A round table meeting, the participants of which talked about standardization as an important tool of the circular economy.
Moderator of the discussion - Vice-Rector for Innovation and Project Activities Professor Irina Antonova stressed that the main reason why this topic was brought up for discussion was problems that negatively affect the quality of life. These are huge volumes of industrial waste, emissions into the atmosphere, sewage pollution, and the lack of a culture of responsible consumption.
The current economic system is not able to reduce the negative impact on the environment. All over the world, experts note the dead-end nature of the linear model of the economy, therefore, there is a tendency for a large-scale transition to alternative models of the economy – a closed-loop economy. This model is closest to the "green" economy model, which is clearly spelled out in the 17 Sustainable Development Goals formulated by the UN.
The meeting participants discussed the main characteristics and relevance of the transition to a circular economy, standard models, regulatory, technical and financial mechanisms, and also identified the points of support, growth points necessary for the transition to this model and its development.
So, Associate Professor Stanislav Antonov, Dean of the Faculty of Management and Engineering Business of KIU, in his speech on the topic "Cluster development as a tool for building a circular economy" touched upon issues related to stimulating the transition from a linear to a circular economy on the part of the state and the importance of regionalization of the circular economy. Gulnara Kfn, Associate Professor of the Ural State University of Economics, spoke about the investment aspect of the qualitative assessment of the growth potential of the circular economy. Professor of KIU Lenar Salimov outlined the trends of standardization of construction in the context of the formation of a circular economy. Igor Maksimov, Adviser to the Department of Technical Regulation and Accreditation of the Eurasian Economic Commission (Moscow), made an interesting presentation, which identified the prospects for the application of technical regulation measures of the EAEU as a tool of the circular economy.
The topic is important, so the discussion turned out to be interesting and informative. But the priority is to train qualified personnel to work in the conditions of the new model. KIU is a federal innovation platform for the circular economy and has already trained the first specialists. In addition, university scientists conduct a number of scientific studies in the field of circular economy.