Spring is the season of new beginnings and renewed energy and this is exactly how we feel after our General Assembly meeting in the city of canals, Stroopwafel, and too many bicycles to count, Amsterdam. This was our sixth General Assembly and the third time we all got to meet in person and strengthen our professional relationships and/or friendships. We were kindly hosted by our colleagues at the AMS Institute.
So how did we spend our time in the Dutch capital? We were welcomed at the premises of the Institute – right by the canals and close to the National Maritime Museum – by Zwanet Van Lubek, the institution’s managing director. Zwanet introduced us to the Institute’s mission and presented its work on advancing innovative urban solutions for a more circular city. And if there is a country that takes sustainability seriously, we know that’s the Netherlands!
Then, we went on to discuss how our tasks had progressed since the previous General Assembly. Each of the 8 Work Packages (thematic working groups, if you will) shared updates on their work, milestones reached, and challenges encountered, and what they were planning to do in the following months. The afternoon session was dedicated to a series of workshops led by our colleagues at Strane Innovation, on risk assessment. We were asked to list potential risks when developing and implementing our technologies and find ways to mitigate them.
The day ended with a bit of physical activity: we were given a guided tour of the Marineterrain Amsterdam Living Lab, located right by the AMS Institute. The Marineterrain is a space which serves as testing ground for a variety of creative solutions aimed at making the city more liveable (for example, charging stations for electric bikes, parking lots transformed into green spaces, and drop-off points to collect all types of recyclable materials in one single place).
The second day was reserved for each of the five value chain working groups to exchange experiences and lessons learned and plan activities together. As such, there were five workshops simultaneously, on packaging, plastics, CDW, textiles, and WEEE. These were followed by a demo of the Data Sharing Platform our colleagues at Suite5 Information Technology Solutions have developed, where we had the opportunity to see how the platform works, test it out for ourselves, and identify potential mishaps.
The General Assembly ended with an insightful presentation by James Hallworth, commercial manager of the Port of Amsterdam, who spoke about the Port’s circular economy initiatives of the past decade. The cherry on top? Part of the team went to visit their headquarters – while the rest was heading to the airport…
All in all, it was a fantastic meeting. Our gratitude goes out to Francesca Alberti, Michelle Molema and Lalith Aaditya Karthikeyan for the flawless organisation and warm welcome. We’re already looking forward to our next meeting, which is already planned – but we won’t spoil it just yet…
