On the 22nd April 2022, ISWA´s project on Circular and Low Carbon Cities (CALC) is arranging a mini conference hosted by VITO, the Flemish Institute for Technological Research, in one of their premises in Oostend, Belgium with a focus on metrics for the waste prevention “Cascades,” starting with “refuse and rent, including repair, replacement of parts, and other processes that lengthen useful life.
The metrics are connected to the CALC project intention to be able to calculate greenhouse gas offsets for waste prevention.
The purpose of the mini conference is to raise awareness on how to be successful in preventing waste and increase circularity in the city. The overall goal for the call is to gather best practices on these topics.
Call for indicators and metrics
The CALC project is hereby putting out a worldwide call to practitioners, researchers, national, regional, and local authorities, and others, to contribute with good examples of metrics and indicators for measuring the performance and impacts of waste prevention processes.
Timeline and requirements of the Submission
All submissions will be read by a committee. The committee will consist of the CALC project leader, the vice chair of the Working Group on Recycling and Waste Minimization, as well as CALC project group members from other ISWA working groups.
Requirements and content of the activity
Metrics and indicators are the focus of the presentation that is, quantitative ways of measuring the performance and impacts of waste prevention cascades – using spreadsheets.
ISWA will place the resulting metrics in a workspace area where they can be downloaded and tested and validated, to become part of the CALC toolbox.
- The purpose of the activity must be to measure the performance and/or impact of activities to prevent waste either in the form or re-use, re-pair or one of the five focus cascades for extending the useful life of products
- focus on waste prevention
- There must be measurements of results in real time in city or region
- Indicators and benchmarks for material recycling as measured by governments or the European Union is NOT eligible for submission under this call.
| Cascade number | Cascade name | Examples | Relationship G (govern-ment), B (busi-ness), C (consumer), S (self); “2”=”to” |
| -1 (minus 1) | Refuse, rent, subscribe | library, car-share, ski, city bike, fancy dress, or scooter rental or subscription; neighborhood sharing of equipment | B2C, B2B, C2C |
| 0 (zero) | User maintenance (Retain, Replace, (parts), repurpose reset, reuse (maintenance) | half-yearly bicycle maintenance: oiling the chain, brake cable replacement’ de-fragmenting a hard disk, mending clothes | S, B2B, C2C |
| 1 (one) | Re-buy, re-purpose, reuse (second-hand in products, parts, components), donation, family sharing | E-bay, free-cycle and other digital / real time give-away or trading systems, second-hand shops, flea markets, book exchange systems | B2C, B2B, C2C, C2B2C, S |
| 2 (two) | Repair, recondition, reno-vate, major maintenance, insurance, portal | extended warranty (computer, durable goods; warranty service, kitchen renewal, building deconstruction | B2B, B2C, S |
| 3 (three) | Refurbish, remanufacture, rebuild (parts) | making one working computer or bicycle from parts and components taken from 2 or more non-working ones, renovating institutional IT or telephone systems | B2B, C2C (hobby basis) |
What’s in it for you?
Putting your work on display globally: Belgium in April, Singapore in September
The 5 selected indicators or metrics will be put on display and presented for peer review at the CALC mini-Conference in April. Five of the contributions will get the opportunity to give a 10-minute presentation during the CALC mini-conference in Belgium on April 22, 2022, either live or digitally. There will be the opportunity to present, discuss and further elaborate the project with highly skilled experts in the field. 5 -10 minutes presentations + discussions in break-out rooms.
The authors or producers of two most innovative indicators or metrics will be invited to be part of the CALC project curated session in Singapore, for the ISWA World Congress in September 2022.
Media coverage
The event and presenting criteria’s will be covered in the ISWA newsletter and promoted through ISWA’s Social Media channels, as well as on the ISWA website.
Application process
Deadline for submissions is March 6th, 2022 by email to Ms Chantal Mambu. Please address questions to Chantal, for sharing with the CALC project team.
During March there will be a selection process and you will receive information not later than the 21st of March if you are the one to present in Oostend.
For more information, please contact
- Dr Anne Scheinberg, Springloop, Project leader, CALC project anne@springloop.nl
- Ms Gunilla Carlsson, Chair of the Cities Network, CALC project, gunilla.carlsson@sysav.se
- Ms Chantal Mambu, ISWA General Secretariat, cmambu@iswa.org
