cross-sectoral coordination. This approach contributes to a growing body of work emphasizing the need for territorially grounded, practice-oriented methodologies in circular transformation research. Three transformation pathways that can be applied to circularity for soil regeneration on a wider scale: Pathway 1. localized material and knowledge flows; Pathway 2. socio-economic reconfiguration through communities and markets; and Pathway 3. policy and planning integration for resilience. Demonstrating that circular transformations depend on aligning waste, agriculture, urban planning, and community systems, while repositioning soils as critical infrastructure for climate, food, and circular agendas. By advancing participatory, multi-scalar framework, this study offers a methodological contribution to circular transformations that complement existing quantitative assessments and supports EU-wide strategies for regenerative and inclusive transformations. Declarations Funding This Project was funded by the NUTRISOIL Proof-of-Concept project funded by European Commission European Research Council Ref: 101138151 and SOILCARE PID2023-146650OB-I00 funded by MICIU/AEI / 10.13039/501100011033 and by ERDF, EU. Acknowledgements This work has been made possible thanks to the financial support of the European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator project: Integrated System Analysis of Urban Vegetation and Agriculture (818002-URBAG), This work contributes to ICTA-UAB “María de Maeztu” Programme for Units of Excellence of the Spanish Ministry of Science, and the research groups Sostenipra (2021-SGR-00734) and LASEG (2021-SGR-00182) by the Department of Research and Universities of the Generalitat de Catalunya. The authors thank the National Secretariat of Science, Technology and Research (Panama) for the grant awarded to J. Arosemena (IFARHU-SENACYT contract 270-2021-156). J. Langemeyer acknowledges support from the European Commission (101139598-Commit2Green). Workshops for this study were supported by The Resilient Cities Network, Agrupació de Defensa Vegetal (ADV) Horta Del Baix Llobregat, Consell Comarcal del Llobregat, and the Facultat de Farmàcia de Sanitat Ambiental I Edafologia at the Universitat de Barcelona. Competing Interests The authors declare no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. Author Contributions All authors developed the conception and design of the study. G. Villalba, conceived the original idea for the study, with all authors contributing to the workshop design and data acquisition. E. Untereiner, processed and analyzed the data and took the lead in writing the manuscript. J. Langemeyer and J Arosemena critically revised the draft for important intellectual content. G. Villalba performed the final manuscript approval. 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Mineral-mediated stability of organic carbon in soil and relevant interaction mechanisms. Eco-Environment & Health , 3 (1), 59–76. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eehl.2023.12.003 Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Supplementary Files SupplementaryInformation1.odt Supporting Information S1: This supporting information provides the codebook for the seven themes, and ten actions, along with the results of the City Representatives weighting exercise and the cross-sectoral relevance analysis of the themes. 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Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-8710625","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":588304452,"identity":"b8b25d9d-aae1-488f-9a03-c6e720b67ec0","order_by":0,"name":"Erin Untereiner","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Autonomous University of Barcelona","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Erin","middleName":"","lastName":"Untereiner","suffix":""},{"id":588304453,"identity":"21ea16fd-9b8a-4500-84b8-a9865dc950c1","order_by":1,"name":"Johannes Langemeyer","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"Autonomous University of 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Méndez","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAA8ElEQVRIie3PMQrCMBiG4b8E4lLt+ouiV2gpaEHE0WtYhHqFDiKFQpzEC4hncFLclIBT3R0NgpNDwUUHwbS6uERHh7xjyMOXAOh0/xtWS0AYQAhg/0pMCoYkyZtsfjAvkqmvpN7di9RgnkkLW3a8z3m9CURcUwVxkoGLBpMPM/2xM1lyZx1RF1UrThQAQpL9xWdYXHJjsTFBTaZncsuJJVj5MeMdSchN+RcMKEIoCfqsUoy4LwlVrth4pl4vJ2LsVneD/jqmDS9RrUwDckjtUc2y+jtxGbbaq0J8OoSqlewJvY8jorier0RfLuh0Op0OnqVER0w/mvPqAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC","orcid":"","institution":"Autonomous University of Barcelona","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Gara","middleName":"Villalba","lastName":"Méndez","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2026-01-27 12:53:23","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":"","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8710625/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-8710625/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":102429054,"identity":"0cb5675b-9c5c-4fb5-be0d-b62cd0acbd7a","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-02-11 15:03:57","extension":"png","order_by":1,"title":"Figure 1","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":1459260,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eGeographical location of the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona (AMB)\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"floatimage1.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8710625/v1/896e60cc3c2925b713683fd4.png"},{"id":102429052,"identity":"18e6966c-d61d-4583-9676-deed0884b316","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-02-11 15:03:57","extension":"png","order_by":2,"title":"Figure 2","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":123851,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eMethodological flow integrating the Three Horizons (3H) framework for workshop design and grounded theory for analysis, with blue indicating 3H, green grounded theory, and orange key findings\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"floatimage2.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8710625/v1/7cdc4848046af8a4d7bffafe.png"},{"id":102745734,"identity":"982537d2-b36b-409c-85b2-beab6ff99747","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-02-16 08:53:37","extension":"png","order_by":3,"title":"Figure 3","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":149985,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eCurrent barriers and drivers to nutrient and carbon circularity (H1) by theme, showing sentiment distribution among AMB stakeholders and city representatives, with negative (orange), positive (green), and neutral (gray) mentions indicating discussion frequency\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"floatimage4.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8710625/v1/0ee495552663da39943c2c46.png"},{"id":102745933,"identity":"789cc233-12e7-41c0-9159-0bc7a7fb9c48","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-02-16 08:54:47","extension":"png","order_by":4,"title":"Figure 4","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":613177,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eFour sectors contributing to carbon and nutrient circularity for urban and peri-urban soil regeneration, consolidated into three workshop groups, with practitioners listed for each group\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"floatimage3.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8710625/v1/d91d2f9e361eb166570f3239.png"},{"id":102429056,"identity":"fc94e29e-ee71-409e-9408-22e35ec7481f","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-02-11 15:03:57","extension":"png","order_by":5,"title":"Figure 5","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":435304,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eSeven themes and their top three enabling stakeholders and actions, with line width indicating the normalized percentage of mentions related to stakeholders, actions, and theme\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"floatimage5.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8710625/v1/ecc22db1fd5c991057349f43.png"},{"id":102429055,"identity":"699b073d-eea1-49af-9388-72e3d665bc28","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-02-11 15:03:57","extension":"png","order_by":6,"title":"Figure 6","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"figure","size":70139,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003eThree systemic transformation pathways, showing contributing themes and top three associated actions and stakeholders\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"floatimage6.png","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8710625/v1/885c66b54e1c7f802e91adfb.png"},{"id":102750591,"identity":"c727bfd9-5325-4ed3-a27a-164f8127dd44","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-02-16 09:20:46","extension":"pdf","order_by":0,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":3427464,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"manuscript.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8710625/v1/dc2e175a-0c55-485c-b55b-63e9e83f4b1c.pdf"},{"id":102745700,"identity":"6c7f5b28-7838-4efa-a710-082bcbbfebf9","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2026-02-16 08:53:26","extension":"odt","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"supplement","size":478321,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSupporting Information S1:\u003c/strong\u003e This supporting information provides the codebook for the seven themes, and ten actions, along with the results of the City Representatives weighting exercise and the cross-sectoral relevance analysis of the themes.