 Thank you very much for inviting us and to be able to be part of this meeting and this seminar. Well, it's definitely not my complete responsibility for being here. It's also Walter Thamesen-Ellen and OVAM that supports this ID, although it's been a struggle in a sense to be able to be discussing urban metabolism as a new concept, whether it's useful or not. And then we will discuss it throughout the presentation and see what our lessons learned so far because it's still in development, of course. We're talking about circular territorial development in Flanders. You have different definitions or different discourses at the moment and we're still figuring out how should we call it, should we call it circular territorial development, area development or area functioning, for example. We're not touching upon that discussion at this moment. I shortly introduced Circle of Flanders to you. We are actually a group of different organizations. OVAM is at the core of this transition group, this team of about 14 people that is working on different subjects of the circular economy, but we are in a partnership with different knowledge institutions, societal partners, companies and other governments. We are moving towards the right direction. And actually it's below there. We have a publication just got out with an overview of everything that we do and did in Dutch, but there will be one in English as well in a couple of weeks. So everyone can see what did we do the last two and a half years because Circle of Flanders now exists for two and a half years. Before that, there were other initiatives, other things that were working on sustainable materials management, but Circle of Flanders is an encompassing group of team of different people with the steering committee with these partnerships. And we have been there now working on different subjects for two and a half years. So please visit the public publication. So what do we do? The Flemish government has decided upon seven transition priorities and Circle of Economy is one of them. It still is. Although the Flemish government has reorganized itself, new ministers are there, new policies are being drafted, but it still is. It may change a bit, but we think the Circle of Economy will be on the top list of the policy priorities in the coming years. We try to keep it that way, of course. What do we do? We are a network. We develop and share knowledge. We try to make innovation possible, innovation by people, innovation by companies that have good ideas on the Circle of Economy. We try to make it happen. We facilitate it. We try to, of course, influence policy makers and set new policy lines. And we try to embed it and anchor it into society. This is very theoretical. What do we, well, exactly? We hear some subjects. It's not everything. For example, the issue of financing the Circle of Economy is very important. We've been working on it for about a year quite severely, but it's not on this, well, this charter, this list. We've been working on circular procurement, circular building as a very hot topic, as an important topic. We've been subsidizing companies and initiatives that need some seed money, need some funding. We've been a help desk. We have a research CE center. And we also worked upon spatially integrated actions and area development. So let's focus on that subject in the next 50 minutes. So why do we work on this subject? Area development, territorial, circular territorial development. Because we do not have any space to waste in Flanders. This is Flanders. This is about 30% of the area is already covered in concrete. And that's about the same as Malta. And Malta is more or less a rock. So we are here in a very densely populated area with a lot of infrastructures, building structures, a build environment. And we need to get it in line with the future ambitions that we have. We have to reconcile this way of working, this way of developing, with future ambitions and future challenges. This is in Dutch, but you might imagine what we need to do. We need to interweave different functions. We have to reuse available space and different sites. We have to intensify the use of our open space or the use of our, not of our open space, of our build environment already and see what we can do with that. We have to temporarily use places and we have to, of course, expand no more, no more into the open areas. We need to maintain the soil qualities. We need to maintain the green areas as they are or improve that even. This is the big challenge. So we've been involved with circular territorial development, exploring, mainly exploring the possibilities by research, by research, by design and by interaction with other people and organizations. We've been building capacity within the Flanders region. We have capacitated others to think further, to do more. And we've been engaged with experiments as well. So these are some of the areas that we are working on. You see the southern part or the eastern part, central Limburg, where there's a specific challenge for redeveloping the economy and the economic structures there. There is the Brussels Metropole, which also includes a part of the Flanders region. So that's why we are there as well, involved with exercises and new policy making initiatives. We've been in the province of East Flanders and we've been at the coastal areas. We've been very active in these regions and there are some issues that do not actually do not actually attach to a specific place or city or region. And then we call it a program or we call it a concept. For example, thinking about the value of circular metabolism is actually a concept that needs to be developed, can depend from a very specific spot. For example, all those think about the development