 I won't go into details of urban metabolism, what it is, you probably all know what it is. But I want to stress some elements that will be kind of the context for today. So urban metabolism, you have to see it as a diverse field. It's not any of the researchers here today will provide a different facet of urban metabolism. And even if everyone starts with the same, let's say starting a block or element, which is an analogy between human and natural systems, sorry, natural systems and urban systems. It's something that over the years has extremely changed, going from social ecology to human ecology to industrial ecology to urban ecology, political ecology, political industrial ecology and then there are many other ecologies that exist. So you see that over the years, when a researcher uses the word urban metabolism, it can mean very different things. Most of us know the industrial ecology, which is the accounting of flows. But then there is the political ecology, which is the actors and the policies and the politics behind the flows. Who wins the flows, who loses the flows. Again, keep this in mind, it's not one single unique discipline. And this is, for instance, one of the reports that were done for UN Environment. There are more and more urban metabolism studies happening every year. So it's a really booming field, but with no clear structure. There is no clear one pathway where urban metabolism is going. We have tried to collect a number of publications and this I'll explain further in the next presentation block. Well, in the presentation block in Open Tools for Bridging the Gap. But we have collected more than 300 publications around the topic. So you see that there are many examples out there. It's not a new topic and we shouldn't reinvent the wheel. Already a lot is out there. Already a lot is out there and in many places where sometimes we don't think about it. So urban metabolism studies have existed in the global north, in the global south and in different contexts. And all of them bring us different pieces of information every time. Unfortunately today, there is no consensus on urban metabolism. You will hear today some voices of urban metabolism, but it's a non-consolidated field. There is no, let's say, unique definition of urban metabolism. And that's a big plus as well because there is a lot of things that we can do together still. And we can still co-define what it is today. The ecologies I mentioned before, so what you see here is industrial ecology, urban ecology, the Marxist ecology, so political ecologies, are three islands of urban metabolism that are very much disconnected from one to the other. So this is also a call to bring other people to the table to enrich the discussion of not just measuring flows, but really understanding who benefits and who loses from the flows, but also who, where are those flows? Locate them physically somewhere. These are disciplines that typically are not put around the table or overlooked sometimes. They use this, I'll go over it. And then the last thing I wanted to show you is that even when we talk about urban metabolism and flows, there are many ways to talk about a flow. An energy flow, it can be a number of ways to think about it. It can be electricity, it can be renewable energies, it can be natural gas per capita, it can be natural gas for industries. All of this talk about energy but give you different pieces of information for your urban system. And because all of us use different indicators to talk about the same thing, our knowledge is not always transposable from one to another. So this is also a cry for let's try to have common ways of analyzing, a common vocabulary for urban metabolism, a common set of tools. Because unfortunately today there is a lot of efforts but we cannot consolidate it, we cannot collaborate to get too much. The attempt of definition we're trying to give here and we keep it as broad as possible is that it is a research field, unconsolidated and quite chaotic that study flows and actors from a systemic perspective. Well stocks as well which are flows that do not move but anyhow flows and actors from a systemic perspective. Think about all of the type of flows, all of the type of actors can be you as a household, the policy makers here around the table, the practitioners, the infrastructure holders. But also if we go along the upwards of the supply chain, the production, the extraction and all of this and if we go down the supply chain, the waste management. And systemic perspective of course is how does one flow influence the other and how does one actor is influenced by many flows for instance. So urban metabolism for policy today is perhaps used a heuristic tool for circular economy, most of it. In some other cases it's also used for other things but mostly today urban metabolism is used to do their circular economy strategies and circular economy action plans. And it's a very heuristic tool meaning that it's inputs, outputs, let's try to close the loop, let's try to optimize the system. So very much an industrial ecology point of view. I've put here three cities but we have speakers that will present other cities as well that have built their urban world where there has been an urban metabolism study and there has been a circular economy program. Just a small note, not all of these programs have used their urban metabolism study to do their circular economy program. For instance, London has not used their urban metabolism study while it was done already 15 years ago, 2003, so 16 years ago. Now in Brussels and in Paris there was a closer link but of course sometimes this study is just a hostage. We kind of cite this study but it's not really used and it's not really exploited. It's just there to say we've analyzed the flow but policy already had some flows in mind that they wanted to optimize so it's a kind of justification rather than a use of it. So we also have to be careful that today urban metabolism and policymaking we could do much more and we could think about the more complex aspects of urban metabolism and not stop at the monitoring of flows. Typically is what you see in reports and we will see other cities as well. It can be much more beautiful than that but typically you see a city with flows entering, flows exiting, sometimes per sector, sometimes per flow but this is how mostly it's used so far. And then you have programs, again we will see different cases but this is Brussels so it's subdivided in different sectors, in different actions, in different themes, transversal, etc. But a program on circular economy uses it and kind of sees when we look at Brussels for instance they have a number of sectors over here where these sectors already have flows in mind. When you also have a look at territories, we're going to discuss it in a moment while these territories also have flows and actors. In the case of Paris again this is how the urban metabolism study was synthesized. You just see a nice visual of the flows entering and exiting and there are two circular economy plans at the scale of Paris, one at the metropolitan level and one at the city level. That reference at least this urban metabolism study. And of course you see that there is metropolitan level and city level so there is a scale and a governance kind of issue that needs to be taken into account. So this is the easy part. The academia let's say