\u003c/p\u003e","description":"","filename":"SupplementaryInformation1.odt","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-8710625/v1/f39ef719cb996d66aedcae59.odt"}],"financialInterests":"No competing interests reported.","formattedTitle":"Pathways to circular and regenerative urban agriculture through stakeholder-informed approaches.","fulltext":[{"header":"1. Introduction","content":"\u003cp\u003eHealthy soils are essential to resilient food systems, climate mitigation, and support the achievement of multiple Sustainable Development Goals (European Commission, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR23\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e; Eyhorn et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR25\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e; FAO, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR26\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e). Soils host over a quarter of the world\u0026rsquo;s biodiversity (FAO, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR26\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e), whose biological activity facilitates organic matter decomposition and contributes to carbon sequestration (Van Zwieten, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR68\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e), making soils the largest terrestrial carbon reservoir (European Commission, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR23\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e). These nutrient and carbon cycling functions suggest soils are necessary to the development of a circular economy and climate neutrality within the European Union (Directive (EU) \u003cspan citationid=\"CR20\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e/2360, 2025).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThough fundamental to climate stability and food security, soils continue to deteriorate. Approximately 70% of all European soils are degraded (European Commission, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR23\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e), and up to 90% of global soils may be degraded by 2050 (United Nations, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR67\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e). In Europe, soil degradation reduced net carbon removals by 20% between 2013 and 2018 (European Commission, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR23\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e), despite their capacity to store 11\u0026ndash;39 MtCO\u003csub\u003e2eq\u003c/sub\u003e annually (Lugato et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR40\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e). In croplands, degradation is largely attributed to agricultural intensification, resulting in nutrient imbalances, biodiversity loss, soil acidification, and heavy-metal accumulation (Banerjee et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR5\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e; Gregory et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR30\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e). In urban and peri-urban areas, soil sealing and landscape fragmentation compromise farmers\u0026rsquo; livelihoods and intensify flood risks and urban heat island effects (Pistocchi et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR49\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e). Reversing soil degradation trends could generate 1.2 trillion Euros in global economic benefits per year (European Commission, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR23\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e) through soil ecosystem services such as nutrient cycling, water regulation, carbon storage, and crop production (Bartkowski et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR8\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eEuropean sustainability agendas increasingly promote circular and localized food systems, as seen in the European Green Deal, Farm to Fork Strategy, the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact, and the Revised Waste Framework Directive. However, the foundational role of healthy soils in achieving these goals remains overlooked. The EU Soil Monitoring Law attempts to address this gap by integrating soil protection into existing frameworks, and requiring national soil monitoring and restoration objectives for unhealthy soils (Directive (EU) \u003cspan citationid=\"CR20\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e/2360, 2025).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eNevertheless, a disconnect remains between EU-level ambitions and local implementation capacities. Municipalities, primary producers, and small enterprises often lack the financial, technical, and regulatory support to adopt regenerative and circular practices (L\u0026uuml;hmann, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR41\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e; Muscio \u0026amp; Sisto, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR44\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e). Barriers include high upfront investment costs and uncertain market incentives that undermine the feasibility of scaling soil-restorative innovations (Aarikka-Stenroos et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR1\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e; Gottinger et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR29\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e). Top-down approaches tend to prioritize quantitative methods and technological or economic innovation, often overlooking the socio-cultural and institutional dimensions of change (Faulkner et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR27\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e; Mangnus et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR42\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e; Toboso-Chavero et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR64\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e). This fragmentation reflects a lack of cross-sectoral knowledge exchange and coordination, further slowing the uptake of circular practices (Faulkner et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR27\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e; Kivimaa \u0026amp; Kern, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR36\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFrom a systems perspective, transformative change extends beyond technical innovation and includes institutional learning, capacity building, and inclusive participation across sectors and governance levels (D\u0026iacute;az et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR18\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e; Rogge \u0026amp; Reichardt, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR54\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e). Within this process, policy change is essential for reshaping economic conditions and destabilizing incumbent structures (Turnheim \u0026amp; Geels, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR65\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2012\u003c/span\u003e; Weber \u0026amp; Rohracher, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR69\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2012\u003c/span\u003e), and is often driven by disruptive innovations created by entrepreneurial and organizational actors (Christensen, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR13\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1997\u003c/span\u003e; Soete \u0026amp; Ter Weel, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR59\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1999\u003c/span\u003e; Tushman \u0026amp; Anderson, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR66\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1986\u003c/span\u003e). These dynamics highlight the role of human agency (e.g., decisions, actions, and capacities), particularly in place-based contexts where locally embedded and ecological knowledge can shape regenerative outcomes (Folke et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR28\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2002\u003c/span\u003e; Hahn \u0026amp; Tampe, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR32\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e). Consequently, current literature emphasizes the need for participatory and co-produced knowledge processes to bridge persistent knowledge\u0026ndash;action gaps in complex transition contexts (Argyris, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR3\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e1993\u003c/span\u003e; Roux et al., 2006; Stern et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR62\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWithin this landscape, the Three Horizons (3H) framework has emerged as a practice-oriented approach to support stakeholders in contextualizing complex systems through dialogue across temporal horizons: dominant present conditions, emerging alternatives, and desired futures (Sharpe et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR58\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e). It is applied through facilitated engagement rather than predictive modeling, enabling participants to reflect on systemic constraints while encouraging experimentation and articulating long-term transformation pathways across sectors and scales (C\u0026acirc;mpeanu \u0026amp; Fazey, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR11\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e; Sharpe et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR58\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe 3H framework has been applied to the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the Global South (Aguiar et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR2\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e; Collste et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR14\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e), to agricultural futures in rural Spain (L\u0026oacute;pez-Rodr\u0026iacute;guez et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR39\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e), and to regional sustainability scenario planning in biodiverse agricultural landscapes in Australia (Schaal et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR57\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e). Throughout these studies, 3H has been used to identify temporal trade-offs, policy incoherence across governance levels, and articulate alternative socio-economic development pathways, including diversification through ecological agriculture, mixed rural livelihoods, eco-tourism, and teleworking in agricultural regions (L\u0026oacute;pez-Rodr\u0026iacute;guez et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR39\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e). While these applications demonstrate the framework\u0026rsquo;s transferability across regions, scales, and governance settings, they remain largely oriented toward rural or regional objectives and emphasize shared visions and policy alignment. Moreover, they give limited attention to cross-sectoral integration of material flows or the translation of long-term visions into concrete, actor-specific pathways; particularly in urban and peri-urban food, waste, and planning systems.