Academic Centre
WCEF, organized by the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra had 16 sessions, more than two thousand participants and many side events connected to the forum. Main focus of this year WCEF was fair and just transition to the circular economy, which supports the UN Sustainable Development Goals; importance of international trade and impactful investment; as well as progressive governance and broad engagement by governments, the private sector, and consumers. Participants shared ideas and experience how to reduce the overuse of materials, stem overconsumption, and move from ownership to sharing. The materials of the WCEF are available here. The main takeaways from the forum was many interesting examples of small and large companies implementing the circular economy principles, like food sharing app OLIO, app to borrow things in neighbourhood Peerby, well known IKEA, Philips and many others.
NBM conference was organized by ESCP Europe Business School and there were more than 100 presentations from 35 countries. Conference was devoted to bringing together both theoretical and practical insights from the fields of sustainable entrepreneurship, innovation, and transition, on the one hand, side, and business models for sustainability, on the other hand side. Participants discussed the latest developments related to new business models for sustainable entrepreneurship, innovation, and transformation. Speakers pointed out that nowadays business models are used to better integrate sustainability considerations in corporate strategy and activities in the whole value chain. Besides, corporate sustainability research has inspired business model research to consider a broader range of stakeholders as well as more comprehensive management approaches and perspectives. The most impressive takeaway was conviction that not only researchers, but also practitioners find Circular economy business models as very perspective for sustainable and socially responsible entrepreneurship and that business schools and their faculty all over Europe pay more attention to these issues in their teaching and research.
Lessons learned from these events help associate professor Dzineta Dimante to develop her study course in Environmental economics and integrate Circular economy aspects, business models and real life examples in her teaching material.
Attendance of the conferences was possible owing to Interreg financed project CreaRe- Resource efficiency and circular economy.
 in Helsinki 3-5 June and 4th International Conferences on New Business Models “New Business Models for Sustainable Entrepreneurship, Innovation, an Transformation” (NBM conference) in Berlin 1-3 July. The circular economy refers to a way of thinking that redefines economic growth so that it is restorative and regenerative by design. Both events gathered great amount of researchers, policy makers, practitioners, and social activists interested in more sustainable, socially and environmentally responsible economy. ){kind=link}