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Episode 10 - Alison McRae · Unfolding: a circular economy podcast

• speaker-1: Mm-hmm. Welcome to Unfolding, a podcast which is going to unfold the circular economy. speaker-2: Exploring the current state of circularity progress and crucially how we can all be part of accelerating the transition and take action to combat linear lock-in, whether we are policymakers, businesses or citizens. speaker-1: And in this first series of episodes, we will be focusing on the upcoming COP thirty one in Turkey in November, where the circular economy has been highlighted as one of the core focus areas for action in the battle to reduce climate emissions. speaker-2: And we will be talking to a range of experts with knowledge of the process who will give us their take on how national governments can incorporate circular economy principles into climate mitigation strategies. speaker-1: And then myself and Wayne will be going to COP in Turkey to try and put into practice what we've learnt or what we've put into action what we've learned in this series of podcasts and try and influence the COP outcome. speaker-2: So, thanks for tuning in. Why don't you join us on this journey in the road to Antalya? speaker-1: I'm Ian Golland, former chief executive of Zero Way Scotland, as well as past president of ACR plus, a pan European network of cities and regions promoting more sustainable resource management and the circular economy. speaker-2: And I'm Wayne Hubbard, former CEO of Rear London and advisor to cities and podcaster now. speaker-1: So myself and Wayne are, as you've heard, are going to be talking to a range of exciting guests over the next well, over ten weeks in the run up to COP to understand a little bit more about the COP process, what we could expect what we should expect by way of agreements or implementation plans for the circular economy specifically, as well as getting into some wider discussions around the circular economy transition. speaker-2: As ever, there is an opportunity for listeners and viewers to feed in their thoughts and questions. As we go along, please leave a comment, like and subscribe. Send us an email at unfolding at unfoldcc.com. Suggest future guests we might like to include. We're keen for this to be as interactive as possible. We are lucky to be joined today by Alison McCray. I've known Alison for a number of years now. We met in Oslo, didn't we? The first time that we met. did. At an event. And I think I asked you then to be on a podcast for my previous organization at Reel London. So you're a return guest. So I never get asked back once they've had me in once. So you're, you obviously did something right. So thanks for coming by Alison. You're the senior director at the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce. You're on the board of the British Chambers of Commerce. as well as Zero Way Scotland. So you're eminently qualified in this space. And you're also, of course, working for the Chambers of Commerce during COP26. And maybe if you could introduce yourself, maybe say something about circular Glasgow, and then we'll just jump straight into, you know, what it was like being in the eye of the storm at a COP. speaker-0: Thank you. Well, thank you very much, first of all, for having me on. It's a delight to see you both. And gosh, where will I start? Well, yeah, as you say, I'm senior director Glasgow Chamber. And I suppose my brief is anything that's good to support the interests of business and or the city region is the area that we operate in. And to make that a little bit more strategic, we kind of framed it around climate, which includes a lot of our work in circular economy. Labour market and skills and innovation very specifically. And then my colleague who leads international in terms of international trade missions are the four themes that we work across as a chamber proactively. and I suppose 15, 2015 it was, yeah, 2015 when I first met Ian actually. And that was a a moment. I have to say, I'm gonna just describe that as a moment and a moment for all the best reasons, you'll be happy to know. Because Ian was sitting as the chief exec at the time of ZOA Scotland and we had been doing some work on developing young workforce, which is Scottish government funded helping young people looking into jobs and how we can engage business with young people through schools. And we were also doing a lot of work on thought leadership and Ian was saying, Look, we've got all these really experienced personnel who have loads of knowledge about waste management and circular economy, but we're really looking to scale our engagement with the business community and also his his own networks with the Netherlands specifically actually had said, why are you only doing sectors? Why are you not driving activity through cities? And it was round about that time that we met. And I said, Ooh, this sounds really interesting because the whole principles of the circular economy, making it a better world for for everybody effectively, you know, good for business, good for economy, good for people, all sounded very attractive. And the more we dug into that, the more excited we got because we thought there was a really great opportunity for sustainable economic growth, but within innovation lines, which is really how we des de definitely came into the room, if you like, in Glasgow. And that was in twenty fifteen. So that does feel like a long time ago. And that saw the birthing of what became Circular Glasgow alongside Glasgow City Council, Zero Race Scotland, Glasgow Chamber of Commerce and our partners in the Netherlands, the Circle Economy, who you both know well and we're very much fast tracking. Amsterdam, Amsterdam was ahead of the game in so many different ways and we had the benefit of of learning from a lot of what they had done. So that's kind of what got us going, if you like. And that also set a precedent for what was to come with COP. But I'll maybe stop there and come back to you. speaker-1: Obviously we want talk about COP thirty one and looking forward to the circular economy. But I guess part of this is the the COP itself, because we're very conscious that it's sometimes, it's at a very high level, if you know what nations, international diplomacy, UN. So that in itself is very exciting. You know, the fact that the circular economy in zero waste is now part of that agenda, because that's something Let's be fair, when we had the COP in Glasgow, it wasn't part of the agenda it wasn't part of the formal agenda. But yourselves as the chamber, led a number of initiatives in and around COP as much as inside of COP to promote the circular economy in in partnership with the people you mentioned already. But I guess I'm interested in just reflections on what that felt like on the ground. Okay. How did people how yeah, businesses. I mean, at the end of the day that, you know, how did businesses respond to that? But 'Cause we're it's easy. I I remember it was really an exciting time, but was it just exciting because it was new, it was like, yeah, cop cops in town. speaker-2: I remember it was a particular moment in history because it was between kind of lockdowns, wasn't it? Because there was a Christmas lockdown and then there was