of brownfields. We are actually also responsible for soil sanitation and soil remediation for the region of Flanders. Brownfields provide ample opportunities to really develop these brownfields into a circular way. Not only remediate the soil to make it possible that the area is being sold to the highest market party, but how can we actually steer this redevelopment into something more sustainable and more circular. We'll dive a bit more deeper into the case of Brussels, the Brussels Metropole and Antwerp and we'll leave the other issues out for the moment. So this is something really important. It's made up by Ellen von Buren. She's a professor at TU Delft working on the built environment, a circular area development. We've been working with TU Delft as well and Repair is also a partner in that. We thought this was a really helpful and interesting picture. So you say, well in a circular economy and in the built environment, you have the components and the materials on a small scale level. These components are being used to build actually new buildings or to rebuild buildings. These buildings are part of a built environment. This is the third layer of this engine. This built environment to get a form of an urban fabric or a city and of course a city doesn't function on its own. It's part of a wider environment, the natural environment and the social technical environment that is actually Western Europe, Flanders or even the whole of Europe, depends on how you look at it. So this is a quite natural way of looking at things but then you have these other arrows below. It says, okay, this is when you look at the sustainable nature of components and materials then we might find a difficulty in assessing it but there are ways of doing it. You know, you can actually assess the sustainability of materials. Of course it depends on how you're going to use it but we have some information about that. It's feasible to measure it. It's more easy to measure this level of sustainability than to measure the complete built environment and the sustainability of cities. That's what it's saying here. So it's more ambitious to talk about sustainable cities and to talk about circular cities than to talk about circular products or circular components or circular buildings or circular companies. And what you see as well, you have a lot of stakeholders and a variety of stakeholders that need to be taken into account when you're looking at the broader picture, when you're looking to urban system. And you have a lot of people that want to take initiative that are having a stake in this development. Components and products and companies and buildings are mostly privately owned or there is the free market that decides what's happening. But in the broader picture, there you have the national governments, you have the European institutions and so forth. There's a public, there's more public initiative over there. So this makes quite a complete and also complex picture, but we think this complexity is really something to be embraced. Just a few examples. We'll start from a level of a circular building, so to say. This is Cas Eco and it's building greenhouse houses which are independent of grid and very sustainable in a way. The use of materials, the energy grid and so forth makes it a very sustainable house. You can actually see and feel the sustainability of this house when you're walking there. There is a purification of water system. There is an off-grid electricity provider. Everything is in there. Reusable materials, glass, etc. But then of course it's not a circular city and it's unthinkable that you would have like 1 million houses like that or 10,000 houses like that in an urban area. When you scale up, then you have these neighbourhood developments and we've been talking about Bökslo, Thohamwell, in Ghent there is a area development that's called the Nieuwe-Docke. From a formerly brown field they've been developing housing projects, but these housing projects and these living units are quite sustainable because of the application of different sustainability techniques concerning energy, concerning waste flows, concerning reuse of water, concerning mobility solutions, and then there is also a very innovative governance model over there with a cooperation called Dukop, making it as feasible and it's being fined by Dukop. So this is an interesting mid-level initiative in the neighbourhood where we've seen some interesting things happening. Then we scale up a little bit more, you know, like what's Brussels, what's the city of Brussels, and what's the metropolis of Brussels doing and what can be done to get to a really circle economy in the region. This is something that we did in the context of the International Architecture Biennale of Rotterdam in 2016 and the overall title was the next economy. So how can we sustain a different Nieuwe economy in the area of Brussels, which includes as well a part of Flanders. What's been the approach there? I'm just talking about the approach here, about the methodology and not about the results actually, but I'm talking about the approach and why or why not it is part of the urban metabolism thinking. So they started from regional maps, what's there, what's happening over there, and they soon had to focus on certain flows. We didn't cover all the flows because time and money is limited in most of these research projects. So we focused on construction and consolidation waste on water, on energy, and on organic waste, in fact. Then we tried to make up some lost maps. So what are the indicators that are telling us that we're doing well or doing not well? The logistics and mobility issues are there. Of course waste flows can be pinpointed and we can easily say whether we have