Data-driven environmental decision-making

The Scientific Committee for the SETAC Europe 33rd Annual Meeting is committed to putting together a not-to-be-missed conference with an exciting scientific program addressing the overarching theme of “Data-driven environmental decision-making” for the protection and restoration of the environment.

Sustainability, breaching planetary boundaries, the intersection of pollution, biodiversity and climate change, mixture toxicity assessment and moving towards a reduced-pollution environment are some of the emerging topics in the science and policy domains of relevance to SETAC, spanning environmental chemistry and toxicology. Central to all of these “big-picture” environmental challenges is the need to integrate across large, and often disparate and sparse, datasets to develop an overarching view of the interactions, dynamics and feedback in between the ecosystems and the stressors. Building on the SETAC SciCon (Dublin 2020) meeting, whose theme was “Open science for enhanced global environmental protection”, the SETAC Europe 33rd Annual Meeting (SETAC Europe 2023) will continue the theme of access to data as being central to enhanced environmental understanding. This is the only way forward in measuring; modelling; assessing; predicting; and science-based decision making. Data sharing and re-use is also the optimal way forward to protect ecosystems; their biodiversity; productivity and functionality. Ultimately, a solutions-focussed approach to environmental protection and restoration, that integrates local contextual knowledge to tailor solutions to local conditions, is a fundamental component of responsible environmental toxicology and chemistry decision-making.

To support the transition to renewable economies and sustainable business practices, and to facilitate the translation of scientific knowledge into data-driven policymaking and regulation,SETAC Europe 2023 will bring together scientists from various disciplines in academia, business/industry and government to share, debate, discuss, disseminate and facilitate the use and re-use of their most recent scientific knowledge to support adaptive and responsive environmental management and protection.

The breadth of topics that SETAC Europe 2023 will address includes:

1. The environmental fate and effects of emerging and existing pollutants and their mixtures, at cellular, organism, community, population and ecosystem levels;
2. The development of solutions to reduce, replace and regulate the use of known pollutants;
3. Strategies and methods to mitigate and remediate contaminated soil, air and water;
4. Innovations to foster more sustainable practices in agriculture, waste treatment, resource management and more; and
5. Life cycle thinking approaches including supply chain data collection, impact assessment modelling and footprinting methodologies.