United Nations Entities Come to Dresden for Conference on Sustainability

The Institute for Integrated Management of Material Fluxes and of Resources of the University of the United Nations (UNU-FLORES), the Technische Universität Dresden (TU Dresden) and the Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development (IOER) are organizing the inaugural Dresden Nexus Conference 2015 (DNC2015) from 25 to 27 March.

Envisioned as a platform that brings together experts from national and international academia, politics and civil society, every two years the DNC will provide a platform for an update on academic and practical initiatives advancing a nexus approach to the sustainable management of environmental resources.

“The DNC is a unique opportunity to establish an interdisciplinary nexus between distinct topics of global importance, and to bring together internationally renowned scholars and high-level policy makers from all over the world. It is a cornerstone in our efforts to explore ways to a green city model, as well as more ecologically sustainable urban and regional development”, summarizes Prof. Bernhard Müller from IOER.

Promising to be one of the largest and most significant international conferences on sustainability in Germany in 2015, the inaugural DNC will bring together senior officials from UN Member States, policy-makers and managers of environmental resources; representatives from academic, educational and research institutions, national and international organizations, NGOs and others from around the world under the theme “Global Change, Sustainable Development Goals and the Nexus Approach”.

In the lead-up to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in December in Paris, participants from Africa, Asia, North and South America as well as Europe will meet in Dresden to discuss what the Nexus Approach can contribute to achieving the potential targets of the post-2015 agenda.

“The nexus approach to the sustainable management of environmental resources integrates environmental management and governance across sectors and scales. This approach is based on the understanding that environmental resources are intricately interconnected. Considering their mutual dependencies in environmental management may increase resource use efficiency while at the same time environmental risks and ecological degradation may be minimized,” explains Prof. Reza Ardakanian, director of UNU-FLORES.

Taking all these factors into consideration, there will be three thematic topics over the course of the three days; each day will deal with one aspect of global change: climate, urbanization and population growth. Day 1 of the conference will show how adopting a nexus approach may mitigate the growing water, food and energy insecurity due to climate change from an environmental resources perspective. The objective of Day 2 of the conference is to explore opportunities for multi-level governance arrangements that foster inclusive forms of urbanization based on an improved understanding of trade-offs and scope for synergies.

Day 3 of the conference will show that the management of environmental resources guided by a nexus approach can support the sustainable and economic feasible intensification of biomass production. These themes will be thoroughly addressed in numerous scientific sessions, daily keynote speeches from prominent scholars, poster presentations and an exhibition hall compromising stands from UN and academic institutions as well as the private sector.

Prof. Karl-Heinz Feger, Dean of the Faculty of Environmental Sciences at TU Dresden, states: “Research on the sustainable use of environmental resources at various spatial scales is not only based on interdisciplinary cooperation, but also has to ensure that stakeholders become involved already at a very early stage. Thus, we expect that the DNC will produce ‘blue-prints’ to meet those requirements”.

Dresden Nexus Conference 2015: Global Change, SDGs and the Nexus Approach
25–27 March 2015
Deutsches Hygiene-Museum
Lingnerplatz 1
01069 Dresden, Germany

Contact: DNC2015 Focal Point
Rachel Shindelar
UNU-FLORES
Communications and Advocacy Associate
Tel:+ 49 351 8921 9377
E-mail: shindelar@unu.edu

http://www.dresden-nexus-conference.org – Homepage of the conference
http://www.ioer.de/home/ – Homepage of ioer.de
https://flores.unu.edu/ – Homepage of UNU-FLORES
http://www.tu-dresden.de/uw – Homepage of TU Dresden/Faculty of Environmental Sciences

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