Public Thought Leadership Event: Redrawing the Circular Economy : Organic waste and Peri-urban futures - Professor Stephen Healy

Western Sydney University was placed first in the world in the 2022 Times Higher Education Impact rankings, the only global performance measure that assesses universities against the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The event series aims to celebrate and promote this #1 ranking, complementing work being undertaken across the University as part of its Sustainability and Resilience Decadal Strategy 2030.

This talk presents the findings of an Australian Research Council Discovery project called "Innovative Waste Economies: Redrawing the Circular Economy". The circular economy is a policy response to the global waste crisis, aiming to replace the "take-make-waste" economy with a more sustainable model that prolongs product life, reduces waste, and recovers the value of discarded materials. However, achieving circularity requires more than just technical improvements in waste management - it also involves reconfiguring social practices, economic relationships, and ingrained habits.

Our research centres social-practices of experimentation with waste already underway in Australia that are attempting to renegotiate how we live with waste. In this talk, we discuss one such experiment that involves a range of stakeholders working together to organize the reverse logistics of transporting organic waste (specifically, spent coffee grounds) from Sydney city cafes, businesses, and universities to peri-urban farms practicing regenerative farming. Our research aims to explore the social and economic relationships required to make this type of circularity work. The City of Sydney has set the ambitious goal of an 80% reduction of organic waste from landfill by 2030. Meeting this ambitious goal involves rapid and ambitious transformation. What emerges from our research is a more inclusive and participatory vision of circularity, which aims to achieve a wider range of goals beyond simply waste reduction.

Register via the web page below.