Assist. Prof. Alexandros Stefanakis at the Technical University of Crete, Crete is the 5th guest presenter in the International Ecological Engineering Society’s colloquium. He will speak about “Examples of how nature-based solutions promote circularity. Facts beyond fiction”.

Date: Wednesday Nov. 23, 2022, 17:00 - 18:00 CET (Central European Time)

Zoom link: https://lnkd.in/eHhNWebt

The lecture is free and open to the public.

Abstract:

Our societies today are facing multiple challenges such as continuous urbanization, climate change impacts and aging infrastructure. Today we realize that the linear model we adopted to develop our economies and urban centres cannot cope with these challenges. Traditional grey infrastructure contributed to many of the existing environmental, social and economic issues. This means that cities and communities need to change their current infrastructure, technological basis and resource management.

Circular economy appears as an alternative economic growth model to upgrade and expand the urban environment. It also dictates a change in mindset about how we design urban solutions in harmony with nature and promotes system thinking towards the development of new holistic and interdisciplinary solutions at all scales. In this frame, the emergent concept of Nature-based Solutions (NBS) appears as a new approach to develop urban areas that promotes the circular use of resources making use of closed nutrient, water, and energy cycles by reusing waste rather than discarding it.

This lecture will discuss the NBS concept and how it is based on the circular approach and present various case studies from different parts of the world to demonstrate the feasibility of circular use of resources using NBS.