Exploring case studies, waste streams and governance structures.

Following on from the first, highly successful stakeholder event held in Brighton in June 25, the Circular South East moved location for the second stakeholder event to East Malling in Kent, to engage with as many interested parties as possible who are based to the east of the CSE region.

Niab (National Institute of Agriculture and Botany) kindly hosted the event, and attendees also had an incredibly interesting tour led by Scott Raffle of the facilities which is a world-class centre of excellence for applied research and innovation in commercial horticulture. As the UK’s largest horticultural research and development organisation, Niab at East Malling undertakes work primarily in perennial and clonally propagated crops, providing scientific research, technical services and practical advice to improve the yield, efficiency and resilience of crop production across the sector.

Parts of the visit included looking at trials to increase strawberry yields, climate sensitivity trials and a look at the wine making facilities.

Catering was also chosen to be as circular as possible, with an incredible menu supplied by the talented chefs at Wasted Kitchen, created from surplus produce, much of it local to the area. Over the lunch period attendees were also able to look over the small exhibition of circular materials brought by the CSE team, from recycled plastics to bio-based materials.

Following the tours, the 25 attendees (from 23 different organisations) had an short series of updates from the CSE team, an introduction to the Social Innovation Framework from Seda Yontem of Ecolocus and two case study presentations from local stakeholders - Simon Barnes from Growing Kent and Medway and Ross Walker from Bon Volks Studio.

The group was then split into three breakout groups, each facilitated by a member of the CSE team to discuss two main questions:

• defining the role of Circular South East as a hub

• discussing the potential governance structure

Each of the groups had very engaging and productive discussions - with the final plenary session revealing the many of the conversations had clear overlap, which was very encouraging as the attendees ranged from local authorities, higher eduction, local businesses and representatives from national businesses in construction, health and policy. Results from this session will be collected and used to inform the next stage of works for CSE, which is primarily building the Governance Structure, legal structure and building up a Strategic Advisory Board. Many of the attendees also expressed clear interest in being involved in these formalised roles, which is highly encouraging.

You can see a recap video of the day here.

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