“WATER 2030” – SYMSITES shares its knowledges in a prominent conference on Water Security in Italy
On 24th January SYMSITES flew to Italy, precisely in Pisa, to present its innovative perspectives on wastewater management – through the Industrial-Urban Symbiosis approach – in an international conference on water security.
The workshop was organized by Acque spa – the company manages waterworks, sewerage, and purification for over 800,000 citizens in 5 Tuscany provinces (Pisa, Florence, Pistoia, Lucca, and Siena) – in collaboration with SYMSITES and partner KlinK srl.
The event was a great success and saw the participation of more than 90people, coming from all across Europe. The participants represented the main stakeholders at the national, regional and local levels, including policymakers, universities, industries and water utilities – besides almost all the project partners.
This meeting and the networking have been a fundamental step to expose the public to the Industrial-Symbiosis choices, and a lever of industrial competitiveness for the economic sectors concerned. Public services would derive important benefits which will leade to greater availability of resources for strategic investments.
This event also highlighted how programming on the one hand and territorial synergies on the other are indispensable conditions for effectively addressing both the protection of water resources and the optimization of the sustainable potential of water reuse.
SYMSITES has been present throughout the whole event: starting from the presentation of the project by Maria Blanes from AITEX (the project coordinator), the public received significant information about the EcoSites, thanks to a presentation given by the representative of the Spanish EcoSite, Nuria Zamorano Lopez, from FACSA.
Additionally, Juan Sobreira Seoane (from the partner ITG) spoke about the challenges that intersect urban-industrial symbiosis with reuse, while Paolo Santinello (from the partner KlinK srl) involved participants in defining the requirements of the Social Decision Support System to include social considerations in evaluations of Urban-Industrial Symbiosis.
Finally, the partner AGRA presented some good practices carried out in Israel related to I-U Symbiosis concerning the reuse of waste for water wastewater reuse.
Maria Blanes, project manager of SYMSITES commented:
“We are very proud to participate in this type of event, where we can build synergies enabling more efficient use of water, materials, energy, towards a sustainable circular economy”.
A well-rounded participation certainly exposed participants to the innovative characteristics of SYMSITES.
During the event we have been shooting a few interviews to our partners that we are looking forward to sharing soon – but for the time being, have a look at some pictures here below!
