SETAC Europe 34th Annual Meeting

¡Bienvenidos a Sevilla!

This year’s meeting theme is “Science-based Solutions in Times of Crisis: Integrating Science and Policy for Environmental Challenges.” The conference aims to highlight the demand for new science-based solutions to many of the challenges lying ahead of us. How can we ensure environmental quality and long-term sustainable solutions in our post-pandemic world, with compounding crises such as food production, cost of living and armed conflict?

SETAC researchers are trying to tackle daunting challenges that include the re-design of the agri-food chain, countering  biodiversity loss, changes in land use and coastal ecosystems and new regulatory frameworks encouraging sustainable innovations in the chemical industry. Environmental science can contribute to understanding some of these changes, for example by realistic risk assessment of chemical pollution in soil and water (i.e., by incorporating state-of-the-art of bioavailability concepts), by determining the environmental safety of recycled materials, as well as by evaluating the life cycle of new products and processes and their effects on the ecosystem services. Integrative approaches are needed, that not only to address the new potential risks, but to identify renewable solutions to protect natural resources, following the principles of the European Green Deal.

The meeting theme complements SETAC’s mission and strategy. State-of-the-art environmental approaches should tackle the associated environmental safety concerns; sustainability aspects and remediation options for chemical pollution should occur at a global scale in times of crisis. The global dimension of SETAC and its adherence to multisector co-operation and communication between academic, industrial and regulatory stakeholders ensures an appropriate platform for discussing these environmental issues. With approximately 1,500 members from all around Europe, global thinking finds its best place in SETAC Europe, the biggest environmental community of our continent.

Jose Julio Ortega Calvo
SETAC Seville Scientific Committee Chair
Instituto de Recursos Naturales y Agrobiologia