The Hunter JO officially launched our Hunter & Central Coast Circular Economy Roadmap in July with a fantastic networking breakfast event with attendance from across the region. This Roadmap was co-designed with a view of the region’s strengths and challenges to showcase our successes and set a path for the next 12 months. This enables us to collaborate and accelerate towards our longer-term shared vision of being Australia’s leading regional circular economy.

Attendees heard from industry and local circular economy experts about circular economy projects and initiatives throughout the region, and our speakers included:

• Mayor Kay Fraser, Lake Macquarie City Council and Chair of the Hunter JO’s Circular Economy Sub-Committee
• Tim Askew, Regional Policy and Programs Manager – Hunter JO
• David Hughes, Director of Built & Natural Assets – Lake Macquarie City Council
• Brett Allan, General Manager – Molycop
• Jess Hodge, Founder – Resourceful Living

It was a really successful event with 53 participants in the room and 30 joining us online. We had attendees from across multiple industries including government (19%), business (80%) and academia (1%). It’s great to see so many businesses in the room eager to learn how they can put the circular economy into practice.

This launch event demonstrated that many Hunter businesses are working together to achieve a more circular economy and that interest in the circular economy is growing in the region, particularly within the business community. Local circular businesses are beginning to emerge and are strongly positioned for growth.

The importance of collaboration was highlighted at the launch, with a focus on networking between business, industry and government in order to come up with circular economy solutions to enable systematic evolution to a more sustainable future.

Collective impact is vital to achieving a more circular economy and scale up the Hunter region’s circular economy ecosystem.

The roadmap document is now live on the Hunter Circular website, and we welcome businesses with a circular service, product, project, or solution to register on our database.

You can also join our LinkedIn Group and keep the conversation going! The recording of the event is now live on our YouTube channel.