The regional training workshop was held on 20 and 21 June 2024 in Vienna in a hybrid format.
The regional training workshop aimed to contribute to developing capacity in countries to produce, share and use indicators on waste and circular economy as recommended in the revised UNECE Guidelines for the Application of Environmental Indicators.
The main objectives of the training were to:
- familiarize participants with existing frameworks and guidelines for producing waste statistics and measuring circular economy, such as the Conference of European Statisticians (CES) Waste Statistics Framework, the CES Guidelines for Measuring Circular Economy and the UNECE Guidelines for the Application of Environmental Indicators.
- provide a technical overview of the different steps for the production, sharing and use of the UNECE waste and circular economy indicators through good practices and experiences from experts of different countries and international organisations.
- explore data sources for producing waste and circular economy statistics and indicators, including from business and industry, and through applying different tools such as waste mapping
- discuss challenges that could result in delays and gaps in the indicator production procedure and identify possible solutions
- understand how to use statistics and indicators recommended by UNECE to measure a transition towards a circular economy, to inform relevant SDGs and reporting requirements.
- understand also what additional statistics or disaggregation may be required for analytics on the meso- and micro-levels (i.e., looking at specific materials, sustainable supply-chains, circularity of individual economic sectors, etc.).
Participants
The target audience for the meeting were producers and users of waste and circular economy statistics and indicators, including subject matter experts from National Statistical Offices (NSOs) being in charge of producing waste statistics (e.g. completing the UNSD/UNEP questionnaires on environment statistics), environmental agencies and other line ministries participating within the Statistical Systems (economy, industry etc.) and experts from relevant national and subnational agencies as well as from the private sector.