VANCOUVER – Thought leaders, innovators and global brands will converge on Vancouver over the next two days for the ninth annual Zero Waste Conference, hosted by Metro Vancouver.   The 2019 Zero Waste Conference brings change-makers and innovators from different sectors and around the globe to share their insights and winning strategies.   The two-day forum will highlight successes, pitfalls and opportunities as businesses and communities shift to zero waste principals, through in-depth sessions on business model transformation, plastics, design innovation and circular cities.   TIME AND LOCATION Wednesday, October 30: 8:45 a.m. – 4:45 p.m. Thursday, October 31: 8:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.   Vancouver Convention Centre East, 999 Canada Place Vancouver, BC V6C 3C1   SPEAKERS INCLUDE:  

• Opening Keynote Skylar Tibbits – Founder of the Self-Assembly Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Skylar will provoke audiences to radically reimagine how we use materials and interact with products in our daily lives – his vision is a world where buildings, products and machines are capable of self-assembly, repair and replication, without robotic parts.
• Closing Keynote Valerie Craig – Deputy to the Chief Scientist and Vice President of Operating Programs, National Geographic Society, Valerie will amplify the great challenges presented by plastics waste, questioning how we got here and discovering potential solutions that will require global thinking and human ingenuity.
• Harald Friedl, CEO, Circle Economy – Harald will share insights on how to accelerate the global transition to a circular economy: can it be the key to tackle the climate crisis, biodiversity loss and diminishing resources?
• Arthur Huang – With a vision where everything from consumer goods to buildings is made from recycled materials, Arthur is singlehandedly accelerating the shift to the circular economy. Through his company Miniwiz, he has created TRASHPRESSO, a portable, solar-powered recycling platform that turns plastic into new products in only ten minutes.
• Tom Szaky – The founder of TerraCycle and Loop, Tom presents a new way of shopping that eliminates single-use packaging. In Loop, products are delivered directly to customers in durable containers that are then collected and refilled at least a hundred times before being recycled.
• The conference also welcomes as speakers executives from Subaru, Unilever, Nature’s Path Foods, Canadian Tire, Ellen MacArther Foundation, The Finnish Innovation Fund: SITRA, Ocean Wise, City of Helsinki, Smart Prosperity Institute, Arup Canada, Cascades Recovery+, The Natural Step Canada, Recyc-Quebec, Metabolic, Recycling Council of Alberta, and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.