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eBuilding on this body of work, this study presents the 3H framework as a novel approach to developing systemic transformation pathways for urban and peri-urban nutrient and carbon circularity, an application not previously examined in literature. Therefore, following the 3H structure, this study poses the following research question: How can systemic barriers and stakeholder actions be synthesized into transformation pathways that support urban soil regeneration? To address this question, two objectives were pursued: 1. identify the barriers and challenges preventing nutrient and carbon circularity at the municipal scale; and 2. develop actionable pathway scenarios for urban nutrient and carbon circularity that align with urban and peri-urban soil health and regulatory frameworks. These objectives are addressed through the stakeholder workshops of the project NUTRISOIL (Healthy Soil for Urban Agriculture through Nutrient and Carbon Circularity) (NUTRISOIL, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR46\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2026\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe following sections describe the methodological application of the 3H framework to engage practitioners and city representatives in identifying themes for systemic transformation. The results then present the barriers to nutrient and carbon circularity, the mapping of eight stakeholder groups and ten enabling actions that address these barriers and converge into three transformation pathways. The discussion situates these findings within a broader context, highlighting pathway interconnections and shared responsibility across sectors.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"2. Case Study","content":"\u003cp\u003eDeveloped under the ERC-funded URBAG project, NUTRISOIL builds off existing datasets, networks and field experiments conducted in the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona (AMB) to test circular solutions for soil regeneration. Located in northeastern Spain along the Mediterranean Sea, the AMB is characterized by a coastal plain that inclines northwards towards the Collserola mountain range (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig1\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e1\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eBetween 1956 and 2018, the AMB lost 80.5% of agricultural land, and experienced a 24% decline in primary sector employment from 2010 to 2019 (Herrero \u0026amp; Moragues-Faus, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR33\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e). However, this trend has begun to reverse, with regional plans to expand its urban agricultural surface area from 8% to 12% (Camacho-Caballero et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR10\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eCurrently, compost in the AMB supplies less than 7% of synthetic mineral fertilizer demand (Arosemena Polo et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR4\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e). Meanwhile, nutrient recovery such as struvite from wastewater remains underdeveloped despite the potential to meet the region\u0026rsquo;s fertilizer needs fivefold (Ruf\u0026iacute;-Sal\u0026iacute;s et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR56\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e). Previous URBAG work identified persistent knowledge gaps regarding local soil conditions and fragmented coordination between key stakeholders including farmers, waste managers and planners. Therefore, this positions the AMB as a strategic case study for identifying systemic barriers and co-developing pathways to enable circular nutrient and carbon flows for urban and peri-urban soil regeneration.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"3. Methodology","content":"\u003cp\u003eThis study presents a novel qualitative analysis of circular economy transformations by incorporating multi-sectoral stakeholder engagement with the 3H framework (Sharpe et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR58\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e) and grounded theory analysis (Corbin \u0026amp; Strauss, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR15\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2015\u003c/span\u003e). Grounded theory was used to inductively interpret stakeholder narratives. This bottom-up methodology enabled the identification of transformation pathways for nutrient and carbon circularity in urban soil regeneration, rooted in empirical evidence.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eTwo workshops were designed based on the 3H framework to identify present-day systemic barriers, emerging innovations, and co-develop long-term visions as described by (Sharpe et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR58\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2016\u003c/span\u003e). The first workshop, dedicated to the practitioners, occurred in November 2024 and January 2025 with the objective of understanding barriers, drivers, and actions required to transition towards circular practices for urban and peri-urban soil regeneration. The findings from the practitioners\u0026rsquo; workshop structured the second workshop, comprised of city representatives from various countries, which took place in March 2025. This second workshop extended the findings beyond the AMB and examined the role of governance and policy. Data from these workshops were then combined to identify the barriers to systemic transformation in seven themes, and to map the actions and stakeholder roles required to address them. The analysis resulted in three interlinked transformation pathways. This methodological flow is demonstrated in Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig2\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e2\u003c/span\u003e.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec4\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e3.1 Practitioners\u0026rsquo; Workshop\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe Practitioners\u0026rsquo; workshop centered on four sectors contributing to circularity for urban and peri-urban soil regeneration: urban community, waste and wastewater management, agriculture, and soils. For workshop purposes, the agriculture and soils sectors were consolidated due to their overlapping roles. Participants were recruited through targeted outreach using existing URBAG and NUTRISOIL networks, followed by snowball sampling.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eA total of 62 participants (51.6% male, 48.4% female) included municipal representatives, urban planners, research organizations, waste and wastewater facility managers, farmers, cooperatives and unions members (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig3\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e3\u003c/span\u003e). The agricultural and soils group was the largest, with 29 participants (62.1% male, 37.5% female); the urban community group included 20 participants (45% male, 55% female); and the waste and wastewater group was the smallest, with 13 participants (38.5% male, 61.5% female).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eBreakout discussions were co-designed by two professional facilitators with expertise in participatory methods, along with researchers specializing in transformation planning. Each group was led by sector-specific moderators and supported by a designated notetaker. Sessions were recorded with prior consent and took place in Catalan and/or Spanish.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eDiscussions followed the 3H framework, and while facilitators were provided with supplementary prompts on potential barriers, discussions were centered around the following core questions:\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cul\u003e \u003cli\u003e \u003cp\u003eHorizon 3 (H3): What progress has been made in [\u003cem\u003esector\u003c/em\u003e] in 2030 to improve soil health, resource circularity, and resilience (urban/food)?\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e \u003cp\u003eHorizon 1 (H1): What obstacles and difficulties are currently hindering progress toward this vision?\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/li\u003e \u003cli\u003e \u003cp\u003eHorizon 2 (H2): What needs to be done to promote the circularity of nutrients from the [\u003cem\u003esector\u003c/em\u003e] (planning, consumption, waste generation)?\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/li\u003e \u003c/ul\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eBefore each discussion, participants reflected individually and recorded ideas on post-it notes. Facilitators conducted real-time content analysis by clustering the notes, which were used to structure dialogue and build consensus across each horizon.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec5\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e3.2 Sectoral-Horizon Mapping and Thematic Area Development\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eWorkshop audio recordings were transcribed using TurboScribe\u0026copy;, translated into English, and verified by project team members. Qualitative data were analyzed in NVivo v13 (2020) through open and axial coding to identify systemic barriers, shared visions, and actionable pathways. Data was first organized by stakeholder sector and horizon categories. Open coding of participants\u0026rsquo; narratives revealed substantial overlap between sectors, which was further examined through axial coding. This process grouped recurring mentions to barriers, enablers, actions, and values in broader conceptual categories.