too much waste or not, if it's going in the right direction. So there are lost maps, made up some lost maps. Then we tried to combine it with local stories in the area of Buda, in the area of Masui and the neighborhood of Birmingham. And actually in these areas we found a typical type of company or an activity that's taking place there. So at Buda we are talking about Aquiris and the water facility over there, the water purification facility. At Masui there are different construction and demolition recycling companies. At Birmingham we found Abattoir is an interesting place to look at concerning food waste and the reuse of food and organic waste. So from these local stories we tried to make up local circular stories. What can be done there? How should they invest or how should the city invest in new entrepreneurship, in new initiatives? And there we started with formulating circular strategies. How can we reach it and what can be the impact of circular interventions? It served to foster debate, to have an exhibition in 2016. It also fostered the master classes on circular metabolism, urban metabolism. And we also did a movie to make everything clear to everyone. So this is not a report that's available at this moment but the knowledge production helped us to structure the debate and to feed into different exhibitions and activities that we did at that time. So this is the famous master class that we already spoke about. It's still a good exercise I think. But we'll move to Antwerp. Antwerp said okay what's happening in Rotterdam, what's happening in Brussels, what's happening in Glasgow and so forth. It's really interesting and we need to have a new spatial planning for the next decades. And we need some broad perspectives to feed into this development of a new spatial plan. And one of these broader perspectives was to think about the city as a city of flows. In 2016 they decided or 2017 they decided to carry out this research and to actually find out if the metabolic approach would fit their ambitions. And if it would lead to new insights and new ideas about how to cope with the city and to link it to spatial planning. This was very important, spatial planning here. Well it's a different starting point than Brussels. Brussels started from a cultural exercise also. They had an idea to expose it, to feed it into the Biennale of Rotterdam at that time. And it was also very much serving an entrepreneurial goal. In Antwerp they said let's start with this perspective on behalf of our spatial planning plans and our ambitions in this sense. So what did they do? Well actually this here is just a short conclusion. One of the things that has been made up after the bigger research has been done. They said okay for our next spatial plan, structural spatial plan. We will indeed include the circular economy as a guiding perspective. And it has to become a fixed element in urban spatial planning. Because circular solutions provide useful answers for issues such as mobility, climate mitigation and waste. Waste becomes a resource. They are particularly triggered by the fact that a city can become a short distance city where less traffic but more material flows lead to a better city. Because you have so much traffic jams in Antwerp and around Antwerp. So can we stimulate this proximity and close loops as also to have better results in the field of mobility and traffic. And they said okay the biggest wins for us we think are to be found with the energy transition, the build and the construction sector and water and food. So the approach here, the methodological approach was to start with nine flows. Energy, water, food, air, products and materials, waste, people and biota. But they condensed it into four topics, heat and energy, drinking water, street canyons concerning the air and building materials. And then they said okay what can we do around these issues. They tried to have different issues within each topic. So a heat network, it was already in development but this exercise sustained it more. It gave them more arguments to roll it out and to start thinking about new linkages with neighborhood developments and infrastructure work. About street canyons, they said we need a better quality of air in our city and if we can diminish the amount of traffic in our cities then we will also have better air quality. This is a debate that's very sensitive in the city of Antwerp. Can you indeed try to diminish the amount of cars and traffic in the city and do you want it or not? But they should at least try and this has been high on the agenda ever since 2016. For building materials there is specifically an economic gain to be won. The strategy is to install local chains and to have different material hubs in and around Antwerp. So this is also under development and for drinking water and water in general it has been said that we have got to have a bigger picture about water in the city and actually it has been worked out. This is a picture of the diagram of water supplies in Antwerp, inputs and outputs. There is a river mass which goes into the Albert channel, Albert canal and then it goes into different uses and in the end it goes to the Scheld river and the sea. What they actually noticed was that the whole system is really dependent on the river mass and the canal but also the hinterland, the agricultural complexes at Campin region more to the east of Antwerp is really important for sustaining the water supply in Antwerp. Actually in August 2019 just a couple of months ago they came up with a new water plan. They have used some of the notions of this study in this water plan like for example to have an integrated approach towards water, the water quality, water drinking water, water quantity and the different