Feasibility study for a virtuous material cycle in Indonesia - A cooperation between Tohoku University and the Institute of Technology Bandung

The recent economic development of developing countries did not only increase the overall wealth of these countries, but also the environmental problems related to production and consumption of goods. For this reason, the Future Earth program was established at the UN Conference of Sustainable Development in 2012 in Rio. The purpose of this program is to bring together scholars and stakeholders from various disciplines for finding solutions in a changing world. In a joint project between Tohoku University and the Institute of Technology Bandung (ITB), we investigated how society and technology can adapt to changes that lead to a sustainable development on Java Island. Such a concept requires the implementation of the 3R principles Re-duce, Re-use, Re-cycle and the enhancement of these principles to a virtuous 3R system in which all waste materials are considered valuable resources. However, it is not sufficient to look out only for technological solutions. It is also necessary to include the society into this process. The idea of co-creation in which stakeholders from national and local authorities, industry, academia, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) together decide about the direction to sustainability leads to a circulating economy. We formed three groups for the investigation of certain aspects of the research object. The Nature-Society-Group explored the impact of human activities on the environment; the Society-Culture-Group elaborated the basics of lifestyle; and the Technology-Society-Group investigated the technological status of the region. We found that the cooperation between universities having the related technology and methodology and universities with contact to the involved stakeholders provide a better chance to promote progress in the Future Earth program. The project was concluded with a symposium hosted by ITB, where stakeholders from all the relevant groups joint and discussed the present situation and the future path.