Post from Organizers of ISIE-SEM AP conference

The Joint International Society for Industrial Ecology (ISIE) 12th Socio-Economic Metabolism section conference and 5th Asia-Pacific conference (ISIE SEM-AP 2016) was held on 28-30 Sep 2016 at Nagoya University, Japan.

About 200 attendees from 25 countries joined the conference, engaging in thoughtful and provoking discussions on the topics of circular economy, material consumption, and the sustainability of our societies.

We had the opportunity to hear to 9 great keynotes: Prof Chris Kennedy (ISIE President, University of Victoria, Canada), Prof Marina Fischer-Kowalski (Institute of Social Ecology, Austria), Prof Yuichi Moriguchi (University of Tokyo, Japan), Ms Chikako Takase (United Nations Centre for Regional Development), Prof Heinz Schandl (CSIRO, Australia; Nagoya University, Japan), Ms Masako Yamato (Toyota Motor Corporation, Japan), Prof Hisato Okamoto (Frontier of Socio-Science studies, Japan), Prof Clemens Deilmann (IOER, Germany), Dr Walter Reinhardt (United Nations Environment Programme).

Attendees contributed with 120 oral presentations and 60 poster, on the topics of: Indicators of resource consumption; Material stock-flow dynamics on the national and global scales; Water as a nexus of Industrial Ecology research; Supply chains and global networks; Cities as focal points of sustainable planning; Innovations in formulation of policy-relevant data; Sustainable management of primary & secondary resources; Mitigating emissions in industry; Industrial Ecology-informed Policy and education; Drivers & footprints of carbon and other emissions; Identifying key material flows and life-cycles; Industrial symbiosis, eco-industry, and production; Drivers of resource use and consumption; Multi-scale Metabolism Studies; The Industrial Ecology of municipal & household solid waste; The environmental impacts of material stock accumulation; Next-generation Material Stocks that realise the full potential of resources; Sustainable transportation systems; Material stocks of the built environment; The Industrial Ecology of consumer products; An Industrial Ecology approach to energy and electricity. Talking about poster, many thanks to ISIE and Springer for sponsoring the best students' poster competition prizes!

As side activities, we hosted a special day tailored for students on September 27th, where 7 prominent members of ISIE shared the path that lead them to join our thriving society: Dr. Tim Baynes (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia); Dr. Jonathan Cullen (University of Cambridge, UK); Prof. Marina Fischer-Kowalski (Alpen-Adria University, Austria); Prof. Yasushi Kondo (Waseda University, Japan); Prof. Stefan Pauliuk (University of Freiburg, Germany); Prof. Sabrina Spatari (Drexel University, USA); Dr. Xin Tian (Beijing Normal University, China). Furthermore, attendees also had the opportunity to visit the production lines to the Toyota Motor Company and visit their car lineup museum.

Thanks to all the attendees who travelled from far, and also to the organisers who made the conference possible! See you in 2018 in Berlin (Germany) for the 13th ISIE-Socio-Economic Metabolism conference, and in Tsingdao (China) for the 6th ISIE Asia-Pacific conference!

Alessio Miatto, Ph.D. candidate

Tanikawa laboratory, Department of Environmental Engineering and Architecture,

Graduate School of Environmental Studies, Nagoya University