lockdowns before that. So it's right in the middle of COVID. Lockdowns had kind of, things had opened up and I just remember there were events all over the city. So I never had a blue pass. I was there for one day and I just loved it. It was so busy. Ian was there for two weeks and you were there for the whole period before and after, so it must have been utterly exhausting. speaker-0: It was phenomenal. It's one of those things that I will I will remember for the rest of my life, I have to say. And it was a particularly daunting time, as you say, because we had just literally come out of a very extreme world that was the pandemic. And obviously POP itself was delayed. So it it landed in town just at the end of twenty twenty one. And I always remember actually talking to your late chair, Ian Vic Emery at the time of what's the best way to get in and out of the city generally because we didn't know what was going to happen. We knew that there would be protests, but we didn't know what that would mean. We didn't know how extreme it was going to get. We knew that there was this huge global footprint coming into the city to have these really important discussions. And I think to some extent, because we had been doing quite a lot of work, progressive work on circular economy with a wide range of businesses in our own world, There was a degree of excitement about that for sure. And obviously it's a massive global major event. And Glasgow is renowned for its major global event hosting. So we we had that in our favour, which was fantastic, but under really unusual conditions where people were still allowed to come together and things. But we there was an uncertainty that came with that. But I think really, what we were able to do at the time in the run up to, and again I remember this vividly, is we created a a kind of strategy, if you like, about what we were going to do as a chamber as the host. chamber in the city. And it was very simply across four headings around policy, policy and influence, business engagement, skills development and workforce development generally, and international trade and how could we deliver stuff during the course of this magnificent huge international event that was coming into town? And what we've discovered along the way, there's lots of things we've discovered along the way, but we had our signature series of Glasgow talks with various chief executives from global corporates that were coming into town that we managed to persuade to work with us right through two international trade missions. And my colleague Richard actually led the British Chambers of Commerce Network's largest ever inbound trade mission with representation from countries all around the world coming in to be part of an event suite that we put on and created. And I think One of the learnings of that was, and this is carried on with subsequent COPs, is that a lot of the discussions actually that are really meaningful out with the negotiations is about the collaborat cross cross-fertilisation and collaboration that happens outside the main Blue Room. And I think that's been really important. And since then, British Chambers of Commerce have led delegations out to all COPs. So I've only been to the Dubai one, which is actually where I managed to meet James, bizarrely enough, your first guest in this series. Really. And that there was a big moment for me then even at at COP twenty eight 'cause the the the tem it it was it was again a different kind of conversation there, but there was a big wall that had action as hope on it, which just sent me away with a no, we can still do this, we've got to keep going in terms of a motivational kind of aspiration a couple of years after Glasgow. So we landed a whole range of activity during the course of COP itself and it was, it was tremendously exciting. And we even if you just look at our young people alone, and I think that's one of the things that's been slightly different about the way we've gone about what we do is that not only are we interested in climate in the round and circular economy specifically, but we're also really, really passionate about our labour market and skills work. So the work we've been doing with young people. Has been absolutely key. So during COP itself, we had a My Climate Path program, we had fashion pros, we had all kinds of different ways of working with the fashion industry and young people. We had all kinds of different career opportunities that young people could get involved in through with businesses who are taking climate and circular economy really seriously. And what we know through the work we do with young people in schools is that if you have more than three really good engagements with a business. It has way more influence than a parent, a teacher or a carer. And we had over four thousand eight hundred young people involved just in that period when COT was in time. We had over a hundred and fifty businesses engaged with the young people during j just in that one bit of activity alone. And since then the team has built that further making maybe talk about that a little bit later. But it was it was phenomenal and there was media interest from all around the world, from China, BBC World Service, right through to local news. We were representing our members across the city, Scottish Power, Royal Bank of Scotland, all doing events and activities. So we were either out in our members' activity or out representing our members or bringing members together during that time. So it was phenomenally exciting. speaker-2: I that the green zone itself was not as exciting as the stuff that was happening around the city. don't know if that's a fair reflex. That's just felt that way to me on the day. And maybe that's because I was less interested in the traditional staff, the traditional energy stuff. I'm much more interested in what was going on around the city because there was loads of circular economy activity. There was the New York, it at the New York Times place, you know, where Ellen MacArthur foundation were. There was loads of stuff going on. There was the Ashton Awards. I remember going to that and bumping into just all these people where everybody who was anybody at that point in time was there. So it felt like, like you say about collaboration and cross-fertilization, it must have been incredibly energetic for those, you know, and kinetic for those two weeks. speaker-0: It certainly was. It certainly was. And I think that that that was the other thing that was so different about the COP in Glasgow was that business was more engaged in that COP than it had ever been engaged in any previous COP. And that basically was a big message I heard and we took very seriously thereafter. And you know, you're talking about some of the events like the New York Times Hub, which was up in SWG three and we've since worked with SWGT on some of our new stuff that we've been doing. But we also did an event with well, now his Majesty the King as he was the Prince of Wales at the time with his Sustainable Markets Initiative in Kelvin Grove with over seventy of our members who were being celebrated for the circular economy work that they were doing. And he was with us for an hour and a half alongside C forty cities and mayors from around the world. And it was phenomenal experience for for members and and all alike. So Yeah, th the the the the dynamic of the business engagement sent a big signal and I think that has been picked up since, which has been great to see. speaker-1: Yeah. So that's I've flashbacks here. no flashbacks, reminiscing of all these ints now. God, yeah. Is it five years? My goodness. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: So I guess that's that's what happened. So what about the legacy then? I mean you've just touched upon some of that already, but in terms of, you know, when the circus packs up and leaves town, you know, all of that energy, you know, I'm not saying goes away, but y it must be still quite Mean obviously ob objective is to build on that, you know, build on that, you know, that energy and and that going forward. But I just wonder whether there's something more specific around the circle economy that could talk about in terms of the legacy post COP, you know, have ha maintained? 'Cause you still have done some incredible work since. So maybe reflect on that a little bit would be good. speaker-0: Well, as you both well know, you have to have a fantastic team to do great work and they have been absolutely phenomenal and incredible across briefs, I have to say, and the whole chamber team generally. because everybody really determined to actually make a meaningful difference with this stuff. And I think that drive is so important to getting through the hurdles of which there are many. So I think in answer to your question that we we did actually this year in Glasgow Climate Week, which is actually one of the legacies which the the former leader of Glasgow City Council announced at our first Congress of Business and that was one of our first business engagement legacy points after COP, which during COP, I was at the University of Glasgow at an event and Steve Varley of EY was on a stage and was talking about the prospect that to mirror COP, the there was talk in the industry and across sexual around the world that we should have some sort of conference of business. And I thought, ooh, that's interesting. And then after about a year Nothing seemed to be happening about that. And I thought, why don't we do that? So then we thought because we had been the host city chamber and we're part of British Chambers of Commerce Network, and there's over 50 accredited British Chambers of Commerce chambers, and then there's also representation in 70 countries around the world, actually, in that are British Chambers of Commerce, which is not that well known, which is actually a brilliantly powerful bank of business leverage. So we created Congress of Business. And you've both been involved in one way or another in those. We've done four of them now since COP twenty-six. The mission was to basically really create another punctuation point, and that's how we treated COP. It was a punctuation point that allowed us to really become way beyond more ambitious than we probably thought we ever could have been. And then we created COB. And then that allowed us to have this other annualized kind of point in the calendar, and you have COP at the end of the year. And it was bringing major figures and spokespeople into the city hybrid model so people internationally could dial in, et cetera. And just really bringing that debate in an ongoing way. And it was about climate in the round, but there was always a way that we managed to get circular economy in there. And I think that in itself, mindful of what Ian was saying earlier about COP and Glasgow having a much bigger focus on the language of net zero. And then everything got a wee bit lost in language. And I know that's come up in previous versions of your podcast about communicating and language and we can maybe talk a little bit about that because what we've done is morphed with what we need to say at what point that feels right. So at the moment, net zero is completely not what's being spoken about. It's much more about, you know, sustainable growth, innovation focus and all that side of things. And at the time what we did was still manage to use the frame we had, but keep those conversations going. speaker-2: I for me, to be honest, at COP26, I just did not have the understanding that maybe I do now as part of doing this podcast series about net zero and about the materials versus energy side. that, did you, I mean, were you building that into COP? Did you have, did you see that distinction? speaker-0: Yes, because I think w what was really helpful, and I know the Ellen MacArthur Foundation are now more generally renowned as the foundation, but at the end of the day, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, I think was twenty nineteen when they came out up with a pivotal piece of research which allowed us to change our language with great assertion, which was this fifty-five, forty five percent piece on energy transition and what that's all about. And then the forty five percent being around circular economy and making using products and food and so on and so forth. And that then meant you had a properly holistic conversation point which people could go see, right? I get that. And that of course, cutely, circular economy entirely fits into energy transition as well, because you've got wind farms and repurposing blades and all that stuff that our National Manufacturing Institute for Scotland's working furiously away at at the moment with partners in Zero Wave Scotland. So I think that itself helped us a great deal in terms of how we continued to talk about what we're trying to do. speaker-1: Yeah. But it's quite but it's quite interesting that 'cause in a way you've you've done what COP's about to do 'cause this is what I'm trying to COP very once first time that circle economy is air waste. All of that is is actually at formally on the agenda, as I said. it's obviously been the periphery, the people like yourselves and others have pushed pushed pushed this as much as they can, but it's actually you kind of picked that report up in two thousand nineteen. You know, could argue it was available to the UN in two thousand nineteen as well. But you then threw the work COP twenty six and subsequently, as you've said, you have woven in the circle economy into your discussions around net zero and obviously now about, you know, the most sustainable economic growth for Glasgow city region. You know, you can go that's what COP COP should have been doing all these years. But is about to do it now. I just wonder whether you've got any tips for the COP thirty one organizers about how do you make sure that that's a speaker-0: This maybe a stretch too far, Ian. I I I think what I would observe, and I know that you have felt this I'm gonna call pain slightly loosely, but I think what we have found looking outwards, particularly into governments, is that circular economy tends to end up being in a division within a division somewhere. And I just wonder if something like COP could be leader or a change maker advocate for the prospect that actual country leaders need to have circular economy as an entirely integrated ambition at the top of the food chain across the full cabinet. Because otherwise I I'm I'm I'm not sure how we will ever get there in terms of the level of