What is a circular society made of? In this session, we look at circular societies through their many building blocks—from social governance to material flows, waste streams, and data and transparency.

How do policies and social governance shape the foundations of circular societies? What role do data and material flows, the veins running through our societies, play? How do key sectors and industries, the policy landscape—led by the EU—public authorities, and businesses weave together to build holistic circular ecosystems? We will explore these topics through urban metabolism and material mapping, discuss much-needed shared circular policies and consider the role of Nordic collaboration in the material revolution.

Agenda

Welcome & introduction to the topic

Emanuela Vanacore & Einar Kleppe Holthe, Managing Partners, Nordic Circular Hotspot

Building blocks of circular societies

EU legislative framework and regulations
Björn Spak, Senior Expert, Naturvårdsverket

Circular skills
Julian Kirchherr, Associate Professor, Roskilde University; Partner, McKinsey
Managing material flows
Jyri Seppälä, Finnish Environment Institute: The national material flow calculation
Material innovations
Anders Breitholtz, CEO & Co-Founder, Papershell: Introduction to the Papershell project & circular impact
The role of data
Inka Orko, Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT): How does digital product passport enable building a circular society?

Panel discussion