In the pursue to continue sharing good practices despite the current restrictions posed by the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic, experts from the LIFE IP CARE4CLIMATE, Slovenian Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning team with their Finnish colleagues from the LIFE IP CANEMURE project organised a webinar between 18- 19 May 2020. The video meeting, which included presenters from the LIFE IP CIRCWASTE project, the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE), and Natural Resources Institute Finland (LUKE), focused on the topic of sustainable and related circular public procurements, energy-efficient buildings, and the prevention of food waste as crucial sectors on the path towards a carbon-neutral society.
On the first day, participants got acquainted with the already planned Finnish measures for the transition to a carbon-neutral society, practices to improve energy efficiency in buildings, related methods for the reuse of construction materials, and the Finnish sustainable and innovative public procurement system. Sustainable use of public funding is a key driver in the transition towards a circular economy. Implementing circular public procurement as part of national green and/or sustainable procurement processes represents a large part of efforts to achieve net-zero emissions of greenhouse gasses. Slovenia is on the right track to start implementing the circular public procurement approach as it is already established in the Slovenian Public Procurement Act.
The purpose of the second day was to exchange experiences on methodologies for measuring food waste. Experts agreed that measures taken by countries when trying to halve the amount of food waste in line with United Nations targets should be based on well-developed methods for obtaining data on how much food is wasted in each country throughout the food chain. After presenting different methodologies for measuring food waste, they agreed that they are facing similar challenges and that both countries will be using a combination of different methods, which will lead to more accurate data. Furthermore, together with food chain stakeholders, they will identify the most pressing problems in each area and try to solve them.