The project Vietnam Material Marketplace

Vietnam’s national action plan on green growth includes many actions that fit with the transition towards a circular economy and the VCCI has established the Centre of Excellence on Circular economy under VBCSD to address these challenges. The Materials Marketplace is about scalable solutions that take advantage of information and communications technology (ICT) to increase efficiencies, reduce costs, and enhance quality of life. VBCSD and Pathway21 have been working to establish a Vietnam Materials Marketplace for the past two years.

Interest in the Materials Marketplace concept in Vietnam is triggered by the rapid process of urbanization and the resulting challenges. Between 1991 and 2014, Vietnam’s official urban population doubled from 14 million to 30 million.

Cities in Vietnam face the following challenges:

• • Water pollution, with urban wastewater one of the largest contributors to water pollution
• • Air pollution due to traffic and the growth of fossil fuel energy consumption by industry and coal-fired power plants in northern Vietnam
• • Traffic congestion
• • Land use, environmental impacts and loss of raw materials due to landfill and burning of municipal and industrial solid waste
• • Social-economic challenges and health hazards in the nearly 3000 villages which specialize in recycling discarded plastic and other waste materials, like electronics (e-waste).

The people involved (operating in the informal sector) tend to be socially marginalized, tend to live on or near garbage disposal sites, and are exposed to environmental and safety hazards.

Given the current limited resources of this initial phase, the Vietnam Materials Marketplace will focus on three emerging sectors: plastic, paper and coal slag from thermal power plants in Vietnam.

Details about the project can be downloaded at:

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