Italy  

I am pleased to alert PASCAL subscribers to information about the New Club of Paris/World Capital Institute Conference, which will take place in the UNESCO World Heritage city of Ragusa in Sicily in November. Here at this link is the call for submissions which is also featured below for your convenience.

The concepts of sustainability and regeneration have opened up to alternative economic frameworks including the circular and bio-economic approach, social ecological economics and degrowth. Bio-economy refers to a more sophisticated and sustainable model for the economy based on efficient and regenerative use of biological resources.

Social-ecological economics is committed to dealing with environmental depletion and finding climate-just alternatives to unsustainable production and consumption, while intellectual capital can provide the qualitative grounds for degrowth. The concept of sustainability in its advanced dimensions of knowledge-based alternative economics has thus gradually evolved compared with the original idea of bio-economy and circular economy.

Together with Cathy Garner, I am organising the "Cities and Regions" track. There will be a scholarly session, and one for practitioners, such as mayors, city officials, and business representatives. We are particularly keen on contributions on the "knowledge-doing gap", or why despite our knowledge of climate risk, cities still mostly don't prepare enough. This we think is an interesting learning city topic.