World Resources Forum: Sustainable lifestyles - key in the transition towards circular economy

There is a growing awareness about the importance of the consumers’ role to achieve a successful transition towards a circular economy. Shifting towards more sustainable and attractive lifestyles and mainstreaming them into decision-making processes, business models and education are core components in implementing the Paris Climate Agreement as well as Agenda 2030. However,, we are still far removed from actually decoupling economic growth from environmental and social degradation on a major scale when accounting for the total environmental and social impact of our current modern lifestyles A session will be held at the 2019 World Resources Forum in Antwerp exploring circular economy and sustainable lifestyles. The session will involve partners of the SLE and CISCP programmes of the One Planet network. Date and time: Tuesday 26 February, 14:00 - 15:00 Location: Flanders Meeting & Convention Center Room: Darwin Hosted by: UN Environment Speakers: Dr. Lewis Akenji Mrs. Vanessa Timmer Mr. Marcos Queiroz Moderator: Mr. Bas de Leeuw Sustainable lifestyles remain a political "hot-potato" issue, an unrealized "business opportunity", and an implementation challenge for individuals and households. Since the role of the economy is to provide for the needs of society, sustainable ways of living are the indispensable ‘end’ to the ‘means’ of a circular economy and are the essence of sustainable societies. While this is increasingly conceptually acknowledged, in practice there remain challenges to encouraging and mainstreaming sustainable ways of living. This Global Session explores some of the challenges, including: • Developing solutions that align with the underlying science on the urgency and scale of the challenge of engendering sustainable living within the circular economy • Creating compelling visions and scenarios of what future sustainable ways of living could be like • Drawing insights and lessons learned from attempted solutions, including: citizen-based approaches, changes in the socio-technical systems that frame everyday decisions and ways of living, and emerging business models that challenge the more opportunistic and profit driven approaches over approaches that reinforce the wellbeing of people and the environment. Join the event at the World Resources Forum. Date and time: Tuesday 26 February, 14:00 - 15:00 Location: Flanders Meeting & Convention Center Room: Darwin