ambition, the level of economic shift, the level of materials use and how we go about actually redesigning systems and redesigning economies, which is actually a massive, huge, big ass. It's it's it's huge. And I'm certainly not advocating that I would be at the front of the queue to do that at all. But I think that that integration at the most senior levels in countries generally is is actually really important. speaker-2: We, I guess it's interesting that that 2019 report and the, I think 2019 C40, so the EMF and the C40 report both came out around the same time. This was the same time around that time that James Close was part of ReLondon and we were trying to work to understand consumption emissions. James then went to work for NatWest. I think NatWest were one of the sponsors or heavily involved in COP26. speaker-0: Yes, they were. They were. RBS was, yeah. speaker-2: So, you know, we've got these kind of by, by, and I think this is by accident. We've got these people involved, you and Ian and James and Real London were there and about, I'm pointing because I'm looking at my picture on your, on your legacy PDF on this other screen, but by, and then you've got EMF as well, all in there. So there was actually quite a strong presence, even though it wasn't formally on the agenda. And I think my view on all of this, Alison, is that. It's not good enough just for us as kind of passionate individuals to have made that happen, which I think is what you're articulating. There needs to be something more in woven into the governance and it wasn't there at COP26, but maybe there's an opportunity for it to be there in COP31. speaker-0: Yeah, well I I was having a look and refreshing my mind about the circularity gap stats actually, which the circular economy do in the Netherlands and I think most recently in twenty six, the global gaps at six point nine percent we are as a planet circular. The UK is currently seven point five percent. But the point in it is that the value gap is twenty five point four trillion in economic value lost. That's the big message, I think, in terms of how do you convert that economic value. because apparently it represents about thirty one percent of the global GDP. So that is massive. So if you actually sit and look at that and then the role that each independent country has got in changing that, the most senior leadership is probably one of the most exciting ways to challenge for change. speaker-1: Yeah. Of course we agree with that. but maybe then just thinking about it and the role of cities, some of that system realignment that you're talking about could still be done at a local level or a regional level, whatever language you want to use. So I wonder whether there's that opportunity 'cause we've you know, we've you know, we all believe, you know, I mean I can say that from my time as Z Scotland, not just what happened in Glasgow but I think that we saw real penetration in terms of circular you know, circular progression, you know, through the work that we did yourselves and in the North East and, you know, Tayside as well, you and and obviously Wade in London kind of trailblazed a lot of this as much as anywhere else. so I guess there's something there about yeah, we need the leadership at the top to absolutely understand that not just that climate imperative, but that economic opportunity, you know. So how does that then come down to the local level? in terms of I guess I'm thinking about leadership as well, whether that's council, the pality, you the chamber the role of the chambers to some extent representing businesses to really Yeah, you need to you need to be pushing upwards, you know, to the to the to your governments and all that sort of stuff. But actually there's probably a lot that could be done at a local level by just orchestrating, you know, some of that system thinking. So yeah, how important is that role do you think of speaker-0: Well, I think it it could not be any more topical than it is right now with regards to our new Prime Minister, the NPCs that are going on, or even more so going on to regional devolution or in our case secondary devolution, if you like, in terms of regional devolution. I think it's going to be absolutely key. And we're really keen to look at the idea of modelling what was happening with the innovation accelerator model that was created for Glasgow, West Midlands and in Manchester to look at innovation accelerators, but actually looking at that accelerator model with a circular economy lens and how do you actually drive change through systems in that way. And that's actually something we did feed into the Circularity Task Force when they came to visit us last year. And I know that that's that's still in the waiting, I believe. But I know Wayne, you were heavily involved in that. So you might want to say something about that. But I think the place-based approach, you're absolutely right. Cities It's where critical masses, population, consumption, all that business base and what have you, everything sits in those areas and place bases absolutely this is the moment to be seizing that and and we will be, because it is an absolute opportunity that we should seize in every way. speaker-1: I guess that's part of the criticism to some extent, previous criticisms of COP is that is cities don't really have a voice as such. It is very it's nations, it's international dialogues and businesses have, as you said, there's been a few COPs since Glasgow and stuff like that, where businesses have been very much to the fore in some of the discussions. But the role of cities or or the the space for cities to kind be part of those dialogues because actually, yeah, you you you probably are the delivery mechanism for the circular economy, you know. Probably more so, yeah. The frameworks and everything can be delivered at both international and a nation nation level. Orchestrating the the businesses and the communities and the yeah, the kind of commerce. Surely the role of cities. I just yeah, I d I guess there could more be done to ensure that that voice that you've just articulated is front and centre of of of course. Not just not I guess we're thinking about the circular economy because that is that that is where this both will be driven from. speaker-0: Yeah, I think th the the governments obviously have the r have a role to create the enabling environment and and and market appetite to some extent. And I know James and Co. have spoken about the de-risking of investment and I'm not a financier so I'm not going even try and speak about that in any depth. But at the end of the day, having some kind of circular economy investment framework looking actually at even at the insurance sector, it's something that comes up again and again. It's potentially the sector that's going to have the greatest impact because of climate insurance claims generally. And that's not necessarily only circular economy. But also the role of SMEs and supply chains, that was one of the things that we wanted to try and influence through our British Chambers of Commerce work on circular economy. A document was published about a year and a half ago to influence the UK government very specifically and We made sure that Re London and various other partners were all mentioned