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eCategories were iteratively aggregated until further consolidation risked oversimplifying nuances. At this saturation point, seven themes were inductively derived, representing key dimensions of systemic transformation across sectors and horizons. A stakeholder-horizon matrix query was used to examine variation in themes across H1, H2, and H3. To account for differences in group sizes, normalized weighted frequencies were calculated as follows:\u003cdiv id=\"Equa\" class=\"Equation\"\u003e\u003cdiv format=\"TEX\" class=\"mathdisplay\" id=\"FileID_Equa\" name=\"EquationSource\"\u003e\n$$\\:weighted\\:frequency\\:\\%=\\:\\left(\\frac{Total\\:references\\:in\\:thematic\\:area}{Total\\:references\\:across\\:all\\:thematic\\:areas}\\right)\\times\\:100\\%$$\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/div\u003e\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eSentiment coding of H1 discussions was applied to identify perceived drivers and barriers. Positive sentiments (e.g. \u0026ldquo;\u003cem\u003ecanteens are provided by local and bio food\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;we have regulations from the EU to go in that direction\u0026rdquo;)\u003c/em\u003e reflected supportive practices or policies; negative sentiments (e.g. \u003cem\u003e\u0026ldquo;problems with generational change\u0026rdquo;, \u0026ldquo;disconnection between production and consumption\u0026rdquo;\u003c/em\u003e) indicated inefficiencies, policy gaps, or harmful practices. Neutral sentiments were characterized by explanations or descriptions. Aggregated sentiment frequencies were exported and visualized using Python.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe themes and sentiment analysis derived from this process were used to structure the subsequent Policy and Governance Workshop. The same analytical procedure was applied to the recorded discussions from that workshop to extend the interpretation of results beyond the AMB context.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec6\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e3.3 Policy and Governance Workshop\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe Policy and Governance Workshop brought together representatives from eight cities (Glasgow, Scotland; Greater Manchester, England; Rotterdam, Netherlands; Thessaloniki, Greece; Athens, Greece; Granollers, Spain: Padova, Italy; and Ramallah, Palestine), selected through an open call by the Resilient Cities Network. Discussions were recorded with prior consent and were conducted in English. The objective of this workshop was to validate the themes beyond the AMB context.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFollowing a presentation of the themes identified from the Practitioners\u0026rsquo; Workshop, participants engaged in a structured weighting exercise (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig2\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e2\u003c/span\u003e) using the \u0026ldquo;pebble distribution method\u0026rdquo; (Langemeyer et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR38\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e). Each theme was introduced with illustrative examples, and participants individually assessed its present relevance (as a current priority or existing strategy) and future relevance (its potential to enable or hinder future circularity) on a scale from 0 to 10.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eParticipants first assigned weights based on their local contexts. A moderated discussion followed, where they explained their scoring rationale and provided concrete examples to support their assessments. The exercise concluded with a facilitated group dialogue on opportunities, trade-offs, and long-term goals, leading to a consensus on the present EU-level relevance of each theme.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec7\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e3.4 Enabling Stakeholder-Action Mapping and Transformation Pathways\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eFollowing validation of the themes, the analysis shifted toward identifying tangible actions and enabling stakeholders required for systemic transformation in urban and peri-urban soil regeneration. This process drew on discussions from both the Practitioners\u0026rsquo; and Policy and Governance Workshops, prioritizing data from Horizon 2 (H2) and Horizon 3 (H3).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eTranscripts were re-coded using open coding to move beyond the 3H framework and toward concrete, operational actions. These actions were grouped through axial coding into ten broader action categories aligned with the validated themes. To identify enabling actors, NVivo \u0026ldquo;case\u0026rdquo; classifications were created to represent stakeholder types discussed in the workshops. Matrix queries were applied to generate two key relationships: 1. a stakeholder-action matrix, linking specific actors to corresponding actions; and 2. an actions-theme matrix linking actions to themes. Normalization was applied to prevent overrepresentation, with stakeholder contributions within each action and actions within each theme weighted to sum 100%. This data was visualized using Sankey diagrams generated with eSankey.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFinally, a cluster analysis was conducted to group themes into three transformation pathways based on the actions required to advance each theme. NVivo matrix queries were then used to examine how actions and enabling stakeholders connect across these pathways, revealing cross-sectoral interdependencies and opportunities for systemic coordination.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"4. Results","content":"\u003cp\u003eThe seven themes identified are: 1. \u003cem\u003eUrban waste is valorized for agricultural application\u003c/em\u003e; 2. \u003cem\u003eEducation and skills meet the labor demand of a circular economy\u003c/em\u003e; 3. \u003cem\u003eIncentives and disincentives influence circular economy adoption\u003c/em\u003e; 4. \u003cem\u003eValue added by sustainable practices is communicated effectively\u003c/em\u003e; 5. \u003cem\u003eInfrastructure supports circular economy practices\u003c/em\u003e; 6. \u003cem\u003eRegulations are adapted to local realities to facilitate carbon and nutrient circularity\u003c/em\u003e; and 7. \u003cem\u003ePolicies are integrated across the entire cycle of nutrient and carbon circularity\u003c/em\u003e. These themes span the participating sectors (agriculture and soils, waste and wastewater management, urban community, and city representatives), reflecting interconnected domains of circularity (see Supplementary Information 1). This section presents the barriers preventing systemic transformation of each theme, the stakeholder actions to overcome these challenges, and the three systemic transformation pathways.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec9\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e4.1 Barriers and Enablers to Circularity (H1)\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eAs shown in Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig4\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e4\u003c/span\u003e, H1 discussions revealed a strong perception that current systems hinder circularity, with negative sentiments outweighing positive and neutral sentiments across all themes ranging from 79% in Theme 7 to 100% in Theme 5.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe most frequently cited challenges emerged in Theme 3 (\u003cem\u003eincentives and disincentives\u003c/em\u003e), where 98% of mentions were negative. Stakeholders emphasized that linear, globalized markets fail to internalize socio-environmental costs, rendering sustainable and local practices economically uncompetitive. Institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) and Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) were viewed as reinforcing large-scale industrial agriculture, to the detriment of small-scale circular initiatives.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eBarriers were interlinked across themes. In Theme 1 (\u003cem\u003ewaste valorization\u003c/em\u003e), key challenges included restrictive regulations for biofertilizers, compost contamination (e.g., microplastics), and third-party contracts that divert organic materials from local agriculture.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eTheme 2 (\u003cem\u003eeducation and skills\u003c/em\u003e), stakeholders noted a disconnect between formal education and practical knowledge. Formal training was seen as overly technical and detached from on-the-ground realities, leaving younger generations unprepared for the future and contributing to the ongoing failure to address generational renewal in the agricultural sector. Theme 4 (\u003cem\u003ecommunication and awareness\u003c/em\u003e) reflected weak consumer connection to food systems and difficulty competing with imported products, obscuring the value of local circular practices.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eConcerns in Theme 5 (\u003cem\u003einfrastructure\u003c/em\u003e), included limited access to arable land due to urban expansion and land speculation, as well as logistical constraints and assistance in distributing recovered organic matter to agricultural soils.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eIn Theme 6 (\u003cem\u003eregulatory adaptation\u003c/em\u003e) participants criticized over-standardized policies, with macro-level policy development lacking local relevance and creating misalignment between agricultural and waste management sectors. Theme 7 (\u003cem\u003epolicy integration\u003c/em\u003e) emphasized industrial influence over regulatory decisions and misalignment across climate, agricultural, and urban development policies, particularly regarding soil health.