LCM Australia goes circular with home grown speaker making waves in Europe

LCM Australia 2015, The 9th Australian Conference on Life Cycle Assessment and Life Cycle Management, announces home grown European sustainability expert Jodie Bricout as its international guest speaker.

Hosted by the Australian Life Cycle Assessment Society (ALCAS), the national peak body for Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) professionals, on 24th and 25th November in Melbourne, the conference will present the latest data, tools and approaches showing how to ride the wave of business opportunities that emerge from transforming to a more sustainable society.

After working on sustainability strategy with clients such as SA Water, Investa and Melbourne Ports corporation, Jodie Bricout left Adelaide in 2003 for the industrial region of Northern France.

Working at the non-for profit cd2e that drives the green-growth agenda in the region, Jodie has developed a world recognised Life Cycle Thinking platform called [avniR]. On a local scale, [avniR] brings together industry, public authorities, experts and support agencies to develop collaborative projects around LCA, eco-design and environmental labeling. Their unique focus on helping SMEs take competitive advantage of Life Cycle Management quickly gained international attention and their bilingual conference series attracts 300 participants from more than 20 countries annually.

Jodie developed and managed European projects around Life Cycle Management worth more than eight million euros with partners across seven countries and has developed strategy and communication for the UNEP/SETAC Life Cycle Initiative. She was recently elected to the board of the Forum for Sustainability through Life Cycle Innovation (FSLCI).

For the past two years, Jodie focused on how Life Cycle Management contributes to the circular economy; a clear priority area for Europe.

According to the European Commission, a circular economy aims to maintain the value of the materials and energy used in products in the value chain for the optimal duration, thus minimising waste and resource use. By preventing losses of value from materials flows, it creates economic opportunities and competitive advantages on a sustainable basis. Jodie coordinated the Northern French contribution to the European circular economy strategy, and represents the region in the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s CE100 programme for Cities and Governments.

“The circular economy is a strategic framework to create value: environmental value from resources, but most importantly sustainable jobs and real growth opportunities for forward thinking businesses” explains Jodie. “Life Cycle Management is key to this transition, it is only when you really understand the impacts of your products way beyond the production facility, and how they interact with other parts of the economy that you can start to redesign the system.”

Last week, Jodie was invited to speak with Dame Ellen MacArthur, founder of the influential Ellen MacArthur Foundation at the “Circular Economy 100” acceleration workshop in Milan. “Sharing insights from a little known region in France with groundbreaking businesses such as IBM, ebay and IKEA, and government leaders such as Denmark and Scotland was both humbling and reassuring- we all have a part to play, we all have to develop solutions together and I can’t wait to meet with more Australians around these issues in Melbourne.”

Jodie will share her insights on the links between LCM and the Circular Economy and latest developments in this field in Europe at LCM Australia. She will also demonstrate how collaborative life cycle projects can add value to businesses, based on a case study of the beer industry in Northern France, and talk about how the upcoming Product Environmental Footprint method from the European Commission is being developed for thermal insulation materials in buildings. This new initiative goes beyond carbon footprint by incorporating, among others, water footprint and toxicity indicators.

To hear from Jodie book your tickets to AgriFoodLCA, LCM Australia 2015, AusBuildLCA or all three conferences at the Mercure Melbourne Treaury Gardens.