For the inaugural 2019 Taiwan Circular Economy Week, the EPA organized the Taiwan Circular Economy Summit and advised the Asia Pacific Circular Economy Roundtable according to this plan. The highlight of the summit was the attendance of seven officials and experts from abroad, including Janez Potocnik, co-chair of the International Resource Panel at the UNEP. At the summit, exchanges were held on the topics of transformation into a circular economy, the plastic circular economy, circular construction, recycled aggregates applicate, and the solar PV module circular economy. With regard to participation in international bilateral exchanges, the EU-TW Circular Economy Seminar 2019 was successfully completed, and participation in the Taiwan-Vietnam Environmental Protection Seminar was duly facilitated according to this plan. Exchanges were held on the topics of plastic circular economy, circular construction, and solar PV module circular economy, and visits to Belgium and Germany were arranged after the EU-TW Circular Economy Seminar. As for the Taiwan-Vietnam Environmental Protection Seminar, exchanges were held with five Vietnamese delegates on the current status quo of waste disposal in Taiwan and Vietnam, as well as the technology of environmental protection industries. In terms of participation in other international conferences on the circular economy, the EPA assisted with the third World Circular Economy Forum (WCEF2019) and participated in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) 2019 Green Growth and Sustainable Development (GGSD) forum and bilateral exchanges on circular economy between Taiwan and France according to this plan. The WCEF2019 was held in June in Finland, where the theme centered on the next era of the circular economy and scaling up the circular economy transition. The 2019 GGSD forum was held in November in Paris on the theme “greening heavy and extractive industries and achieving sustainable development”. Discussions were held on the fiscal implications of transitioning to a low-carbon economy for countries with rich resources or those reliant on imports, the innovative motivation behind greening heavy industries, and possible new geopolitical implications of natural resource endowment. As for exchanges on and awareness promotion of waste among Taiwan’s diplomatic allies, the EPA organized a waste disposal education and promotion campaign in Solomon Islands. The campaign provided Solomon Islands with mechanisms to dispose of waste, technology to deal with small scale waste, and education and promotion strategies, successfully deepening our exchanges and cooperation in environmental protection with global partners. In order to improve the quality and efficiency of plan execution, Key Performance Indicators (KPI) were defined and major developments, events, and progress on circular economy in 2020 within the UN, APEC, WCEF, OECD, EU, America and Canada, and the Asia Pacific were compiled. Analyses on the domestic development of issues including plastics, construction, solar panels, and agricultural waste was done and suggestions and focal points of future efforts were provided.

Circular economy, plastic circular economy, construction of circular economy