Antwerp, 15 May 2018 The 2019 edition of the World Resources Forum, WRF2019, to be held in Antwerp, 24-27 February, will host a series of ‘deep-dive’ WRF2019 workshops as part of the conference program. Together with our co-organiser OVAM the WRF Secretariat invites interested organisations to design and submit their own workshop proposal before the end of June.

The overall theme ‘Closing Loops – Transitions at Work’ shows that WRF2019 will give insight in systemic drivers and will showcase concrete solutions to make the transition to circular economy.

A circular economy aims at maintaining our resources, such as materials, land and soil, at a high quality level while rendering the services we need to fulfill our current and future needs. This can be achieved by reorganising consumption and production patterns and value chains so that resources do not get wasted, rather get replenished and restored.

Workshops WRF2019 address topical issues related to the 6 conference themes:

1. Cities and regions as laboratories for change
2. Ports and circular economy in a global market
3. Digital technology as driver for circular economy
4. Sustainable materials and waste management
5. Circular bio-economy and bio-based materials
6. Land and soil as valuable resources

Find all information needed to submit the proposal – before end of June – on the special WRF2019 conference website. For WRF 2017 over 60 workshop proposals were submitted for only 12 available slots.

About World Resources Forum 2019

The next edition of the World Resources Forum will take place in Antwerp (Belgium) from Sunday 24 February to Wednesday 27 February 2019. The host for this edition of the World Resources Forum is the Public Waste Agency of Flanders (OVAM), the principal authority in the Flanders Region of Belgium for sustainable management of waste, materials and soils.

WRF2019 will be developed in close cooperation with partners such as the City of Antwerp, local authorities, environmental companies, sector federations, civil society and universities and knowledge institutions from the Flanders region. The WRF selected the OVAM as host of the 2019 edition on the basis of the rich expertise that Flanders can present in the field of sustainable materials management and the transition toward the circular economy.

The general theme for the Forum is ‘Closing Loops – Transitions at Work’. With this theme, WRF2019 wants to focus on practice. The vision and knowledge to close cycles and to evolve towards a circular economy is often already available. Now it’s time to put that theory and knowledge into practice!

All information can be found on the conference website. Updates will also be posted on the social media.

Feel free to call or email our staff, contact details are given on the websites, they will be pleased to discuss proposals and thoughts.