in that, of course. But I think at the end of the day, there are enabling conditions, particularly around investment, particularly around procurement, which I think would make things more easy to increase demand. And if demand is increased, it's easier to get the investment. And then overall it's going to be more profitable to scale and actually profitable in the first place, which it needs to be for everybody to be able to get a job and have that quality of life, which is what we would all want. speaker-2: Yeah, I was going to make the same point-ish as Ea made really about the structure of the cops. so you have, this is something that we've discovered talking to Jose and others, and you have this action agenda, which is for cities, NGOs and businesses, but it's separate from the actual negotiation of the treaty where only the parties are allowed to kind of negotiate. the thing that everyone says at the end, the communique. as I understand it has to be unanimous, right? So you can't have dissent. that's- speaker-0: That's why we probably all remember Alex Sharma's face at the end of the Glasgow negotiations for that very reason. Yeah. speaker-2: Yeah, exactly. So the progress of the national COP is glacial, I think that's fair to say, and it's very slow and steady. But you do have this opportunity to be a bit more dynamic with the action agenda and it's probably quite well named. So what's my question? guess my question is, you know, one has to influence the other. And if cities don't have the enabling environment, which I think you've just alluded to. then all of this stuff that we do runs the risk of being unconnected pilots, I guess. That's my concern. So what do we take to COP? What do you think we need to take to COP to ensure that you have an outcome that can deliver long lasting schemes and programs that you're involved with with your members? speaker-0: think and we've touched on some of it in terms of the the freedom to basically make decisions that are relevant at a regional and local level. I think that's really important and that's part of the ambition of the regional regional devolution agenda at the moment. Hmm. what what we have labored away at since COP is is how do we keep momentum going for business and sport businesses. So we created a number of mechanisms to do that. Some of which were were were were funded by UK government, some of which were funded by Scottish government, some of which were funded privately, depending on what the model was. But I think what we ended up doing was creating a cluster of activity. I know clusters are usually used in the in the kind of context of sectors and so on, but but if you just take even, our business engagement work, we've got the Congress of Business thing that we talked about earlier on. But that then was the instigator for Glasgow Climate Week. And the leader of the council at the time created Glasgow Climate Week whose Cobb was sitting next to All Energy. So that immediately you put two significant, one very, very significant conference that allowed us to create a critical mass of business engagement. So just take this year for example, we did seven hundred and fifty business engagement activities during the course of one week in Glasgow Climate Week. So That's just because business started creating a momentum and the partners and the stakeholders, Glasgow City Council, University of Glasgow, various other partners in the city saw that there was an opportunity to engage and that continued to build momentum. So I think giving the freedom to allow us to do what we do well is really important. And then we want people to have good jobs, we want our businesses to be able to make a profit, because if they can make a profit, they can hire young people. And by the way, we're in another major issue at the moment in the UK, with you'll both be aware of the Alan Milburn review around NEAT and young people between sixteen and twenty-four. There's a million people at risk of being a lost generation at the moment. And it's costing the UK economy 125 billion. So What we're doing is taking the work that we have been doing with the Scottish Government and developing young workforce because we've got that architecture in place across the region with all the secondary schools and business relationships and we're scaling that activity. And then more recently we were working with JP Morgan Chase on this new program to try and change how work experience is done. Because the traditional model of one week out just isn't working for a whole lot of reasons. So it's using the city region as a classroom. So those are things that we can do without need for a government direct intervention in terms of a policy shift. But there are things to allow product development, to allow scaling, I think, is something that has come up a lot with our own business community to have those enablers in place to allow that to happen. So that number one, it can happen locally and the business will stay here and not leave to go to another country, which is another challenge. And it it's within that context. So I suppose to some extent we are trying to just get on with what we can get on with that's within our control and our members' interests. But equally there are certain factors which will be unique to the UK. Some of them will be a more universally transferable across other countries. But leadership and having this agenda as part of the leadership brief, I think, is one of the most important things. speaker-1: yeah, absolutely. So you can get on to things where you're right, you come up you come up against the the glass the glass size of the box of this week, eventually you do need some national or international dimension to this. I just wonder how much how much of that is is are you able to articulate upwards? I guess we're thinking very Scottish here, but even but y even UK, how can we speaker-0: Well, there's there's definitely there's one thing it just off the top of my head and and that's around international trade. International trade is key for growing economies and I know there's all the importing exporting discussions about what's okay, what's not okay? But at the end of the day, international trade is the way fundamentally, that's what British Chambers of Commerce say again and again, it is the biggest way to drive the economy. So how is international trade happening with a circular economy lens? Is is there more being done by chip that's produced locally in your local warehouse instead of shipping goods across ponds. And actually what's AI doing in this space and what do we need to be thinking about differently about how businesses actually go about trading their goods and how are they making their goods. And I suppose the other thing that I would say, which is something very close to my heart, and we've none of us have cracked it yet at all. And it's a massive brief, which is design. And that is how do we actually dis design things differently and how do we use the brilliant minds and I'll speak on behalf of Glasgow and Scotland specifically, but at the end of the day, how do we use the brilliant minds of these engineers, these product engineers, designers, design thinkers? How do we get them in a room to actually say, Here's the problems? How do we do this