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eExamples of drivers to circular practices for theme 1 included selective waste collection (e.g., door-to-door collection), specialized green waste contractors, and municipal waste quality assessments to educate citizens. In Theme 2, soil regeneration research and youth-focused agricultural programs contributed to skill development and knowledge transfer. Public spaces facilitated direct sales between farmers and consumers supported Theme 3, and education campaigns and agricultural parks were enablers of Theme 4. Theme 7 was the most significant driver, primarily due to EU directives that require administration and industries to incorporate environmental considerations into decision-making.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec10\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e4.2 Themes and Enabling Stakeholder Actions\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eAnalysis of H2 and H3 identified ten priority actions linked to the seven themes, supported by eight stakeholder groups. As shown in Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig5\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e5\u003c/span\u003e, responsibilities are widely distributed, reflecting the complex nature of circular transformations in urban and peri-urban soil systems.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFor Theme 1 (\u003cem\u003ewaste valorization\u003c/em\u003e), waste and wastewater managers were identified as key enablers for implementing selective waste collection and agronomically aligned treatment processes. These included door-to-door collection, smart bins, and GPS-based tracking to individualize waste taxes, reduce contamination, and improve the quality of compost for agricultural application. Participants emphasized the need for decentralized, proximity-based treatment facilities located strategically between waste producers and agricultural users, such as agricultural parks. Industries were expected to contribute by managing their own waste streams and reducing reliance on public infrastructure.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eWith regards to \u003cem\u003eeducation and skills\u003c/em\u003e (Theme 2), public administrators were seen as important actors in professionalizing regenerative support systems, particularly by managing and distributing the territories\u0026rsquo; carbon rich materials to agricultural fields and assisting farmers with administrative and regulatory compliance. Farmers and agricultural unions play a central role in advocating for compensation for organic waste management, as well as fair wages, work-life balance, and stable land tenure contracts that incentivize long-term soil stewardship. Civil society actors (e.g., cooperatives and educators) were seen as essential in establishing mentorship schemes to support intergenerational knowledge transfer and practical skills development. Citizens, farmers, and entrepreneurs were considered drivers in creating demand for skills in direct marketing, cooperative development, and regenerative business models.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eFor \u003cem\u003eincentives and disincentives\u003c/em\u003e (Theme 3), the dominant action was for public administration, policymakers, and urban planners to fund and support environmental stewardship (e.g., tourist taxes, tariffs on imported goods), implement public procurement of local products cultivated with regenerative practices, and reform land-use policy. Entrepreneurs, researchers and educators could support these actions through food labeling reform, applied research and advisory services to increase transparency and promote informed consumer choices aligned with circular regenerative practices.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003eCommunicating value-added\u003c/em\u003e (Theme 4) centered on community-led food networks, which could be supported by school programs and municipal partnerships to frame regenerative agriculture as a tool for public education and social cohesion. Researchers and entrepreneurs could take the lead in designing awareness campaigns focused on soil health, biodiversity, and the socio-economic benefits of localized food systems.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003eInfrastructure for circular adoption\u003c/em\u003e (Theme 5) included repositioning farming as a dignified and accessible profession with the agricultural sector, urban planners, and citizens supporting access to prime agricultural land, offering long-term leases for farmers, and supporting shared machinery programs to lower the cost of regenerative transformations. Equally important was small-scale, locally adapted infrastructure (e.g., trucks and machinery suited for urban and peri-urban agricultural landscapes) to enable decentralized and proximity-based waste management. Policymakers, public administration and urban planners could support these efforts through environmental stewardship land policies that reward long-term regenerative practices.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003eRegulatory adaptation\u003c/em\u003e (Theme 6) emphasized participatory, place-based regulation. Policymakers were perceived as critical to enable stakeholder involvement in designing flexible and contextual territorial frameworks that reflect local waste composition, soil conditions, and crop needs. Researchers, urban planners, and farmers could help align food waste, and planning regulations through bottom-up governance mechanisms that integrate soils and circularity into cross-sectoral (e.g., food, waste, urban planning) sustainability policies.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003ePolicy integration\u003c/em\u003e (Theme 7) focused on embedding soil and circularity into climate, food, waste, and sustainability policy frameworks. Policymakers and administrators were perceived as critical in collaborating with practitioners to elevate soil health within broader resilience strategies. Funding mechanisms for ecosystem services (e.g., carbon sequestration and food security) were perceived as essential to recognizing and institutionalizing the value of regenerative practices.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec11\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e4.3 Emergent Systemic Pathways\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eCluster analysis of the themes identified three interlinking systemic pathways (Fig.\u0026nbsp;\u003cspan refid=\"Fig6\" class=\"InternalRef\"\u003e6\u003c/span\u003e) for advancing nutrient and carbon circularity in urban and peri-urban soil regeneration and food production: 1) \u003cem\u003elocalized material and knowledge flows\u003c/em\u003e, 2) \u003cem\u003esocio-economic reconfiguration through communities and markets\u003c/em\u003e, and 3) \u003cem\u003epolicy and planning integration for resilience\u003c/em\u003e. Building on previously described actions and enabling stakeholders, this section focuses on the interconnection between themes, and the synergistic relationship between actions and stakeholders.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec12\" class=\"Section3\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e4.3.1 Pathway 1: Localized Material and Knowledge Flows\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003ePathway 1 links Themes 1 (\u003cem\u003ewaste valorization\u003c/em\u003e) and 5 (\u003cem\u003einfrastructure\u003c/em\u003e), emphasizing the need to decentralize not only organic material flows but also technical knowledge and decision-making. Selective collection and proximity-based treatment require alignment between waste managers, farmers, and local administrations to ensure compost meets local agronomic needs. Farmers also raised concerns about compost contamination, particularly microplastics, affecting soil health and consumer safety.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAddressing these challenges requires responsive governance, where policymakers incorporate local feedback and adapt regulations according to real-world conditions. Researchers could contribute through applied science and field-based advisory, improving treatment processes to enhance nutrient composition, supporting carbon sequestration, and reducing contamination. This pathway is characterized by maximizing local resources, with circularity depending as much on institutional learning and trust as on technical innovation.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec13\" class=\"Section3\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e4.3.2 Pathway 2: Socio-Economic Reconfiguration Through Communities and Markets\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003ePathway 2 connects Themes 2 (\u003cem\u003eeducation and skills\u003c/em\u003e), 3 (\u003cem\u003eincentives and disincentives\u003c/em\u003e), and 4 (\u003cem\u003ecommunicating value-added\u003c/em\u003e), centering on a reconfiguration of how economies value ecological labor, and community resilience. It shifts away from standardized, industrial models that favor large-scale production, toward enabling small farms, local enterprises, and civic food networks to thrive in increasingly globalized markets.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis approach fosters localized innovation by linking educational institutions with urban and peri-urban agriculture. Entrepreneurs, farmers, and citizens are empowered to co-develop circular supply chains grounded in biocultural heritage and regional identity to redefine value through proximity, regeneration, and participation. Community-led initiatives and intergenerational mentorship programs are essential infrastructure for learning, especially in current contexts where formal education has lost its practical application.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eTo support this transformation, policy and fiscal mechanisms must prioritize professions that generate public goods (e.g., farmers, composters, educators) over extractive or speculative sectors such as real estate. Financial recognition for environmental stewardship (e.g., soil health requirements in land leases), accessible entry points into food production (e.g. affordable land), and transparent product labelling are structural levers for embedding circularity into everyday practice. Ultimately, this pathway recasts consumers and producers as co-creators of place-based economies aligned with social and ecological wellbeing.