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Summary

For the first time, the topic of the 7th IWACP: Cleaner Production for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals was discussed by Colombians, Brazilian and foreign researchers for three days at the Universidad de la Costa in Barranquilla, Colombia.

The Postgraduate Program in Production Engineering of Universidade Paulista and the Universidad de la Costa organized the international conference. The event counted with the partnership of the UNISON (Universidad de Sonora, México), University of Manitoba (Canada), BNU (Beijing Normal University, China), the Firenze University (Italy), the Deakin University (Australia),  the Journal of Cleaner Production and the ACPN (Advances in Cleaner Production Network).

The conference received financial support from TNO Innovation (through the inno4SD.net) along with the institutional support of FAPESP (São Paulo Research Foundation) and ABEPRO (Brazilian Association of Production Engineering).

The partnership with the Journal of Cleaner Production, that started during the 1st IWACP was maintained with the support of the Co-Editors in Chief: Prof. Cecilia M. V. B. Almeida, Prof Yutao Wang and Prof. Jiri Klemes and resulted in the Call for papers for Special Volume of the Journal of Cleaner Production: Cleaner Production for Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, dedicated to the 7th IWACP to be published with the best works presented in this seventieth edition.

In the first time that the conference was organized outside Brazil, the organizing Committee considered that all the pre-established goals proposed to be attained during the 7th IWACP were fully reached:

(1) The academic information exchange goal was fully achieved. It was significant the number of participating academic institutions (58 universities and colleges), that reflected in the 99 academic contributions presented. The excellent quality of the contributions presented, in a process of continuous improvement as was seen edition by edition, resulted in the seventieth invitation by the Journal of Cleaner Production (JCLP), for a 7th special issue. There is also a second special issued in the Journal of Environmental Accounting and Management (JEAM), and for a first time a special volume for a Latin American journal, Inge CUC.

(2) Presentations of recent achievements in CP were made by a significant number of participants.

(3) The common problems and routing of solutions were discussed extensively and deeply at plenary sessions, oral presentations, and workshops. Four workshops were offered during the conference, where working groups were formed to discuss the contribution of their research to achieve the sustainable development goals. These activities were coordinated by foreigner and national invited speakers.

The first workshop "Responsible Consumption and Production”, with 28 participants, was conducted by Dr. Feni Agostinho (Universidade Paulista, Brazil) and Dr. Gengyuan Liu (Beijing Normal University, China) and provided a deep discussion the contribution of researchers to the SDG 12 , and how perform fairer environmental-social directed evaluation.

The second workshop “Climate Action and Affordable Clean Energy” was conducted by Dr. Luis Velazquez (Universidad de Sonora, Mexico) and Dr. Carlo Vandercateele (Leuven University, Belgium). The twenty four (24) participants who attended the workshop discussed about the problem of aligning cleaner production actions to contribute to the SDGs 7 and 13.

Dr. Luca Coscieme (Trinity College Dublin, Ireland) and Dr. Paul Sutton (University of Denver, USA) offered the workshop titled “Sustainable Cities and Communities”. There, the twenty six (26) participants discussed feasible and unfeasible ideas for the main causes and the main alternatives built sustainable cities and Communities and contribute to SDG 11.

The fourth workshop “Industry Innovation and Infrastructure” was directed by Dr. Carlos Poveda (TNO, Netherlands) ans Dr. Cecilia M. V. B. Almeida (Universidade Paulista, Brazil). The 22 participants were invited to reflect on options towards industry future and its sustainability, and to reflect about potential contributions to SDG9.

(4) The increase in international relationship through individual and institutional contact was a goal achieved. Participants of 20 countries attended the conference.

(5) The deepening of the discussion on the fundamental theme of the conference: Cleaner Production for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals was the concern of the conference. Given these impressive results, the Organizing Committee is honored for having organized the 7th International IWACP in Colombia.