The regional training will be organized by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) in cooperation with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and with support of the Environment Agency Austria (UBA) and financial support of the European Union.

The Regional training on the production and use of waste and circular economy statistics and indicators aims to contribute to developing capacity in countries to produce, share and use indicators on waste and circular economy as recommended in the revised UNECE Guidelines for the Application of Environmental Indicators.

The main objectives of the training are to:

• Familiarize participants with existing frameworks and guidelines for producing waste statistics and measuring circular economy, such as the Conference of European Statisticians’ (CES) Waste Statistics Framework, the CES Guidelines for Measuring Circular Economy as well as the UNECE Guidelines for the Application of Environmental Indicators.
• Provide a technical overview of the different steps for the production, sharing and use of the UNECE waste and circular economy indicators through good practices and experiences from experts of different countries and international organisations.
• Explore data sources for producing waste and circular economy statistics and indicators, including from business and industry, and through applying different tools such as waste mapping
• Discuss challenges that could result in delays and gaps in the indicator production procedure and identify possible solutions
• Understand how to use - statistics and indicators recommended by UNECE to measure a transition towards a circular economy, to inform relevant SDGs and reporting requirements.
• To understand also what additional statistics or disaggregation may be required for analytics on the meso- and micro-levels (i.e. looking at specific materials, sustainable supply-chains, circularity of individual economic sectors, etc.)

The target audience for the meeting are producers and users of waste and circular economy statistics and indicators, including participants from National Statistical Offices (NSOs), environmental agencies and other line ministries participating within the Statistical Systems (economy, industry etc.) and experts from relevant national and subnational agencies as well as business.