differently? And then actually get people to articulate that when they've got the the brain space to think above the above taking a few forty thousand feet view, how do you think differently about what we're doing? And then how do you land that down on what needs to change to shift in terms of how we're using these materials, which is what we're fundamentally talking about. But design for me is something that is so important and and I think that we need to just get some of the upper food chain stuff much better, the advanced remanufacturing, the higher value stuff, because moving away from how we're dealing with waste products Which, as we all know, ends up coming into the room all the time. speaker-1: So my find so that's yeah, really, really interesting. So there's part just in terms of other networks, I guess I'm interested in the kind of what's the word? You know, collaboration between cities. You know, there was a lot of that. I mean I I was really taken again COP twenty six that you know, there was relationships with Glasgow and other cities, Sao Paulo, you know, London obviously, you know, and I just felt God there's a real opportunity. It wasn't People were beginning to talk beyond just sharing experiences and we've done this, how about that? Could you replicate that? They were actually thinking about how could they work together on some of these big I'm I'm gonna say global challenges, because I did feel like they were talking about, you know, and even thinking about, you know, models for investment, finance, you know, all of that sort of stuff at a really high level. And you kinda feel like that what you're talking about, you know, we've heard from other guests and other people we've spoken to. How how how could cities almost Our cities coming together as a collective because ultimately the the scale, the the the I can't remember how many of the world population lives in cities, but fifty percent or something. The voice the cities would bring into this around reshaping the market, as you say, product development, thinking about finance flows, thinking about that that that issue there about innovation, harnessing that innovation, giving putting out the challenges there that we really need to solve this issue and plastics or this issue on lithium or whatever it is, really, really I think that's Is are the cities, collaborating at that li that in that way or are they are they still really still sharing their practical experiences and challenges? speaker-0: think there's probably lots of different ways to answer that question. I would say that to some extent we're probably more in the periphery of that. I think Wayne obviously done a load of work with Re London in terms of circ circular cities and bringing cities together across the UK. I think you've got C forty cities and I know our leader of the council was heavily, heavily involved in that at a mayorial kind of level rather than a chamber level. I was got the El MacArthur Foundation had its network of cities previously. So there definitely has been stuffed, but I suppose I'll turn that into a positive on the basis that we're not doing as much at the moment, that we'd be fair game for being a demonstrator city, working with other cities to actually do what you're saying. So if you want to take that into COP, I'm quite sure it wouldn't take too many conversations to have Glasgow persuaded to engage at that level, because if it is about that change and that innovation lens, then I think there's a real opportunity to work with like-minded cities. And it could just be a few and a few get together and get going and then actually it gets replicated because, that's part of the argument, isn't it? Get some stuff right, show and tell. That's partly why we publish that COP twenty six legacy document, because We've not got it all right, but we've had a right good shot at trying to keep the momentum going and their partners in the city council obviously have refreshed the circular economy route map, we've had the OECD work done and we've got sustainable Glasgow, which is a much broader lens in terms of generally climate. So we're involved in all of that. And I think at the end of the day, that's all part of the combined legacy, if you like. So speaker-2: I think the OECD stuff is good and that I guess it was on the back of lot of material in the public domain, a lot of OECD material. But I do feel that there is in this space, despite the fact that we've got this circular cities decoration and Iclea are doing some work. It does feel like there isn't a strong focus on circularity and action on circularity in cities, despite the fact that there's loads of really really good stuff happening in lots of cities in the UK and across Europe. It doesn't feel like we're adequately networked in that particular space. I don't know why that is. I don't know if you've got any thoughts on, or maybe I'm wrong. don't know. speaker-0: think maybe I think maybe there's an element of cities and organizations are doing what they need to do in their own patch because they actually are just getting on with the what needs to be done there. And that's partly why we have created the suite of stuff we've got. We've had step up to net zero programmes funded by UK government shared prosperity. We've had over a hundred businesses through that. That worked great. Shared Prosperity funding stopped, as Wayne and That momentum gets lost in a programme that works really, really well. And I think the the the feedback for that was 2.5 to 1 ROI, which is almost unheard for all for a paid work placement programme. we've developed leadership programmes, taking streets of businesses across to network come have a hot housing situation and actually taking them into Amsterdam as well to get that best practice again. But also through some of the programmes, I think what's been interesting for us is that actually the businesses themselves have wanted to take away their learning and share. So although we're a catalyst as a chamber and one of our fundamental DNA points is convening, the businesses themselves have said actually we want to go away and take what we've learned through our action planning, the step up to next zero, for example, to actually share with other people in their sector. And you create a different kind of momentum from that. And that's all just happening within our own world. So How much of that are we tailing to Toronto or Oslo or for that matter London or Amsterdam? Probably not that much because we're getting on with it on the ground. And similarly with the skill stuff, I mean that that legacy continues with computers and that's mainly aimed at the thirteen to fifteen year old mark where you're influencing choice of subjects about careers and companies right through to the graduate market where people are coming out and how do you get them embedded into businesses when they're really passionate about the subject? So I think Could sh could more sharing be done? Yes. speaker-2: Can I ask one question and then maybe Ian has got the final kind of cop magic one question, which we tend to ask. do you think that things have changed from when we were at COP26 and talking about circular economy? Do you think the conversation has changed at all over the preceding five years? speaker-0: