Zero Waste Conference: Over a Decade of Collaborations, Connections, and Circular Solutions

Since 2012, Metro Vancouver has convened the Zero Waste Conference, an inspiring event that unites passionate circular economy leaders from around the globe, empowering cross-sectoral connections, collaborations, and solutions. 

The Zero Waste Conference returns this November. Exploring the theme, “Innovation and the Business Case for Waste Prevention,” the event offers an engaging program and carefully curated platform for showcasing and discussing innovation in waste prevention and actionable steps toward a zero-waste future in Canada and beyond.

Sparx has attended the Zero Waste Conference for years, and for this upcoming edition, we’re proud to share its story and to be partners of the 2025 iteration of the event.

Back in 2023, we had the pleasure of speaking with Joanne Gauci, Senior Policy Advisor of Zero Waste Collaboration Initiatives at Metro Vancouver, for Make The World Better Magazine, and we’re thrilled to share our recent interview with her, where she shares insights into the Zero Waste Conference, including an inside look at what’s new this year.

For those who may not be familiar, what is the main mission of the Zero Waste Conference, and how did it get started?

We’ve been hosting the conference since 2012, and I think it’s played a really unique role in terms of being at the forefront of Canada’s discussion around waste prevention in the circular economy. It is a key deliverable of [Metro Vancouver]’s solid waste management plan, dating back to 2011. 

At that time, when we were updating the solid waste management plan, we realized that we were doing a good job at effectively managing waste, but we weren’t going to stem the flow of waste unless we worked upstream with businesses, governments, and other sectors of society to design waste out of the system.

So that’s the origin story, not just for the conference, but also for the National Zero Waste Council—and those are intended to be very complementary platforms where we try to advance new solutions around this particular focus area.

We’re trying to provide the space to support action and collaboration and bring together new, bold thinking and innovative solutions, all with that focus on designing waste out of the system.

What motivates your team to organize the event, and how do you work together to make it a success?

We love working on the Zero Waste Conference! We’re always inspired by the speakers that come, the participants in the room, and the diverse perspectives and bold ideas that are presented. Many people have been with us from the very start, and it’s lovely to see and hear the connections that happen.

We get very excited to curate this program with the support of an amazing multimedia team, and we work really closely with our partners, elected officials, and others across the organization to do that.

The collaboration with the National Zero Waste Council means that we also get to pull in different partners across the country. That helps us to understand what are important and relevant topics both for Metro Vancouver [and] across Canada.

What key themes or topics will be addressed at this year’s conference?

This year, it’s all about innovation and the business case for waste prevention. There’s momentum building, but we’re working in a rapidly changing landscape. Costs and affordability are more of a consideration, and we want businesses and entrepreneurs to be able to scale these new solutions. How can we really scale these solutions and create that industry-wide, society-wide change at the level that we need? You’ll see some sessions in the conference that speak directly to that [and economic considerations]. We need these solutions to make environmental sense, but we also need them to be embedded within the economy.

[Our closing keynote will] be a conversation between a future-looking product designer and a future-looking architect, and it’s intended to get us to leave on a hopeful note. But what does that look like, to look up and out? I think we’re trying to push this big ball uphill right now. New technologies, science, thinking—how will that change the way we design our products and also our buildings? We’re excited for that conversation as well. 

We will [also] have an innovator showcase in the morning. People love to hear the journeys of people who are trying to disrupt the marketplace and present new solutions into the marketplace. Here in Vancouver, we have so many great circular economy success stories for businesses—FoodMesh, ChopValue, ShareWares, debrand—and it’s always great to see them come back and to understand how they’ve scaled or taken that next step.

How do you select speakers, panellists, and sessions to ensure a diverse and impactful program?

Every year, we try to shine a spotlight on new people who haven’t been featured before. And we work really closely with our elected officials and our partners across the country—that’s a large part of the collaboration with the National Zero Waste Council. 

We make sure that we choose topics that respond to regional priorities, but are also very reflective and timely in terms of the current economy and the conversations that are going on. 

We were [also] at the Circular Economy Summit; we work really closely with Circular Economy Leadership Canada (CELC) and others, and we want to help build these conversations from one to the next, so that you can start to draw new conclusions and make new connections. 

From your perspective, what makes the Zero Waste Conference unique compared to other sustainability events?

We’re trying to focus on those solutions and new ideas that will help us to design waste out of the system, [while] bringing together a mix of stakeholders. We have public, private, and not-for-profit leaders from Metro Vancouver and all across the country coming to the event. 

We try to balance local, national, and international success stories [as well]. We want to make sure that we’re shining a light on the innovations in Metro Vancouver, but also bringing great new ideas home to Metro Vancouver. This work is still very emergent and that cross-pollination helps us to understand what might be new pathways moving forward.

We want to demonstrate the art of the possible and be that place where you come and you’re inspired, and we bring these concepts to life about what the future could look like. At the same time, we want to make sure we look at the practical solutions on the ground that we can grow.

What are some of the biggest zero-waste or circular economy challenges you see right now in BC?

For us, the lens is always the need for greater collaboration and dialogue for those upstream solutions and the focus on waste prevention.

Not surprisingly, single-use items and the transition to reusables is a really big conversation. We’re going to have a session on hospitality and entertainment, which is a great connection point. Food waste and construction waste—when you just look at what’s in the landfill and what’s being disposed of, these are big parts of the problem.

The other thing we’re hearing a lot is the business case for change. We are 10 plus years into doing this event and advancing this work through the National Zero Waste Council, and we still find that people are having a hard time making the case internally for change. So, how do we articulate what the economic case is for some of these new solutions? How do we bring them to life and demonstrate what these potential solution pathways are, particularly in our current climate, when we have affordability issues?

These are all big challenges, and we know we, or any one sector, can’t do this alone.

How does the conference aim to address or spark solutions to these challenges?

In broad terms, we really just want to create the space to nurture those collaborations and those connections across stakeholders and inspire people to think about some of their challenges differently. It can be very hard work when we’re deep in the trenches, and sometimes you need to come up and look at things with a fresh perspective, and we hope that you get some of that inspiration at the Zero Waste Conference.

Can you share any standout moments or success stories from past conferences?

A very memorable year was when we brought Ellen MacArthur in. That was in 2013, so it was very early on in her journey, and it was very early on in our journey. I think it speaks to how long we’ve been trying to make this connection to the circular economy as a solutions framework, and also the need for the waste prevention lens to be front and centre. [We have an] ongoing relationship with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, so that was a great moment.

Having all of those stakeholders in the room has meant that a lot of those ideas that are generated [at the conference] have found their way into actions, strategies, and collaborations at the National Zero Waste Council, which is another really big initiative for Metro Vancouver.

We [also] love hearing from participants, how they have been able to make connections and see collaborations and actions grow.

What do you hope attendees will take away from this year’s event, and how can they get involved in its mission?

We really want people to leave inspired. We want people to leave feeling empowered to go back to their regular jobs and make some of the changes they feel they can make. And we want them to make those connections that can lead to new actions and new collaborations. We want people to go away feeling like they’ve been able to think about things differently and [to] know that they’re not on their own, that we’re all trying to push this big ball uphill.