C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, a network of the world’s largest cities working to address climate change, has hosted a Eunomia webinar on the important role waste management has to play in the transition to a low carbon future.

Eunomia Chairman Dr Dominic Hogg and Principal Consultant Ann Ballinger offered C40 members forward thinking, practical concepts on what progressive cities can do to highlight the importance of waste prevention and recycling in the transition to a low carbon economy.

Dominic and Ann drew on the wide range of research projects Eunomia has undertaken on the topic, and on the tools it has developed to help cities and municipalities around the world demonstrate the contribution that successful waste prevention, reuse, and recycling programmes make to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

C40 is a network of the world’s megacities committed to addressing climate change. C40 supports cities to collaborate effectively, share knowledge and drive meaningful, measurable and sustainable action on climate change. In the online discussion Dominic and Ann were joined by the Greater London Council’s Senior Policy and Programme Officer Adam Batchelor, who shared the perspective of a city that has worked with the consultancy on various projects that strive to make improvements in this area, including: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standard for London’s Local Authority Collected Waste (LACW) 2017, used to set the city’s Emissions Performance Standard (EPS) on Local Authority Collected Waste (LACW) and the Carbon Intensity Floor (CIF) target, a measure of emissions from waste to energy infrastructure. Eunomia also carried out a Scoping Study for a Route Map to a Circular Economy in London.

In a report for Zero Waste Europe titled The Potential Contribution of Waste Management to a Low Carbon Economy Eunomia has previously calculated that if prevention and recycling were prioritised, the EU alone could cut greenhouse gas emissions by the equivalent of around 200 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year by 2030 – the same as the annual emissions of the Netherlands.

Kathrin Zeller of C40 said:

“We were absolutely happy with the webinar, which delivered just the right proportion of detail for the participants, helping those involved in the political side of things raise their sensibility to the technical issues, and conversely helping the more technically minded to better lead with the political challenges. Supporting our members to influence citywide carbon strategies is one of the main purposes of the C40 network, and the webinar certainly provided them with tools to better visualize and communicate the actual impact of waste and resource management.”

This webinar was hosted by C40’s Waste to Resources Network, which aims to accelerate the transition from solid waste management towards a sustainable materials and resources management in C40 cities. C40 thrives to help its members implement the Paris Agreement, urging for the setting of ambitious goals and strategies lined out in the recent study Focused Acceleration.

The C40 Waste to Resources Network is planning its annual gathering in Auckland, New Zealand, a city that was recently awarded the 2017 C40 Award in the #Cities4ZeroWaste in recognition of its waste minimization strategy that aims to turn Auckland into a Zero Waste city by 2040.

Eunomia has offices in three C40 cities, Auckland, London and New York.