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec14\" class=\"Section3\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e4.3.3 Pathway 3: Policy and Planning Integration for Resilience\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003ePathway 3 combines regulatory adaptation and integration (Themes 6 and 7) by embedding local knowledge and circularity within institutional structures and territorial governance. Stakeholders stressed that treating climate change, agriculture, waste, and land-use as separate policy domains has limited the effectiveness of sustainability efforts, particularly by overlooking potential co-benefits, including carbon sequestration, biodiversity enhancement, reduced environmental contamination, and healthier living environments. Stakeholders advocate for cross-sector councils to facilitate coordinated, place-based decision-making. Improved soil health not only enhances nutrient cycling and reduces reliance on synthetic inputs, but also supports water retention and drought resilience, creating synergies across food, climate, and water strategies. While Pathway 1 centers on technical coordination and feedback loops, this pathway focuses on translating local knowledge and applied research into integrated, responsive policy.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eTo address these gaps, stakeholders proposed policy instruments that formally recognize and compensate ecosystem services supported by regenerative practices and environmental stewardship. Public procurement, land-use policy, and environmental fees can be leveraged to redistribute the costs of transformation from practitioners (e.g., farmers) and establish ecological restoration as a shared public responsibility. Institutionalizing these mechanisms through national and municipal budgets reframes environmental health as a public good and human right, while insulating policy design from industrial influence that undermines local priorities and long-term resilience.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"5. Discussion","content":"\u003cp\u003eThis study demonstrates that existing circular economy frameworks fail to address the territorial, institutional, and material complexities of urban and peri-urban circularity where food production, land use, and waste valorization converge under fragmented governance structures. Findings from stakeholder workshops indicate that effective implementation requires overcoming policy silos and distributing leadership across sectors and scales, while aligning place-based strategies with local conditions and capacities.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec16\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e5.1 Thematic Insights into Transformation Pathways\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe seven themes identified in this study address critical gaps in literature by demonstrating that transformations towards circular regenerative practices are not solely technical or economic initiatives, but are embedded in governance, access, knowledge, and labor. This study contributes to a practice-based, actor-oriented framework to overcome the lack of operational details often found in policy standardization (Faulkner et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR27\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e). It shifts the focus from sectoral problem solving to systemic coordination.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe material and knowledge flows in Pathway 1 (Themes 1 and 5) highlight the infrastructural and logistical foundations necessary for waste valorization and regenerative agriculture. As demonstrated by participants in the workshops, sectors such as waste management and agriculture remain underfunded, with limited policy support for research and development and insufficient representation in policy-making, a pattern also reflected in literature (Faulkner et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR27\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e; L\u0026uuml;hmann, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR41\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e; Muscio \u0026amp; Sisto, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR44\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e). Regulatory frameworks further complicate circular practices. Under the Waste Framework Directive, compost, digestate, and sludge are classified as waste (Directive (EU) \u003cspan citationid=\"CR19\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e/851, 2018), limiting its re-use (Stegmann et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR60\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e). Meanwhile, insufficient control of microplastics in compost contributes to heavy metal accumulation and erodes farmer confidence in compost safety and quality (Rodrigues et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR53\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e). Furthermore, the Nitrates Directive restricts the application of organic fertilizers (as opposed to synthetic mineral fertilizers) application in nitrate-vulnerable zones (Council Directive of 12 December 1991 (91/676/EEC), 1991).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eDespite being central to the implementation of policies, farmers that participated in the workshops reported limited involvement in policy design and described being treated as beneficiaries or end users rather than contributors (NUTRISOIL, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR46\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2026\u003c/span\u003e), as corroborated by other sources (Faulkner et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR27\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e; L\u0026uuml;hmann, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR41\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e). While earlier 3H applications emphasized governance coordination and policy alignment (Aguiar et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR2\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e; Collste et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR14\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e), this pathway extends those insights by grounding transformation in material and logistical systems (specifically waste valorization and soil regeneration) where regulatory fragmentation directly constrains circular practices.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003ePathway 2 (Themes 2, 3, and 4), socio-economic reconfiguration through communities and markets, underscores the need to reshape how knowledge, incentives, and values support sustainability transformations. Current education and innovation programs tend to favor institutions and digital skills, overlooking the sector-specific and hands-on training required by smaller-scale farms, composters, and sustainable enterprises (Bezama et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR9\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e; Hinderer \u0026amp; Kuckertz, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR35\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e). Access to financial support remains uneven, with smaller actors excluded from grants and subsidies due to limited resources and administrative capacity (Muscio \u0026amp; Sisto, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR44\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e; Recanati et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR52\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e). For instance, the CAP and WTO systemically reward scale and technological investment, marginalizing the two-thirds of European farms operating on less than five hectares of land (Curry et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR17\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e; Eurostat, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR24\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2022\u003c/span\u003e; Recanati et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR52\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e). This aligns with previous 3H studies which highlighted the need for socio-economic diversification through ecological agriculture, mixed livelihoods, and teleworking to counter structural bias toward large-scale actors (L\u0026oacute;pez-Rodr\u0026iacute;guez et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR39\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eSimilarly, regulatory frameworks regarding hygiene and traceability standards are designed for large-scale industrial systems that place disproportionate compliance demands on small-scale producers (Myers et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR45\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2009\u003c/span\u003e; Purnhagen et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR50\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e; Steines et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR61\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e). This reinforces systemic disadvantages for small-scale actors who are central to enabling regenerative transformations in local economies. Additionally, narratives of innovation often emphasize technological advancement and market competitiveness, while overlooking care-based labor, community-driven knowledge, and cultural practices that sustain long-term community and ecosystem regeneration (Rahman et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR51\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e; Stern et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR62\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003ePathway 3, based on regulatory adaptation and integration (Theme 6 and 7) identifies the need for institutional integration and policy coherence. Effective sustainability transformations require horizontal alignment across policy domains and vertical coherence across scales, from EU directives to regional implementation and municipal practice to comply with cultural contexts (OECD, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR47\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2007\u003c/span\u003e; Sutcliffe \u0026amp; Ortega Alvarado, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR63\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e). Territories are especially well-positioned to drive long-term transformations, as they manage regional planning, distribute EU funds, and have legal authority to adapt national goals to local contexts (Barbero \u0026amp; Pallaro, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR6\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e). The recent EU Soil Monitoring Law takes steps to integrate soil health into climate mitigation, land-use planning, and environmental policy frameworks by requiring Member States to monitor soil health using harmonized indicators, report on soil degradation and restoration needs, and design national measures for soils considered unhealthy (Directive (EU) \u003cspan citationid=\"CR20\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2025\u003c/span\u003e/2360, 2025). However, the law leaves decisions on territorial prioritization, implementation pathways, and coordination mechanisms to Member States, placing the burden of cross-sectoral integration at national and sub-national levels.