it's a massive field where we already are, let's say we've been there for 100 years and we're trying to explore what it means and policy it's this heuristic tool for policy making and mostly how to deal about waste, waste management, resource thinking, well in general materials. In practice you might say okay how does this broad topic is really impacted in practice where there are different types of practice that we need to keep in mind. There are local practices which can be your everyday circular economy practices from reusing the earth to build the bio-based materials. This is BC materials here in Brussels. It can be local practices in the form of reuse of materials, of reusing organic waste etc. etc. So very getting your hands dirty actions of making the metabolism, of changing our metabolism. Then there are consultancies and we'll see it right now. So metabolic and circular economy. So they have a big experience now in analyzing sectors and cities and this is another part of in practice. So there is the on the ground getting your hands dirty, then there is more of the strategic thinking that happen at, well, most of it in the Netherlands. Over here we have some catch up to do. And then there is a lot of landscape and urban planning or strategic planning. I've put here the colleagues who were at this master class three years ago, but we'll have two other presentations today that will explain how in landscape and urban planning and strategic planning we can also see urban metabolism. So you see there are kind of three ways of declining perhaps urban metabolism. On the ground actions, strategic thinking and then actually, well, where do we place all of these infrastructure? Where do these flows are happening? So if this is the status quo, where are we going? Because we clearly know that it's not sufficient. And if we're here today is because we're not collaborating sufficiently and it's a good sign that all of you that are parts of these three, three-legged stools, so policy, practice and academia, we need to collaborate somehow. But there are some gaps that we need to address before we go there. First of all, of course, as the academics, we need to get our things together at a certain stage and better consolidate the field. Not only better consolidate the field, but also include some parts of other disciplines that are always kind of put out of the question. And I'm not talking about big data because this is the most obvious thing, complexity in all of these fields. This is, let's say, the most prominent addition that people want to add into urban metabolism. There is also, let's say, the industrial ecology part where we can build new methodologies, new accounting methodologies, but there are many others. Well, when we talk about policies, we never hear about de-growth policies or political movements or political activist policies and things like that. So we kind of need to bring back anthropology, governance, even gender studies in the mix of urban metabolism because this is not, I mean, we're not thinking about the people behind it. There is also in the top left corner more of the nature-based solutions, the realm but also the resilience, ecosystem services, landscape architecture. All of this, of course, urban metabolism happens within the environment. I mean, we're a capture of an environment that can provide us some things or not. So we need to better understand this and so far urban metabolism is more an add-on or an appendix of all of this. Then we also need to better really understand what are the policies and what have been the waste management policies, the resource policies, the water policies that exist for cities since the Middle Ages. Back in the days, it was very easy. Most of the cities, as Brussels, they had these fortifications around the city. So we knew very much what was in, what was out, and they were doing policies with their supply areas. Today, the boundaries are very blurry. We don't know who supplies us. We don't know who is making policies and how we're affected. So we need to get a better grasp. And of course, we need to act on the ground. In this whole transition movement, we need to actually do things. It's not anymore about thinking. There is a lot that we haven't figured out and we have to accept that we don't master everything and it's by doing that we might learn more. So we academics, we already need to do a lot of effort before we ask you to do anything. And then we also need to understand what is the dynamics between all of us. The very... us academics would like to think that we develop the theory, then we give it to policy, and then policy will make some rules, and then practice will do that, and there might be some trickle-down effect and learn by it. But of course, it's not anymore like this. We... Yeah, I didn't add the other one. But right now, we are all observance of what is happening. So with all those circular economy programs, it's great that they are out there, but it's a great study material as well. Will they really do what they promise? And it's very early to say it, because they just started a couple of years ago, but we need to give a feedback very soon in order to, well, reinvent them and reschedule them in the very future. Just to finish with the goal of these seminar series, as I mentioned before, the idea was a three-part seminar series in three very different contexts. Cape Town, a city with multiple crises. A city most of you knew the water crisis that happened in Cape Town, but there is also a huge waste crisis that we don't hear about. There is only one landfill that is there, and it's the only one left, and they don't have any permits to open another one. So in three to four years, Cape Town doesn't know where to put their waste. And think about how it's interlinked with the water issue. Because there was the water issue, the idea was you should not wash your dishes anymore, you should have only throwaway dishes, because we don't have water. So for me, it was a fantastic case study of urban metabolism, how all of the challenges were linked, and we could see them on the ground. Beijing was another case study. Unfortunately, we didn't have many city officials, because it was China and because of the language barrier as well, but we learned some insight from international academics, and then Brussels. Well, a lot of things, in the 70s already kind of pushed some things, and his colleague Gilles Bilen as well, in urban metabolism and industrial ecology. A little... Well, it tapered off for 30, 40 years, and now we have a boom of researchers, policymakers, practitioners that are around this topic, and I'm very excited about this. And so the idea is what can we get by this more mature case study, which is Brussels. And I mean Brussels, it's the extended Brussels, so Flanders is part of Brussels, the Netherlands are part of Brussels, but Brussels as our network of friends and colleagues. Yes, some pictures of the Cape Town seminar and then the Beijing seminar, and then... So the final goal of all of this and why we want to do this is to really develop a better interface between all of us and to think about it, and that's what we hope these three seminar series could at least provide a first stab. That is it for this Kuolwadi's urban metabolism presentation. We will now have four different presentations from practitioners from around the world. Thanks.