As well as plenty of time for facilitated networking in order to identify potential exchange opportunities, what might be of particular interest is the guest speaker, Liam McNally, from NISP Northern Ireland (National Industrial Symbiosis Programme).
NISP is a more established but similar programme to SMILE and Liam will give an overview of what is happening internationally in this regard and how projects like SMILE and NISP can be both economically and environmentally beneficial to a region. He will also be giving an overview of what is happing at EU level in terms of pushing the agenda of industrial symbiosis (in other words reuse and sharing of materials between businesses, i.e. what SMILE encourages). See more information on this below.*
*Flagship Initiative for the Europe 2020 Strategy: Roadmap for a Resource Efficient Europe
Currently the European Commission is developing a Roadmap for a resource-efficient Europe as part of the resource-efficient Europe Flagship Initiative of the Europe 2020 Strategy. Industrial Symbiosis is embedded within the Roadmap with the Commission clear that opportunities to exploit resource efficiency gains through industrial symbiosis should be a priority for all member states. NISP is cited as a best practice exemplar of concrete action already being taken by member states and as an approach that should be replicated throughout the European Union, having previously been cited as best practice within the EU Waste Framework Directive. Should the Road Map proceed to become a ‘white paper’ then member states would be obliged to carry out the recommendations. http://europa.eu/2020 Flagship Initiative for Resource Efficient Europe.
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