The Circular Economy
Presented by the Manufacturing Futures Research Institute at Swinburne University of Technology.
A circular economy is a system aimed at encouraging sustainability through the continuous use of resources and reducing or eliminating waste. Business and industries around the world have adopted circular methods to achieve sustainable processes. There is also an increasing trend to national and regional policies on aspects of circularity, most recently in Australia. However, to achieve a truly sustainable circular economy requires market, industry, social, and policy innovation, and global progress to date has been slow.
This session will highlight circular economy practices and challenges, both in Australia and around the world.
Associate Professor Gavin Melles will discuss the origins of circular economy relative to sustainability, current policy and implementation. He will also draw on the contribution of recent circular design proposals and tools.
Dr Stacey Konash, will discuss different circular business models, focussing on remanufacturing: drivers, barriers and opportunities for R&D.
The presentations will follow with a Q&A session for participants.
Please join us.
Speakers
Associate Professor Gavin Melles
Associate Professor of Sustainability & Social Innovation, School of Design
Swinburne University of Technology
Associate Professor Gavin Melles is currently researcher with the Centre for Design Innovation (CDI), affiliate researcher with the Centre for Urban Transitions (CUT), theme leader for the Sustainability and Circular Economy stream of Design Driven Manufacturing at the Manufacturing Futures Research Institute (MFRI), and also member of the Social and Environmental Sustainability in Organisations Research Group (SESIO, Faculty of Business and Law). Dr Melles was chief investigator (CI) on three interdisciplinary projects with the CRC Low Carbon Living (CRC LCL, 2014-2020), assesses for the Australian Research Council (ARC) and other organisations and has had research fellowships at TU Dresden, RWTH Aachen, University of Edinburgh, Basel University, IIT Madras in areas of sustainability and design. Melles is Associate Member of the International Environmental Management Association (IEMA).
Dr Stacey Konash
Senior Manager, Factory of the Future
Swinburne University of Technology
Dr Stacey Konash holds a Master in Ecology with a specialisation in Physical and Analytical Chemistry from Belarussian State University, Belarus. Stacey obtained her Ph.D. in BioElectrochemistry focusing on developing biosensors for application in industrial chemical processing from the University of Limerick, Ireland, while receiving advisory supervision from Oxford University, UK. Before joining Swinburne, she has worked in medical devices industry, developing immunoassay for cardiac events diagnostics. Prior, she has been a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Monash University, Clayton (ARC project with Oxford Biosensors Ltd, UK) and the University of Hawaii, USA.
Stacey is currently working on using Industry 4.0 tools to enable circular economy business models in Australia. She is focussing on sustainability of plastic and composites industry and aims to decrease the impact of high-technology material on ecosystems. Another direction of her research addresses change management in manufacturing and process optimization.