The United Nations University (UNU) is as a UN Organization a global think tank and postgraduate teaching organisation headquartered in Tokyo hosted by Japan. The mission of the UNU is to contribute, through collaborative research and education, to efforts to resolve the pressing global problems of human survival, development and welfare that are the concern of the United Nations, its Peoples and Member States. UNU operates through a worldwide nexus of institutes and programmes that are coordinated by the UNU Centre in Tokyo.
Sustainable Cycles (SCYCLE) is a Programme hosted by the UNU Vice Rectorate in Europe based in Bonn, Germany. Its activities are focused on the development of sustainable production, consumption and disposal patterns for electrical and electronic equipment, as well as other ubiquitous goods. UNU-ViE SCYCLE is leading the way in global quantification of e-waste product flows, with more detailed e-waste generated/arising analyses carried out in individual EU Member States, such as the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy, Romania and the Czech Republic. Their expertise and pioneering quantification activities have been recognised by the European Commission, especially in the awarding of e.g. the CWIT project under FP7, ProSUM, PolyCE, FORAM, ORAMA and SCRREEN under Horizon 2020 and DOT.COM Waste under DG Home. SCYCLE also contributed to the development of UN-recognized guidelines on e-waste statistics and initiated the development of UN-E-waste, unifying the UN organizations’ e-waste work. Moreover, UNU hosts the Solving the E-waste Problem (StEP) Initiative, a global, multi-stakeholder network consisting of 50+ members from government, OEMs, refurbishers and recyclers, academia, international organizations and NGOs. UNU also initiated the UN internal discussion towards UN-E-waste, a joint initiative of all UN organizations harmonizing
the e-waste work from a life-cycle perspective under UN Environment’s Environmental Management Group.
Role in the Project
UNU-ViE SCYCLE leads the WP 1 “Baseline”. The project will benefit from UNU’s experience as a global
network of networks and with institutes and programmes around the globe on each continent. According to its mandate UNU’s role is to bring scientific expertise into the policy development and making. Therefore, UNU is well tasked to lead the inception and baseline work, but overall also to disseminate the results of this project and attract key international partners for the project and support the development of a trusted atmosphere for cooperative work.
