CIRCULAR ECONOMY MEETS LCOY

A short review of an insightful conference, the Local Conference of Youth LCOY Germany. The LCOY-Team invited me as a speaker and I had a chance to share insights about Circular Economy and a regenerative future in the workshop.

The LCOY 2023 | Local Conference of Youth, is a volunteer-organized climate conference and Europe's largest climate conference for young people. They act where climate protection begins. In my workshop and keynote, we went beyond and checked out #circulareconomy as a chance on our journey to a regenerative Future?!

Circular Economy is much discussed and highly traded when it comes to leading our society and economy out of the climate crisis. A high claim for a concept that is not so new. In the workshop, we took a closer look at the initially abstract principle of the circular economy to see what role such a concept can play in tackling complex challenges such as climate change and loss of biodiversity.

In the workshop, we discussed what changes in consumer behavior, on the business side and in society can be useful and why. What good practices already exist and what distinguishes them? Experts speak of 700,000 new jobs worldwide by 2040. What skills and abilities are needed in these new areas and how young people can prepare themselves today to actively shape this regenerative future was our topic.

I was very interested in checking out the level of interest and understanding of the circular economy of youth here in Germany. It was moreover a great chance to compare these findings with my experiences in working with over 800 youth on circular and regenerative practices in Y4CF online world classes as well as in field projects in Africa during our Y4CF programs.

The organization of the event was great. My workshop took place on the first day conference right after the opening. The conference program was challenging and the youth had many choices. Therefore I was positively surprised that so many youth joined my topic and singlized high interest in a not very familiar but very complex topic.

All of the participants were very curious, only 3 or 4 had had deeper ideas about circular economies and models.

This relates actually to the evaluations of our programs with over 800 students school and university students (14 - 28 years, from IN, FR, GER, BRA, ZWE, GHA, USA, KOR).

• youth who join our circular or regenerative vocational training education programs are interested in climate-change-related topics.
• nearly all of them are motivated by the desire to help and to save the planet
• how to match this compassion with future jobs and create career paths, or conventional career options is very unclear or even ambiguous.
• Most of the youth are not familiar with the circular economy model and they are more or less not familiar with the systemic change.
• Most of them heard about sustainability or even worked on projects, like Youth in India.
• The small percentage that has a rare idea, their knowledge is linked to the information of specific sectors and media information like sustainable fashion and greenwashing or pollution, waste, and therefore e.g. reuse, refurbish, and recycle.
• We identified at the beginning of the programs a lack of entrepreneurial courage and skills regarding circular models, impact-driven project management, impact-related financial options, and interdisciplinary and interculturally relations.
• The awareness of the linkage of their consuming behavior and the consequences on the local, countrywide, and global levels differs in the different countries.

• A high percentage was very focused on fast solutions. Learning journeys connected to challenges the youth defined by themselves fueled the inspiration to dive deeper. Reflection practices have been essential.
• The youth who have been open to exploring and reflecting, the ones who have been curious enough to learn beyond, connect themselves with others, and are free from status and shortcuts have been easily capable of finding new, systemic, circular approaches to so far identified challenges. The others more or less repeated standard ideas.
• After the program, the youth have been very aware of the complexity. This means they checked solutions on diverse levels along the circular model. They understood that shortcuts lead to problems and not to solutions in complex interlinked environments.

Next to many future leading capacities like critical thinking, connecting the dots, and global mindset and cultural awareness, I would like to highlight one in particular: stepping outside of the "helper-" box into the great space of co-creation and starting their network as relationship builders.

At the LCOY workshop, we discussed the challenges of economies becoming circular, and the youth identified one important risk: fast solutions in highly complex environments. It seemed to them that one of the biggest challenges is to create solutions that do not fuel a problem from our current state of experience. We have had only a short time to enter the same platform from where we walk the talk on circular models as inclusive models to ensure a regenerative future.

Conferences like the LCOY Germany driven by youth are playing an important part in the transition. They are based on open-minded exchange, co-creation, and relationship building. Therefore the LCOY Germany is a perfect example of youth as pioneers and catalyzers of a different future.

#circulareconomy #genderequitiy #SDG4 #innovation # Youth #Leadership #Climatechange