The workshop
The workshop was organised by EASME and four Horizon 2020 projects (SMART-PLANT, HYDROUSA, NextGen and Project-O) within the 3rd International Water Association conference on Resource Recovery (IWARR), held in Venice in September 2019.
Over 70 delegates including water utilities, technology providers, policy makers, and businesses participated in the workshop and agreed on potential impacts and exploitation of large EU-funded innovation actions. The participants discussed opportunities, barriers and challenges and provided policy, business, and technical recommendations.
The workshop started with a plenary session, where projects pitched their water circular economy solutions to panels of experts representing clients and stakeholders. The plenary was followed with breakout sessions to discuss opportunities and challenges in the market uptake of the proposed circular economy solutions. Five thematic areas were analysed: Water & Energy, Water Reuse, Nutrient Recovery & Recycling, Bio-based Resource Recovery and Recycling and Water-energy-food loops and their implications for water tariffs.
IWARR
SMART-PLANT was the key organiser of the third edition of the IWARR. The conference addressed the circularity of the water sector “from concept to standard practice” and the role of urban water management within circular economy. It hosted over 300 water stakeholders and professionals from around the globe. Several H2020 projects participated showcasing large-scale demonstrations. It also discussed the impact of the latest research and innovation for sustainable water treatment and recovery and reuse of renewable resources from the water cycle.
More information
- Download the report
- News article 'Upcoming international conference to address new challenge in wastewater treatment'
- Newsletter on IWARR
- IWARR 2019 extended programme (including abstracts)
- Projects' websites: SMART-PLANT, HYDROUSA, NextGen, Project-O, INCOVER, SALTGAE, Water2Return, DWC