This half day Conference will take place in the morning of 17 October 2018, during the Hangzhou Forum of United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business (UN/CEFACT) (14 to 19 October 2018).
Background
Current patterns of production and consumption are fast exhausting the natural resources, degrading ecosystems, and generating hazardous substances, waste and pollution. Responding to these challenges involves moving from a linear to a more circular approach, achieving resource and energy efficiency along the whole supply chain and providing access to basic services, green jobs, and reaching a better and sustainable quality of life for all. Essentially, it is about doing more and better with less. This requires a systematic approach engaging all stakeholders, producers, manufacturers, intermediaries, traders and, retailers and the final consumer. In such a connection, transparency and traceability are identified as important tools to advance more responsible consumption and production, in line with SDG12 of the United Nations Agenda for Sustainable Development. At this Conference, UN/CEFACT proposes to discuss the following questions:
- How to move from a linear to a circular economic system? What are the challenges and opportunities in increasingly globalized and fragmented value chains?
- How can enhanced transparency, traceability of value chains and their environmental, social, and health risks contribute to advance sustainable production patterns?
- Which innovative practices can support information sharing among different stakeholders to ensure that consumers have the relevant information and awareness for sustainable lifestyle?
- How existing and new UN/CEFACT deliverables could be used in this context?
In April 2018, a conference/workshop was organized, with a special focus on the garment and footwear sector, which provided some guidance and recommendations. The presentations from this event are available on the event website and can serve as a starting point for the discussions during this conference
Objective
The roundtable aims at:
- providing a mutual learning space where experts can exchange experiences, propose solutions to identified problems and anticipate future developments to advance sustainable value chains for a circular economy;
- identifying main lessons learned and compile a set of key action areas and good practices that can inform ongoing and new UN/CEFACT projects, specifically in the area of transparency and traceability for sustainable value chains.
Target Audience
All interested in contributing about how traceability and transparency of sustainable value chains can advance the circular economy approach, and help achieve relevant targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
AGENDA / BROCHURE as .pdf
9:00 – 9:15 - Welcome address
Ms. Ivonne Higuero, Director, Economic Cooperation and Trade Division, UNECE BIO
9:15 – 10:30 Session 1 – Managing sustainable value chains for a circular economy
Ms. Maria Teresa Pisani, Economic Affairs Officer, Economic Cooperation and Trade Division, UNECE
Prof. Ding Xuemei, Institute of Fashion, Donghua University Shanghai BIO
Ms. Merel Krebbers, Material integrity Specialist, H&M (tbc)
Mr. Steve Capell, Director at GoSource Pty, Australia BIO
Mr. Bryan Mortensen, Global IDFL Audit and Inspection Manager
10:30 - 10:45 - Q & A and Discussion
10:45 – 11:00 - COFFEE BREAK
11:00 – 12:15 – Session 2 – Approaches and solutions for enhancing transparency and traceability of value chains
Mr. Frans Van Diepen, UN/CEFACT Domain Coordinator and Policy Advisor Ministry of Economy The Netherlands
Mr. David Ho, Senior Director, Intertek China
Mr. Du Han, Assistant Director of Promotion, GS1 China
Ms. Sun Xiaoyun, Technical Research and Standardization, GS1 China
Ms, Xiaoping Jiang, Director, Trade Security and Facilitation Research Centre
12:15 – 12:30 – Q&A and Discussion
12:30 Concluding Remarks