Cities are centers of human and economic activity, but also of resource use and waste in the current linear economy. More than half of the global population lives in cities, where they raise the majority of global GDP, consume most of natural resources and produce half of global waste. Currently, major flows of material, energy and water are taken from the environment, processed to value-added products and delivered to cities, where their value is consumed and ultimately lost or discarded. This gives cities both a critical and promising role to support the transition to a circular economy. Urban centers have always been breeding grounds for new forms of societal and lifestyle concepts, while offering ever increasing room for innovation. Instead of resource sinks, cities could function as resource turntables. A circular city is a place, where incoming products and resources are shared and redistributed, recovered and recirculated, and excess returned back up the supply chains. Closing loops are based on business models that avoid losses and maximize resource productivity. This requires a redesign of biological and technical material cycles in a way that their value can be maintained at the highest possible level for as long as possible. In her keynote speech at the Closed Cycles Conference, Maria Wirth, researcher at alchemia-nova, will address questions such as: What could a circular city look like? What does this mean in practice? Where can we already see a transition? Who are the actors and what are their roles within the circular city fabric? 

Speaker

Maria Wirth -  Researcher & Project Developer -  alchemia-nova GmbH