Resource conference to debut in March 2014

A three day conference and exhibition in London focussing on resource efficiency and the circular economy will be held in London in 2014, global events and communications firm UBM announced this week (October 9).

Resource will be staged at the London ExCeL between March 4-6 2014, and its organisers say it will be aimed at bringing the whole supply chain together including designers, manufacturers, retailers and the waste and recycling sectors.

The conference and exhibition will be run alongside the sustainable building event Ecobuild celebrating its tenth year in 2014 which is aimed at architects, construction and energy professionals. UBM estimates that as many as 43,500 visitors attended the Ecobuild conference and exhibition in 2013.

The team behind Resource includes former i2i Events Group directors Ed Lawson, Alison Jackson and Stephen Gee, who had previously worked on the annual Resource Efficiency and Waste Management Solutions (RWM) conference, which is described as Europes leading event for resource efficiency and waste management and is held at the NEC in Birmingham (see letsrecycle.com story).

Resource will be a free to attend event and will include a programme of over 100 speakers. The exhibition and conference will also have the support of the Technology Strategy Board, Green Alliance, The Carbon Trust and 2 Degrees Network.

Aims

Launching the exhibition at an event in London on Wednesday evening, its co creator Ed Lawson, said: Resource will have three aims: to be original and interesting and to draw decision makers; to be the source of useful business-critical information; and, to bring people together to help achieve those business goals.

Mr Lawson said that the exhibition would also feature 12 industry workshops on topics ranging from effectively achieving a closed loop to conducting a waste audit.

Also speaking at the launch event was James Woudhuysen, professor of forecasting and innovation at De Montfort Universitys School of Design, who will be among the speakers on the conference programme in March. He said: I hope that through this conference we will debate in a quizzical spirit, as I do think there are concepts to do with the circular economy that its defenders could do with investigating.

We also need to look at what our primary reason for going into a circular economy might be is it saving costs or is it the sustainability argument?