The co-creation sessions are designed to foster collaboration, innovation, and practical solutions around some of the most pressing challenges in sustainability and circularity. Please find more information on the three key themes below. 

Circular Water Systems

In this interactive session, we will explore the concept of circular water management, focusing on closing water cycles and minimizing waste. Our water systems face numerous challenges compromising water quality and quantity: climate change is intensifying droughts and flooding, while increasing pollution is compromising water quality, including that of our drinking water.

It is crucial to identify innovative solutions that promote sustainable water use in both urban and rural areas. During this session, we will discuss how safe water reuse, advanced technologies, behavioral shifts, and policy interventions can help build a more resilient and sustainable water system. 

Circular & Healthy Food Systems 

The interconnection between urban and rural areas is key to creating resilient and sustainable food systems. As populations grow, there is increasing environmental pressure due to food production, distribution, and consumption patterns. Circular food systems provide a pathway to address these challenges by promoting the reuse of resources, reducing waste, and fostering stronger links between local supply and demand of food.

This co-creation session explores how circular principles can be applied to food systems to create healthier, more sustainable food provisioning. We will develop transdisciplinary project ideas for strategies such as regenerative agriculture, nutrient recycling, protein transition, local sourcing, biobased production and (organic) waste minimization.  

Spatial Strategy & Planning for Circular Regions 

Circular strategies for cities and regions often focus on the redesign of value chains: connecting supply and demand, reduction of waste and pollution and keeping resources and materials in the loop as long as possible. This ignores the fact that the transition also has a spatial aspect to consider. Future circular cities and regions will look different, and need different forms of infrastructure, buildings, open spaces, urban configurations and relations between the city and the countryside.

Spatial planning with the aim to develop circular regions and cities is a complex collaborative process requiring multi-stakeholder cooperation and an integration of policy. We invite you to cover planning tools and strategies that can be used to increase circularity in regions, focusing on long-term sustainability, resource efficiency, and the social well-being of both urban and rural populations.   

 

Please let us know your preffered session during registration