Well, I can comment even in conversations that we've had this month with actually Zero Waste Scotland and a suite of our very senior business folk from across different sectors. So when I say different sectors, I do mean the drinks industry, textiles industry, built environment, developers energy, manufacturing, electronics and lighting. You can maybe have a guess at some of who those players were in the room. But the quality of conversation was so sophisticated in terms of the ask and getting investment ready propositions in place so that there was Targeted pitches to go out to, for example, the Sustainable Markets Initiative investment community and beyond through the City Council's investment proposals. And also very specific asks around regulations and business rates when, a developer's with good faith wanting to actually keep a bus building up and refurbish it and going through the prospect of digital passports. And an option is. We have to pay one and a half million of business rates for an empty building, or we have to go half a million to knock it down. And obviously you can't stand doing business rates at one and a half million. So that wasn't possible to stop that. So they end up having to knock the building down instead of actually doing what they wanted to do, which is the refurbishment. So the regulations behind some of that in terms of airing stories, which are very relevant. Procurement again. And also exchange of materials. I think you'll hear a lot of that coming out of Glasgow. How do we do that more cleverly? Because there's lots of businesses offering a service. They might be slightly circular or semicircular, as we like to say, which should be celebrated, who have who have services that they can give to other businesses who are not yet circular, but also businesses who've got materials that they don't know what they're doing with. So how do how do we how do we solve some of those problems? Because that's an ask from some of these players in the room. speaker-1: Yeah. That's really good. Really good. So I'm just very conscious of time, Alice, and I could yeah, I'm I'm indul a bit of indulgence here for me, just hearing again about that great work that's happening in Glasgow. Yeah, and even just reminding myself about COP twenty six. But anyway, so to f to kinda wrap up though, so I guess this is the moment, COP thirty one is happening. I guess I just if you had that magic wand, what would you what would you be wanting to come out of? COP thirty one from a even from a Glasgow per perspective or even from a Chamber of Commerce or even just from a personal perspective, terms of the circular economy, what you know, what is there anything, you know, one takeaway, two takeaways that you think would be really good to see happening next month in Turkey? speaker-0: Well, I think the design bit is a really important element because at the end of the day if there's some global collective ambition around a design shift and how we do that and yes we can look at that at a regional level as well, but actually if we really got to grips with the best minds in the world of how do we redesign things and stop this, you know, earth overshoots situation that we're in, then that would be tremendous. I think mindful of AI and technology, I think that needs to be something that's seriously considered in the discussions. And I know that that's tense a tense conversation, but it's very omnipresent. I think political buy-in at the most senior level in terms of integrated, cabinet brief, which I've mentioned already, I think I'd probably also hone in on how you have circular clusters and is that city regional demonstrators that are innovation accelerators? That would be really exciting. And totally selfishly, wouldn't it be magic if they decided to actually talk about Glasgow and what Glasgow's had a shot at doing whilst they're out there? And of course we can happily back up London as well for that matter. speaker-2: Well, we're going, we're going Alice. So we'll have to try and dig out the PDF and as there's a picture of me in it and not a picture of Ian, you can guarantee that I will be definitely showing people. speaker-1: I was more thinking we're gonna have to get a T shirt. I'll get one with Glasgow Rocks or something or whatever on it and Wayne can have one in London to see who gets the most pictures taken. We'll have to do something. Well thank you Allison. I'm fantastic. Yeah, really yeah, really good to hear. Yeah, and that you know, the practical you the way you describe some of the the initiatives that are happening on the ground, but just you know, the fact that you are working in a city with all of these multiple partners, you know, to kind of yeah, to really change shift the dial. And yeah, and at the same time, you know, they're all they're all businesses and you know, they're all the day job going on as well to some extent, as much as we want the circle economy to be circular economy to be the day job, you know, on that transition. I can I can understand how challenging it can be sometimes, but you know, you've really got a head of steam up. So that's great to hear. So thank you. speaker-0: Well, thank you both very much for having me on and keep believing that's that's the answer. Because at the end of the day it's that kind of drive and commitment that all the people that we have the privilege of working with that keeps you going. And at the end of the day there's a real great opportunity and there's a really great innovation opportunity in here, which is just great for business. So let's see more of that. speaker-2: Salism, speaker-0: Thank you so much. speaker-2: you were there. it was, you know, I suppose, but Coppin Glasgow as a location is going to have a very different vibe because of the way that Antalya and the Cops in the Expo, which is a bit out of town and stuff. Although I do remember traveling great distances across Glasgow to different events, but you know, Alison gives a really good account of the business of it and the excitement, but also I think she gives a great account of the legacy of how COP, in Aileen's words, one of our previous guests gave her or gave Glasgow the space and the justification to do a lot of work in climate and circular economy. speaker-1: Yeah, no, definitely, definitely. And obviously, yeah, I was there, so I remember that excitement. I th I think and you think about it, I mean they did a lot of stuff about the circular economy. You know, they already had a program, Circular Glasgow, so they they had people, they had stakeholders already mobilized around that. But they took that into that climate discussion, you know, in all of the zones and you know, and outside of those discussions as well. You kinda think got and and circle economy wasn't on the agenda but my God, if the circular economy had been on the gen agenda in Glasgow, would have had more of an impact because actually the sane as believing story was mu was hugely visible, 'cause it was already to some extent being mobilised. And I'm like, there's a part of my in that, you think about the city of Antalya, what are they doing? you kinda want to say speaker-2: Yeah speaker-1: on them up because, for all we know, they've got a a circular Antalya program that's been running for the