The Circular Hotspot event location for 2026 in the Asia Pacific region has been decided. Sydney, Australia will host the 2026 edition in partnership with Oceania nations.
Announcement From Taipei
Songshan Cultural and Creative Park, Taipei (Taiwan), October 23, 2025.
Sydney, in the State of New South Wales, Australia, has been selected as the 2026 host for the highly anticipated Asia Pacific Circular Economy Hotspot event. The event will be hosted by Sydney in partnership with Oceania nations. Sydney and New South Wales follow in the footsteps of Taiwan, which organised the first Circular Hotspot event in the Asia Pacific region.
A Global Circular Hotspot Legacy
Circular Hotspot events have a long European tradition with the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Scotland, Belgium, Catalonia, North Rhine-Westphalia, Dublin, Wales, and recently, Slovenia as proud hosts. In Africa, the event took place in Lagos (Nigeria), Cape Town (South Africa) and Addis Ababa (Ethiopia). In the Americas, editions were held in Santiago de Chile (Chile), Guelph (Canada), Recife (Brazil) and will be hosted in Guadalajara (Mexico) in November 2025. Since 2016, when the first event took place in the Netherlands under the wings of Holland Circular Hotspot, these events have showcased best practices, policies and approaches, stimulating businesses to adopt circular principles and inspiring action and policies in new countries — creating nothing less than a circular legacy.
Selection & Jury
The election took place in Taipei (Taiwan) at the Asia-Pacific Circular Economy Roundtable & Hotspot 2025, where around 500 participants from 50 countries gathered to share the latest circular insights. The jury consisted of representatives from former Hotspot organisers: Holland Circular Hotspot (2016), ACEN Nigeria Chapter (2023), Hochschule Ruhr West (North Rhine-Westphalia, 2022), Taiwan’s Ministry of Environment and Circular Taiwan Network.The jury has confidence that Circular Australia, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Business Events Sydney (BESydney) and Oceania partners have the experience, network and determination to make the event a great success. They appreciated the strong momentum to further scale up the circular economy in NSW and Australia and learn from First Nations practices. The objective to empower business and government in Australia and the wider Asia-Pacific, and to unite Pacific Island nations with Asia to strengthen the connection between circular economy and climate action while addressing pressing waste challenges was strongly endorsed.
