Australian jurisdictions have a shared vision of transitioning to a circular economy and this shift involves fundamental changes across value chains - everything from the design of products and circularity of materials flows, to creating the right incentives and legal structures to stimulate circular business ideas. Equally essential is the consumer, who must be encouraged to create demand in order to drive the success of the circular economy, alongside investment capital and innovative financial instruments that reflect the changing money flows and risks of these new ways of doing business.

In this webinar we will uncover the experiences of European policymakers and companies in action, with examples of innovative products and services that deliver circularity. 


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MEET THE SPEAKERS

		VERONIQUE HYEULLE Adviser - Global Sustainable Development,  Directorate General Environment,  European Commission Véronique Hyeulle is adviser for global sustainable development and the external strategy of circular economy within the Directorate General for Environment of the European Commission. She notably worked for the Directorate General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (DG GROW) where she was responsible for the industrial relations with Mercosur, Central and Latin America, Africa and ACP as well as for the Missions for Growth and the external aspects of competitiveness. With nearly 20 years of experience within the European Commission, mostly in external relations, she has an extensive background in international cooperation at bilateral and multilateral levels, industrial policy & entrepreneurship, trade, environment & sustainability issues, and other EU policies and instruments. Véronique Hyeulle studied law in Belgium, as well as European and International Business Law in the Catholic University of Louvain and in the University of Liège. She also studied Trade at the University of Cambridge (UK). She was trainee in the European Commission in the area of trade and antidumping and participated in the negotiation of the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade during the Uruguay Round. She was lecturer in EU Environment law and policy in the Institut d'Etudes Européennes of the Catholic University of Louvain. PRESENTATION: Scaling and accelerating the circular transition - EU’s new Circular Economy Action Plan.
		JYRI ARPONEN Senior Lead - Circular Economy, Finnish Innovation Fund SITRA Jyri has over twenty years of experience in business development, marketing and financing as well as accelerating company growth and internationalization. He has a deep knowledge on sustainable businesses, internationalization and innovation networks. In recent years Jyri has been working with different industries and organizations to identify potentials and benefits to sustainable growth and improve the performance of companies through digitalization and customer driven business models.  Now he is working as a Senior Lead in Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra, directing circular economy business programs with technology and chemical industry companies to help to turn inefficiencies in current linear value chains into business value with circular business models.  Prior to joining Sitra 2009 as a Business Director Jyri held the position of CEO in a marketing agency for eight years and was a member of the board in a global network of advertising agencies. His focus was on customer branding , competition and marketing strategies. He has held various positions in the Ministry of Trade and Industry and in European Networks working with SME's and different business ecosystems. PRESENTATION: Shifting the focus to the whole product and value chain life-cycle.
		PAUL HUGHES Managing Director & CEO,  Integra Systems (Victoria) Paul Hughes founded Integra Systems in 1991 straight out of university, having competed a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering (First Class Honours). He has built Integra into a leading, award winning, Australian industrial product development and advanced manufacturing company. Paul has created a culture of innovation and sustainability within Integra, and strives to ensure that this is at the forefront of each team member’s thinking.    Circularity by design has been a focus for Paul since he founded Integra. In recent times, this has only been formally acknowledge via the terminology ‘Circular Economy’. With innovation and circularity at the core of Integra’s ethos, and a stronger market appetite than ever for local manufacturing, Paul believes that the future of Australian manufacturing is solid for those who are willing to be agile, flexible and responsive to dynamic market forces. Paul advocates International Digital Licencing collaborations which form a key component of these market forces, creating a major foundation of a circular economy in a local manufacturing environment through the reduction of emissions, wastage and many other sustainability factors, particularly with products that have circularity as a core component of its design.
		WIDO VAN DEN BOSCH Managing Director, Brink Industrial (Netherlands) Wido van den Bosch joined Brink Industrial Holding via a management-buy-in in 2013. The group now comprises of Brink Industrial (sheet metal fabricator), Lune (circular waste bins), Artola (BBQ’s) and MadeCircularBy… (network and expert advise on circular business transformation).  The year Wido joined Brink the government in the Netherlands launched its VANG program (in Dutch: from waste to value) which forms the basis of the Dutch policy on Circular Economy. That program was formed around the principle of separating waste at the source. Since Lune was making waste bins for separating waste at the source it caught his eye and immediately saw the opportunities. Via a contact at the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management he was introduced to the circular policy and started to implement the principles of the circular economy in his company Lune. The entire product line of Lune was redesigned and the first circular waste bins were made in 2014. Ever since, he has applied those principles to all the group's companies and is truly bringing circular economy into practice. Their factory Brink is now combining the principles of Circular Economy with those of Industry 4.0. Again an innovative step towards a more sustainable and regional way of producing which can compete with traditional foreign manufacturing countries. The partnership Brink recently closed with Australian-based Integra Systems fits perfectly with its ambition to join forces with like minded companies around the world that can make their designs according to the same principles and standards, but in the market where those products are sold. CASE STUDY: Australian-Dutch SME partnerships - new ways of collaborating.

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