Circularity 2023, a two-day conference powered by Planet Ark's Australian Circular Economy (ACE) Hub, took place in Melbourne earlier this week, with knowledge and ideas shared by industry, government and academia in a bid to drive actionable change towards a more circular future.
The conference was opened by Dr Nicole Garofano, who heads up the ACE Hub, and she set the context for the event with her strong statement: "For Planet Ark, failure in this space is certainly not an option. We know that the solutions are already in practice or in plain sight, and we're all here to contribute to that." She emphasised the importance of face-to-face events for building trust among delegates to drive collaboration towards a circular economy, and indeed, the need for cross-industry collaboration proved to be one of the key themes of discussions across the board. As one of the speakers, Samantha Read of Chemistry Australia put it, we need an "ecosystem of enablers, harmonised to work together and not against each other".
This was the first time the conference was being held in Melbourne, and Victoria's Environment Minister Steve Dimopolous was an eager keynote presenter. He said Victoria has invested $380m to support the Circular Economy (CE) transition; this investment is strengthening the sector working towards achieving 2030 targets of diverting 80 per cent of material waste from landfill and cutting total waste per capita by 15 per cent. He referenced as a key reform the roll-out of Victoria's container deposit scheme (CDS). He said all reforms currently being rolled out in the state require behaviour change across the Victorian community, signalling another key conference theme: shifting consumer attitudes and behaviours to embracing circularity as a way of life.
"I am proud of the strong partnerships we have formed with industry, business, the community and all levels of government as we work together to build our circular economy," Dimopolous said.
Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek weighed in via video feed with a message of encouragement and support, emphasising the importance to the government of reducing waste, investing in recycling, and reforming packaging design.
She referred to recent reforms announced by Environment Ministers. She said, "The Federal Government will act as regulator and the reforms will be written into Commonwealth laws that will help us produce less waste to begin with, and make it easier to reuse and repurpose our resources."
She encouraged the delegates to share their ideas, experience and capacity to help government realise this vision. "Be bold, be practical, be focused. This is critical work and it has the full support of government."
With the tone set, the ensuing two days saw inspiring talks, spiritually moving ideas about taking care of Country, a scoping of the scale of investment that is required and that is earmarked for CE investment by banking institutions, and an overall sense of urgency bubbling up in the room.
A few take-outs on the fly:
- We cannot underestimate the importance of caring for nature and caring for Country, and we should learn from the example set by First Nations peoples who have always understood circular economy as caring for Country.
- Circularity is about rethinking business models, consumption and waste management.
- A systems thinking approach, supported by robust data collection, is called for.
- A collaborative approach needs to move beyond siloed thinking towards working together across industries and countries; implementing examples from other countries that have achieved success before us should be part of Australia's approach; no need to reinvent the wheel.
- We should acknowledge the challenges to implementing a CE, and help businesses of all sizes de-risk their CE strategies.