uses that are there and to have an integrated plan which is very very interesting. What they didn't do or didn't mention is the importance of looking at the whole region from the Limburg area towards the Campin towards Antwerp. So it's quite strange to have a water plan which is only covering the city of Antwerp because it's dependent on so much more factors. But still it's a real improvement we think thinking in metabolic terms to look at the integrated challenges that you have in Antwerp for example concerning water. So this is about construction and demolition materials, waste so to say. They've given examples on a detailed level for buildings, for streets, for neighborhoods, for cities and for regions just to inspire policymakers. And they've been actually making drawings from different typologies, from different neighborhoods in Antwerp like the historical center is different than the newer newly built areas at the Linker-Uwe, which is also different from more economically active areas around Albert Canal and all have different opportunities. So a strategy for construction and building materials need to take into account these different areas in a city. And then we said okay we take it a bit further this exercise about construction and demolition materials. Let's try to make a more detailed stakeholder analysis who's there, who can benefit and who can contribute to this transition towards the circular built environment. So we've done that which is actually still not finished. But if you want to have material hubs then you also have investors and places that come together and that combine this vision of a circular built environment with logistical support. And this is a picture of Bluegate Antwerp and there will be at the top, there will be a construction and consolidation center for circular building materials. To indeed help the city to get building materials into the city more efficiently and to get construction and demolition waste out of the city more efficiently. They're actually researching more in detail the material flows of construction materials in and around Antwerp. So you've got a broader picture, the metabolic ideas and strategies, then you've got these stakeholder analysis, these mapping. Then you've got an investor and an idea about logistics. Then you need to overcome these legal barriers. This is a scheme that says okay if you want to use recycled materials then you have to think about all these steps. You have a part of self-control, you have to certify things etc etc. So this is another complex step to take. Then you have to finance your business and this is just a picture with some bottlenecks. And these are a lot of bottlenecks, these are the most important ones. You have to be a viable business model. Banks have to believe you that you are indeed investing in something very interesting. Once you've done that you have to communicate it to your public and you can use apps, you can use marketing tools etc. If you're successful then you have to find someone that really is building with your materials, your reused materials. Is the public ready for it? Are the public authorities willing to use reused materials or waste materials so to say? This is a picture from someone at Böökslo to Ham. This is the self-built street. In the middle there's a house just entirely out of waste materials. It's a very solid house. It has a very big staircase from an industrial site in Belgium which is the centerpiece of its building. Everything is from already used or other buildings or applications. A metabolic approach, sorry. It's not only about the pictures on the logistical side and having new ideas about the flows that enter and go out of your city. For us as a policy agency it's about all these steps. It's about finding the right partners, having a view on the investors and logistics, having a view on the regulation, having a view on financing, having a view on marketing, having a view on the use by the end user. So let's quickly move on to the findings. Circular territorial development doesn't exist. It doesn't exist because you can easily choose different scopes and different scales. You can start from a small scale, you can start from a bigger scale. So it's hard to say this is actually circular territorial development. Every scale has its own qualities. The higher you get, the more complex it goes. And it still doesn't exist in planning law and it doesn't exist in our regulations. So it's a new planning concept that we like to explore and that we see it as advantages and we need really to get further. But it's still not, like we say, there's no consensus on the things that we should or should not do with the concept. So that's why I say it doesn't exist yet and not completely. So always start from the local and existing opportunities and emergencies. We believe that we need to get a grip on the necessary integrated challenges and spatial transformations that are taking place or that should take place. Try to channel the existing energy in the area and I mean energy by the motivations and the ideas that are around. From people that are living there or using the area and from the historical context as well. You can have so much interesting stuff found in the social, geographical and historical context of a place. It's been done in Antwerp, it's been done in Brussels as well and we think that and also at the Buddha area for example. And this is an interesting viewpoint to my opinion. So then maybe the most important one is to aim for a qualitative process. Where intense cooperation and participation is needed unless you only aim for a quick win. But then maybe you end up with bigger problems in the end. Be open, inclusive and aim for a qualitative process. And I say, okay, urban