last five years and they they're going to be mobilized with a hugely compelling story around the circular economy. We don't know. We don't know because we don't know. and I guess that's the point. How much does somebody like Glasgow, Chamber of Commerce, reach out to the to the host cities and say, you know, here's some of the stuff we did or here's the stuff that we've the legacy that we've seen. I don't know. Maybe that they should have asked that question. speaker-2: Yeah, maybe it feels like there's a very different political context. Yeah. Yeah. In the, you know, in Turkey, think Andy was telling us Andy Deacon that I don't know that, yeah, there was definitely some. speaker-1: Yeah, of course of course all of this all of the cities will probably have a different context, yeah. Different five. Yeah, if I just think, wow, if if Glasgow's a hosting that again like three years' time in the circle of economy, it'll be still my god, it would be because that's a bit of it, if you're gonna influence, I guess, leaders, ministers or whatever, the diplomats who are all there, they're they're probably gonna see what's happening in in the kind of zones, what's been showcased, what's been talked about, and having that played back to them by businesses on entrepreneurs and cities, years, all of that. For me well, okay, we call it an excitement, but that's the energy that that I'm sure will give leaders and others that reflection point about all the things that we've been talking about. How do we speaker-2: How about you? speaker-1: make sure that happens? How do we make sure that happens in Antalya that it doesn't you know, if it's not visible, yeah, they're not gonna be talking about it, you know. speaker-2: So, I never got a Blue Zone pass. think I could have done. think one of my teams, went to that and I think same dude that you went to and it was a Turkish Pavilion event. think it probably must have been the Zero Waste or a precursor to the Zero Waste Foundation at COP26. But I never got access to the Blue Zone. So is it that in the Blue Zone, they have the national, the parties, they will have a Pavilion? speaker-1: Yeah, they all have it. speaker-2: but they don't have in the green zone, right? So the green zone is more of an exhibition space for businesses and NGOs. Is it? speaker-1: Yeah, yeah. And it's usually the city or the the country that it's in. So I suspect Turkey, the green zone all will be about their businesses, their stakeholders, or major stakeholders doing, demonstrating their climate credentials, what they're about. There'll be activities, there'll be events. speaker-2: So there'll be events in the green zone. speaker-1: Yeah. So there was yeah, so there's a whole yeah there's a whole array of of programme of of of ainance. There's also youth, children stuff going on as well. So it was yeah, it w it was it was part of it. speaker-2: But but there was a buzz outside of that speaker-1: There that yeah, but that's what I'm trying to say. So there's that level. There's a blue zone, which is like all the national pavilions, and then there's the kind of main hall where all the negotiations goes on and all the other rooms. Then there's a green zone, pretty massive in itself, and events going on there. And then there's the fringe events like which happens everywhere in the city, across the city. Some of them well they're all I don't know how official they are, they're because they're advertising speaker-2: Well, I think that's the thing. So at Reel London, we just booked a place. I can't remember how we did it. And then invited people to come to a launch event that we did. And that was nothing to do with officially with COP26. It was just done at the same time. speaker-1: So the Scottish Government, the Scottish Government was involved in all of the zones, but they they they took a venue on the lighthouse in the city centre and they ran events from that all the way through two weeks every time and we got I think we got two days, you know, they gave us two days or two mornings and stuff like that. So we ran events and we spoke at some of the other events the Scottish Government were doing and then you're right, I was invited or my team were invited to other events going on in the city by other people. I went to a couple of things with the chamber And f few few other people, businesses invited me to come to events as well. speaker-2: But I understood again, because of the COVID thing, and I may be wrong here, but my recollection was that there were lots of people going more so than normal who had not really booked events because it was all done even more last minute than normal. I don't know if that's true. speaker-1: Can't remember that. I d I guess I didn't have anything to compare it, with the other thing about it was there was a march, I can't remember which day of the week, the Saturday in between. again. So there was a not just on the Saturday, but there was a international people arrived just to do the march, or that was their sole purpose, was to come and be on, I don't know how many tens of thousands of people were on the march. It was huge. So it wasn't just the people of Glasgow marching, There was Greta Thunberg was there, there was a whole range of people who came specifically from different different stakeholders again to march, you know, through Glasgow. So that was another dynamic to it as well in terms of numbers of people. So they were probably going to fringe events or hosting their own fringe event on the Friday or Thursday, Friday, marching on the Saturday and possibly doing something on the Sundays. You're right, there's a lot of people in town. I mean it really, really was a lot of people. in all the places you went to. you'll remember any of it being quiet. speaker-2: No, I got up there. kind of, I went on the overnight sleeper because then I didn't have to book any accommodation and accommodation was really difficult to get hold of in the sense that there were people in Edinburgh, weren't there? It then Edinburgh who were kind of coming over for the day. even, as I, was almost like the tickets for the sleeper were going in real time. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-2: As everyone was like quick book something. So I do remember that. speaker-1: Yeah, I know, yeah, I l I stayed at home. I went in every day, same journey, bus, train, and then down to the exhibition centre. It was two weeks solid. Coming back late at night usually, 'cause there'd be something on a night, you know. And I did that. And I think I did something on the Saturday, yeah, the March and the Saturday. So I took the Sunday off, I just said I'm not good. It was like sixty for that. speaker-2: Did you get cop 26 withdrawal symptoms when it was finished or were you just damn glad it was over? speaker-1: Yeah, I remember being well the problem is you had loads of things to follow up on. as ever you'd met people, people were still giving out business cards in those days, I think. See loads of that stuff and you'd met people and there was yeah, there was a general we need to follow up and could you send us this and send us that and so it was, yeah. But you're right, there was a bit afterwards thinking, God. speaker-2: Shall we publish this part of the podcast as me interviewing you?