Circular Economy at the Stanley Foundation’s 59th Strategy for Peace Conference

​Following an invitation by the Stanley Foundation, Mr. Lorenzo Formenti of UNCTAD attended a two-day roundtable discussion on “The Role of International Climate Change Policy in Addressing Disruptive Economic, Technological, and Social Change”, examining the role of climate policy amid disruptive change. The roundtable, held at the Airlie Center outside Washington DC, was part of the 59th Strategy for Peace Conference that the Stanley Foundation convenes annually to address key policy challenges, drawing on the experience and knowledge of invited experts.

Discussions have pointed to the multi-faceted nature of climate change, being not only a policy issue itself, but also cross-cutting trade, technology, labour, education and health policies, among others. In this context, participants have engaged in an interactive debate on new reality-based approaches to advance the climate agenda, identifying key policy links between societal behavior and climate change. Discussions have stressed the need to move from target-setting to action-setting for climate, promoting sustainable production and consumption models that are deeply-rooted into the real economy.

In his kick-off remarks to session 4, “Converging and Diverging International Institutions and Climate Change”, Mr. Formenti presented UNCTAD’s ongoing work on trade dimensions of the circular economy, providing insight into the adoption of circular business practices by the world’s largest global corporations. With respect to key challenges for international policy-making, he underlined the importance of designing systemic incentives that enable (circular) business models to work across borders.

The Stanley Foundation has previously joined forces with UNCTAD for an event on the contribution of circular economy practices to climate change mitigation and economic diversification at COP23 in Bonn (/meeting/cop23-side-event-raising-ambition-climate-action-through-circular-economy-strategies).