Informality in Urban Metabolism
(2022) Interdisciplinary and Transdisciplinary research for Sustainable Development — Location: Louvain-la-Neuve (24.November.2022)
Files
ConferenceAbstract.pdf
Open Access - Adobe PDF
- 114.46 KB
Details
- Authors
Choueiri, Yasmina 
- Abstract
- There is an urgent need to optimize resource use in cities and the Urban Metabolism (UM) approach is widely adopted to quantify urban flows as it allows policymakers to translate results into action plans that mitigate resource consumption and associated emissions. It has also proved relevant to the establishment of evidence-based Circular Economy (CE) policy in recent years. Economy-Wide Material Flow Analysis (EW-MFA) has become a popular UM model. While EW-MFA has developed in a robust way, it does not account for informal flows because of the difficulty to identify and quantify them. The overarching research question is how can we develop a more inclusive CE approach by integrating informal flows and their actors into CE policies? We have two goals: first we will develop an expanded EW-MFA that takes into account informal flows; second we will test this method for the city of Brussels. We use Brussels’ case study to inform Wallonia’s expanded EW-MFA. We start with a literature review on informal flows to identify the flows that are not typically accounted for in the overall economy and in national statistics. Then, we update the EW-MFA using these informal flows. To test the expanded EW-MFA for Brussels we characterize the informal flows and actors, to assess their role in the economy and their environmental footprint. We identify and map informal actors and their flows by identifying the volume of informal resources consumed/used, their economic values and environmental impacts. This allows us to identify barriers and opportunities to inform CE policy through focus groups with public/industry stakeholders. The expanded framework is presented to Wallonia stakeholder to discuss the type of informal actors and flows that could be included in an UM framework specifically for Wallonia. We develop different focus group meetings to test our theoretical model and application of the model for Brussels. The meetings are held with Brussels’s Circular Economy networks that have worked on the CE Plan including BeCircular and other NGOs having led/participated in the CO-CREATE research programme funded by the Brussels Capital Region, Institute for Research and Innovation Innoviris. We expect to have four main findings. We expect to have an updated expanded EW-MFA theoretical model that integrates informal flows. We also expect to have an applied model for Brussels highlighting the volume of informal resources consumed/used, their economic values and environmental impacts. This allows co-producing more accurate and inclusive CE policies for Brussels. Finally, we apply the expanded EW-MFA in an UM framework specifically for Wallonia. Some of our major partners include Bruxelles Environnement, Bruxelles Perspective: Stratégie territorial, hub.brussels CO-CREATE, and Innoviris. Additionally, the project is embedded in the Urban Metabolism Lab, a novel interdisciplinary research lab at UCLouvain coalescing doctoral postdoctoral researchers and senior scientists whose aim is to advance urban metabolism theory and modelling through integrated methodologies across multi-disciplinary fields. The Lab will provide peer counseling and methodological support to the researcher. This work is supported by the Wallonie-Bruxelles International - WBI under Grant n° SOR/2022/550158.
- Affiliations
Citations
Choueiri, Y., & Perrotti, D. (2022). Informality in Urban Metabolism. Interdisciplinary and Transdisciplinary research for Sustainable Development, Louvain-la-Neuve. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/104030