landscape designers are crucial. Several parties are very crucial in this aspect. Data analysts, policy makers, but for us there's been a really big eye-opener that urban landscape designers, planners, architects as well. Bringing a lot of creativity, imagination and concrete ideas on how to implement circular metabolism in cities and regions. So that's something that we learned in the past couple of years. And there are actually useful concepts and examples available. Try to start somewhere and try to be relevant of course. So how to proceed, just a quick note on data and the methodological challenge that we see. This is what we aim for also at the Public Flemish Waste Agencies to have these kind of visualizations for the Flanders region. We didn't do it yet. We have these long tables of waste data and so forth. But we want to get to these kind of diagrams. Who doesn't? You know, everyone does. And we have been very busy with linking the data on material use to greenhouse gas emissions for example. So this is really important also to have in mind that material use is very much responsible for the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that we all emit together. This is quite new, innovative and it delivers a lot of work for my colleagues on data monitoring. I'm not getting into this into detail but it's been far more than we've done 10 years ago. We didn't look at the interrelation between climate change and material use. So we said okay we need to develop indicators for the circular economy and we tried to develop them on a meso level. Not on a macro level, we have some indicators at that level already. You can also look at some micro levels. At the micro level you have product of services and companies and material cycles that you can try to measure. But we think that we need to look at the societal needs and the systems that are most prominently in play there. Like mobility, housing, nutrition and so forth. It's under development and it's happening right now. And I just wanted to make sure that we're actually developing these new data sets and looking at our environment in such a way. But we're still not there to look at the integrated challenge of metabolic flows. Metabolic flows that are connected to regions or cities. So this is actually very interesting to talk about this with you and with metabolic and with circular economy and with other agencies to see if and how we should move to an integration of data. Not only from the material viewpoint but also from energy, water, green areas and so forth to integrate it into a regional vision. So the second thing, how should we proceed is that it is indeed a complexity driven challenge, a process driven challenge. We need to embark on a multi-stakeholder approach. We need to include political, institutional and bureaucratic procedures and there are a lot of barriers at this point. This is what we see at this moment. In the beginning I showed you a picture from Circle of Flanders and it looked like it's all pretty and then we are going in the right direction with the societal partners. Actually this is our more organogram, our more classical bureaucratic organization and there we are. This is one and then there is this vertical steering committee that is also influencing us and the way we work on the circular economy. But then you have all these other institutions and agencies that are working on environmental related issues as well, energy, water, nature, living, integrated area development, housing, etc. And they are still very much working alongside each other and not together, there is no cooperation enough. Then there is the other department of economy and innovation and the support for entrepreneurs. On paper we are working together but there is no real engagement or not enough engagement as to the point that we can say we are doing this together and we are developing new concepts and new policies. And then of course there is this scattered administrative landscape in Flanders with about 381 different institutions ranging from municipalities towards provinces and all these in between organizations. It's interesting, you have a big diversity but it should be improved and you have to find out in the region what's the best way of cooperation, what's the best skill to work on and then you have to get together with 5, 10 or 20 or 30 municipalities and 4 provinces or associated partners. So this is a big challenge. But we are feeling quite comfortable with some of the things that our new minister said and also the things that planners say. They support the idea that we have to really combine these challenges, these societal transitions such as energy, healthy environment, resilient soil and land use, circular economy into a framework of spatial transformations. So we need integrated projects, we need to operate on the right scale from neighborhoods to regions. We need to see some cultural and organizational changes as I've just been arguing. And we need some cross-sectoral and interdisciplinary cooperation. Actually this is the things that I see are important. Or like the IOBR said in a statement, you need to start from a tangible urgency, connect with those who have similar ambitions, support a multitude of strategic actions, target the ambitious goals, trigger viral transformation and hack the missing link. This is really short what we should do and I would like to end here. So I see urban metabolism as a methodological opportunity to use and process data and explore primatic entrepreneurial mode of transitioning at this point. Towards, actually then we should also really finish, towards urban metabolism as a driver for circular society actually that puts spatial planning and land use at its core. Something to be discussed.