PRESS RELEASE – Translated from French
Friday, 04/28/2023
Zero Waste Touraine and the Skellig Foundation are meeting at Leonardo da Vinci on May 6th.
Zero Waste Touraine is organizing a seminar on May 6, 2023 entitled “Innovate to throw away less: limits and opportunities” in partnership with the Skellig Foundation. This free and friendly event is open to all, upon prior registration. The seminar will take place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Auberge du Prieuré (2 rue du Clos Lucé in Amboise), located within the grounds of the prestigious Clos Lucé, a place dedicated to the memory of Leonardo da Vinci.
Since 2017, Zero Waste Touraine (ZDT) has never stopped innovating in order to find solutions to the overproduction of waste. The association has thus filed 2 patent applications, 3 brands and has developed software returnable property management professional. It has also created training cycles, educational activities, original ideas and has actively collaborated with academia in fields as varied as sociology, design, environmental management, insect biology. ZDT is also about economic innovation, with the establishment of a rental-maintenance service for its flagship collective composter, the Compostou, anchored in the functional economy and Passplat, its service for distributing returnable glass boxes, a symbol of the circular economy. According to Sébastien MOREAU, Director of ZDT, “at each stage of innovation technological, we also had to innovate on the economic and social levels, because if the challenges of the transition ecological are better and better understood, society is still very much imbued with a certain model of consumption, linear and wasteful of resources, from the pitiful thirty”, a nod to the socio-economic balance sheet increasingly contested environment of the so-called “glorious thirty” period (1945-1975).
Even more recently, ZDT has developed an audit methodology for the prevention of business waste economic, unique in France, which is aimed at companies of all sizes. “We help large corporations and local authorities to design their waste prevention policy. They understood that in the reducing waste at source means there is real financial leeway. We have passed the era from “all disposable” then to “all recyclable”, things are finally moving”, emphasizes S. MOREAU. In 2021, the association has begun a process that has enabled it to push the innovation cursor even further, on the organizational plan this time: “By overhauling our own statutes, we have moved to collegial management operated by a group of versatile administrators, who act as the link between members, employees and the various
association partners. It’s much more horizontal and collaborative,” says S. MOREAU.
It is to discuss the contributions and limits of innovation in all its forms, in terms of
waste prevention, that the association is organizing the seminar on Saturday May 6, 2023. The event is organized in partnership with the Skellig Foundation, an Irish NGO that supports research activities inspired by works of the great Leonard De Vinci. According to one of its representatives, Dr. James McCarthy, “the Skellig Foundation” is pleased to sponsor the Zero Waste Touraine seminar, as part of its sponsorship activities which aim to find solutions to meet the enormous climate and sustainability challenges facing humanity is confronted”. The day before the seminar, Friday May 5, 2023, the Skellig Foundation will announce, also at the Auberge du Prieuré du Clos Lucé, the winners of its international Skellig Foundation’s Leonardo Da Vinci competition Inspired Climate “Solutions” for Young People 2022-2023. This competition will reward the best ideas offered by young people aged 18 to 35 who have been instructed to draw inspiration from the work of the genius of the Renaissance to concretely fight against climate change (https://skelligleonardo.org/).
Registration link for the Zero Waste Touraine seminar (before May 3):
Press contacts (do not distribute):
Sébastien MOREAU, Administrator of Zéro Déchet Touraine: contact@zerodechettouraine.org, 0633891313.
James McCARTHY, Administrator of the Skellig Foundation: ocmac@yahoo.com
Leonardo Da Vinci Inspired Climate Solutions Competition for Young People 2022-2023 