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eSoils represent a critical but underutilized entry point for advancing these transformations. Integrating soil regeneration into broader climate, health, and land-use policies would reframe it as a foundational public good, enabling circularity to serve multiple policy agendas simultaneously.\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec17\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e5.2 Regeneration of Soil Through Governance, Culture, and Care\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eAn innovative feature of this research was to determine how stakeholders reframed circularity through the lens of regeneration, not only as a technical intervention but as a cultural, territorial, and relational process. Soil was described as a living interface connecting ecological integrity, community health, and intergenerational knowledge, echoing scholarship that frames regeneration as rooted in local stewardship, care work, and identity (Folke et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR28\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2002\u003c/span\u003e; Guthey et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR31\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2014\u003c/span\u003e; Rahman et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR51\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eAcross the workshops, stakeholders consistently linked regeneration to future-oriented responsibility and practices of care, emphasizing intergenerational knowledge transfer, long-term soil stewardship, and producing within ecological limits rather than maximizing short-term output. Participants highlighted mentorship, regenerative entrepreneurship, and locally embedded enterprises as key mechanisms for sustaining soil health over time, while stressing that such practices require supportive governance and financing structures. Governance was therefore seen as something that could be leveraged less through standardization and control, and more through enabling functions: empowering locally embedded actors, mobilizing ecological knowledge, and coordinating public resources to reduce the economic risks borne by farmers during transition. In this framing, care extends beyond individual practice to collective responsibility, where public institutions play a role in supporting regenerative livelihoods and safeguarding soil as a shared asset for future generations.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThis emphasis on regeneration as a relational and cultural process resonates with 3H applications in biodiverse agricultural landscapes in Australia, where long-term land stewardship was framed around intergenerational responsibility, shared values, and place-based identity rather than technical optimization alone (Schaal et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR57\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2023\u003c/span\u003e). These dynamics challenge dominant circular economy discourses that focus on resource efficiency and innovation, revealing the need for approaches rooted in care, interdependence, and ecological justice (Barca, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR7\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e; Escobar, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR21\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e), particularly as sustainable transformations addressing how people live, work, and connect to land (Herrero et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR34\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e \u003cdiv id=\"Sec18\" class=\"Section2\"\u003e \u003ch2\u003e5.3 Methodological Contribution, Implications, and Limitations\u003c/h2\u003e \u003cp\u003eThrough the 3H framework, this study qualitatively mapped systemic complexity, by facilitating and analyzing stakeholder dialogue barriers and enabling actions across urban agriculture and waste systems, emphasizing institutional coordination and co-produced solutions. Dialogue with city representatives expanded this analysis beyond the AMB, providing a comparative lens on shared challenges, actions, and long-term goals. The resulting three pathways illustrate how coordinated actions across governance, infrastructure, markets, and knowledge systems can enable integrated strategies that embed soil health within climate, land-use, water and economic policy domains.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eLimitations encountered in this study include its contextual focus on the AMB and a subset of European cities, which may not reflect the diversity of urban-rural and agricultural contexts across Europe. While the 3H framework linked present barriers to future visions, it does not quantify material or economic flows, or assess environmental trade-offs (Escobar Cisternas et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR22\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e; McDowall et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR43\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2017\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThe analysis identified several areas for future research:\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003col\u003e \u003cspan\u003e \u003cli\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003eOptimizing waste and recovery processes\u003c/em\u003e to enhance nutrient and silicates for SOC stabilization (Xu \u0026amp; Tsang, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR70\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e), alongside technologies to reduce microplastics (Rodrigues et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR53\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2020\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/li\u003e \u003c/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e \u003cli\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003eStrengthening citizen engagement and soil literacy\u003c/em\u003e to improve waste separation and understanding of soil regeneration (Pereira et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR48\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2019\u003c/span\u003e; Stern et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR62\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2021\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/li\u003e \u003c/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e \u003cli\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003eAssessing environmental and economic impacts of regenerative\u003c/em\u003e practices using life cycle and economic assessments (Chen et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR12\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2018\u003c/span\u003e; Lal, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR37\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2004\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/li\u003e \u003c/span\u003e \u003cspan\u003e \u003cli\u003e \u003cp\u003e \u003cem\u003eEvaluating policy, governance and valuation mechanisms\u003c/em\u003e such as soil valuation and ecosystem service payments to support circularity and resilience at scale (Faulkner et al., \u003cspan citationid=\"CR27\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2024\u003c/span\u003e; OECD, \u003cspan citationid=\"CR47\" class=\"CitationRef\"\u003e2007\u003c/span\u003e).\u003c/p\u003e \u003c/li\u003e \u003c/span\u003e \u003c/ol\u003e \u003c/p\u003e \u003c/div\u003e"},{"header":"6. Conclusion","content":"\u003cp\u003eThis research demonstrates that advancing carbon and nutrient circularity for soil regeneration entails more than technical interventions to address systemic constraints across governance, markets, and cultural domains. The inclusion of city representatives confirmed the broader relevance of the findings beyond the AMB case study, indicating its applicability across diverse territorial contexts.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eBy integrating the 3H framework with grounded theory analysis, the research identified seven themes requiring systemic transformation. Further synthesis operationalized ten stakeholder-informed actions that were mapped to enabling actors, revealing that long-term sustainable transformations require distributed leadership and cross-sectoral coordination. This approach contributes to a growing body of work emphasizing the need for territorially grounded, practice-oriented methodologies in circular transformation research.\u003c/p\u003e \u003cp\u003eThree transformation pathways that can be applied to circularity for soil regeneration on a wider scale: \u003cem\u003ePathway 1.\u003c/em\u003e localized material and knowledge flows; \u003cem\u003ePathway 2.\u003c/em\u003e socio-economic reconfiguration through communities and markets; and \u003cem\u003ePathway 3.