The 5th International Conference on Low Carbon Asia & Beyond (ICLCA 2019) was successfully held in Ho Chi Minh City on 15-17th October 2019 organised by Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology (HCMUT) and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM). The annual conference was jointly organised with the 12th Regional Conference on Chemical Engineering (RCChE 2019) and the 4th International Conference on Chemical Engineering, Food and Biotechnology (ICCFB 2019). The theme of the conference was “Transformation towards Smart, Resilient and Sustainable Communities.”
The joint event marked a significant milestone in terms of the number of participants from over 20 countries. Over 300 papers were submitted to the conference, and close to 250 papers were selected for oral and poster presentation. During the two-day-conference, participants actively exchanged their research findings on various topics that contributed towards shaping smart, resilient and sustainable communities. The joint event was supported by AUN/SEED-Net and a few industrial partners such as Agilent.
Seven plenary speakers delivered a range of state-of the art topics covering circular economy and sustainable cities (Prof. Jiří Klemeš, Czech Republic); up-scaling waste recycling to industrial mass production (Assoc. Prof. Hai M. Duong, Singapore); control of antibiotic resistance pathogen (Prof. Yasunori Tanji, Japan); value-added products from agricultural waste (Prof. Vincent Bulone, Australia); reshaping the renewable energy landscape in Malaysia (Prof. Haslenda Hashim, Malaysia); advanced DNA analysis to probe compost maturation (Prof. Kiyohiko Nakasaki, Japan); and advanced graphene-based materials (Prof. Won-Chun Oh, Korea).
A series of high-impact side-events were organised. A pre-conference workshop held on the 14th of October in HCMUT campus attracted over 100 participants. The workshop entitled “How to write and publish a high impact scientific paper” was led by the Co-Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Cleaner Production (Elsevier), Prof. Jiří Klemeš and joined by two Associate Editors. Another side-event was the Mayor Forum with the theme “Green and Smart Society” held in the morning of 15 October 2019 at the HCMUT campus prior to the Opening Ceremony of the joint conference in the afternoon at Vissai Saigon Hotel.
On 17 October 2019, the participants joined the eco-tour at Mekong Delta in Ho Chi Minh City and My Tho to indulge in the Vietnamese cultural heritage and natural preservation.
ICLCA was launched by UTM-Low Carbon Asia Research Centre in 2015; the conference series pledges to make significant progress to implement the Low Carbon Agenda in fast growing cities in Asia and beyond. The importance of this conference is clear when cast against the alarming revelation by the IPCC on the “Global Warming of 1.5 Degrees Celsius”. ICLCA is proud to have taken continual actions to address the climate change agenda. It is the goal of ICLCA to provide more action-oriented guidance to policymakers, investors, businesses, NGOs, and communities towards mitigating the impacts of the economic and social activities on the environment and climate change.
The recent ICLCA held in Ho Chi Minh City was the 5th in the series. The past series were held in Johor Bahru (2015), Kuala Lumpur (2016), Bangkok (2017), and Johor Bahru (2018). Over the years, the conference series have grown to become an important regional and international platform for Low-Carbon Society knowledge sharing and dissemination, research networking and collaboration, business pairing and investment matching, and institutional and public-private partnership.
ICLCA 2020 will be hosted by Shanghai Jiao Tong University in Shanghai, China, with the theme “Urban Sustainability towards Human Well-Being”. Six thematic topics pertinent to sustainable development have been outlined: sustainable urban development, water and waste, energy, food, nexus and cleaner technology. More information on ICLCA 2020 will be available at: www.utm.my/iclca by December 2019.
ICLCA UTM Secretariat would like to take this opportunity to thank the local host and organising committee led by Prof. Phan Thanh Son Nam, Prof Phung Le Thi Kim and Prof Hoang Hoang Anh from HMCUT for their dedicated contribution to making this joint event a great success!
To follow ICLCA, visit us at www.utm.my/iclca and www.facebook.com/iclcaconference