\u003c/em\u003e policy and planning integration for resilience. Demonstrating that circular transformations depend on aligning waste, agriculture, urban planning, and community systems, while repositioning soils as critical infrastructure for climate, food, and circular agendas. By advancing participatory, multi-scalar framework, this study offers a methodological contribution to circular transformations that complement existing quantitative assessments and supports EU-wide strategies for regenerative and inclusive transformations.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"Declarations","content":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFunding\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis Project was funded by the NUTRISOIL Proof-of-Concept project funded by European Commission European Research Council Ref: 101138151 and SOILCARE PID2023-146650OB-I00 funded by MICIU/AEI / 10.13039/501100011033 and by ERDF, EU.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAcknowledgements\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis work has been made possible thanks to the financial support of the European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator project: Integrated System Analysis of Urban Vegetation and Agriculture (818002-URBAG), This work contributes to ICTA-UAB \u0026ldquo;Mar\u0026iacute;a de Maeztu\u0026rdquo; Programme for Units of Excellence of the Spanish Ministry of Science, and the research groups Sostenipra (2021-SGR-00734) and LASEG (2021-SGR-00182) by the Department of Research and Universities of the\u0026nbsp;Generalitat de Catalunya. The authors thank the National Secretariat of Science, Technology and Research (Panama) for the grant awarded to J. Arosemena (IFARHU-SENACYT contract 270-2021-156). J. Langemeyer acknowledges support from the European Commission (101139598-Commit2Green). Workshops for this study were supported by The Resilient Cities Network, Agrupaci\u0026oacute; de Defensa Vegetal (ADV) Horta Del Baix Llobregat, Consell Comarcal del Llobregat, and the Facultat de Farm\u0026agrave;cia de Sanitat Ambiental I Edafologia at the Universitat de Barcelona.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCompeting Interests\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe authors declare no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAuthor Contributions\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAll authors developed the conception and design of the study. G. Villalba, conceived the original idea for the study, with all authors contributing to the workshop design and data acquisition. E. Untereiner, processed and analyzed the data and took the lead in writing the manuscript. J. Langemeyer and J Arosemena critically revised the draft for important intellectual content. G. Villalba performed the final manuscript approval.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eData Availability\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe qualitative data generated during this study are not publicly available due to confidentiality agreements with workshop participants but are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. The codebooks generated from these data are provided in the Supplementary Information.\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eEthics Approval\u003c/strong\u003e\u003c/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe workshops received ethical approval from the Animal and Human Experimentation Ethics Committee (CEEAH) at the Universitat Aut\u0026ograve;noma de Barcelona.\u003c/p\u003e"},{"header":"References","content":"\u003col\u003e\u003cli\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAarikka-Stenroos, L., Kokko, M., \u0026amp; Pohls, E.-L. (2023). 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Mineral-mediated stability of organic carbon in soil and relevant interaction mechanisms. \u003cem\u003eEco-Environment \u0026amp; Health\u003c/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003e3\u003c/em\u003e(1), 59\u0026ndash;76. \u003cspan class=\"ExternalRef\"\u003e\u003cspan class=\"RefSource\"\u003ehttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.eehl.2023.12.003\u003c/span\u003e\u003cspan address=\"10.1016/j.eehl.2023.12.003\" targettype=\"DOI\" class=\"RefTarget\"\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/span\u003e\u003c/li\u003e\u003c/ol\u003e"}],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":true,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":false,"hideJournal":false,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":false,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":false,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"journal-of-industrial-ecology","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"44498","submissionUrl":"https://submission.springernature.com/new-submission/44498/3","title":"Journal of Industrial Ecology","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"stoa","reportingPortfolio":"Springer Hybrid","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":false},"keywords":"Soil Health, Regenerative Agriculture, Circular Urban Systems, Carbon and Nutrient Circularity, Multi-Actor Governance, Sustainability Transformations","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8710625/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-8710625/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eConventional agriculture typically relies on linear production systems that degrade soil and undermine sustainable resource management and climate change mitigation. Urban and peri-urban agriculture has the potential to shift from conventional approaches towards circular strategies that enhance soil health. However, this transformation requires changes beyond agricultural practices to include institutional, cultural, and governance dynamics. This study identifies systemic barriers, stakeholder actions, and transformation pathways to healthy soil and sustainable urban agriculture through carbon and nutrient circularity. By combining the Three Horizons framework with grounded theory analysis, this study derives cross-sectoral themes and tangible actions for systemic transformation. Stakeholder mapping demonstrates the need for distributed leadership and intersectoral collaboration to enable circular practices such as implementing decentralized and proximity-based waste management, community led agricultural food networks, as well as supporting environmental stewardship through procurement and land policy. Moreover, three interlinking pathways for the implementation of circularity on a wider scale are identified to address system complexity: 1) localized material and knowledge flows; 2) socio-economic reconfiguration through communities and markets; and 3) policy and planning integration for resilience. These findings highlight that advancing circularity requires not only technical innovation but also participatory governance, market realignment, and regulatory adaptation. By integrating stakeholder perspectives into transformation design, the results demonstrate how a transformation to healthy soils for sustainable urban agriculture can be positioned as foundational infrastructure for regenerative urban and regional futures.\u003c/p\u003e","manuscriptTitle":"Pathways to circular and regenerative urban agriculture through stakeholder-informed approaches.","msid":"","msnumber":"","nonDraftVersions":[{"code":1,"date":"2026-02-11 15:03:52","doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-8710625/v1","editorialEvents":[{"type":"communityComments","content":0},{"type":"reviewerAgreed","content":"56778484726379970585468213058186435820","date":"2026-05-11T10:04:30+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewerAgreed","content":"44101423290813466276869646340460542921","date":"2026-05-06T10:11:27+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"editorInvitedReview","content":"","date":"2026-04-08T18:41:53+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewerAgreed","content":"48582624411228242132675110533187913236","date":"2026-04-07T11:14:12+00:00","index":"hide","fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewersInvited","content":"","date":"2026-02-09T08:38:29+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"editorAssigned","content":"","date":"2026-01-29T08:20:32+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"checksComplete","content":"","date":"2026-01-29T08:13:42+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""},{"type":"submitted","content":"Journal of Industrial Ecology","date":"2026-01-27T12:33:04+00:00","index":"","fulltext":""}],"status":"published","journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"journal-of-industrial-ecology","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":false,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"44498","submissionUrl":"https://submission.springernature.com/new-submission/44498/3","title":"Journal of Industrial Ecology","twitterHandle":"","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":true,"editorialSystem":"stoa","reportingPortfolio":"Springer Hybrid","inReviewEnabled":true,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":false}}],"origin":"","ownerIdentity":"bb6a8ba5-b31a-41f1-8fae-34e72c96ce35","owner":[],"postedDate":"February 11th, 2026","published":true,"recentEditorialEvents":[{"type":"reviewerAgreed","content":"56778484726379970585468213058186435820","date":"2026-05-11T10:04:30+00:00","index":43,"fulltext":""},{"type":"reviewerAgreed","content":"44101423290813466276869646340460542921","date":"2026-05-06T10:11:27+00:00","index":41,"fulltext":""}],"rejectedJournal":[],"revision":"","amendment":"","status":"under-review","subjectAreas":[],"tags":[],"updatedAt":"2026-02-11T15:03:52+00:00","versionOfRecord":[],"versionCreatedAt":"2026-02-11 15:03:52","video":"","vorDoi":"","vorDoiUrl":"","workflowStages":[]},"version":"v1","identity":"rs-8710625","journalConfig":"researchsquare"},"__N_SSP":true},"page":"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]","query":{"redirect":"/article/rs-8710625","identity":"rs-8710625","version":["v1"]},"buildId":"XKTyCvWXoU3ODBz1xrDgd","isFallback":false,"isExperimentalCompile":false,"dynamicIds":[84888],"gssp":true,"scriptLoader":[]}