Latest / Unfolding: a circular economy podcast / Episode 19 - Catherine David
Transcript
- speaker-0: And what's RAPs? What are you hoping to achieve at COP31? Why are you here? Well, I'm here because we're on a mission to embed circular living in every boardroom and every home. So as a global environmental action NGO, we come here really to speak to the action agenda, which is why this COP is particularly interesting to me. I think the split presidency between Australia and Turkey is quite distinctive about this COP. So there's been quite a lot of commentary about whether or not the political negotiations will progress on the diplomatic side. At WRAP, we're really more focused on the implementation. side and on that side of events we do see quite a lot of scope for traction. in particular objective number one is raising the awareness of food loss and waste as an opportunity for action. So firstly helping countries notice that it's an opportunity for action is our first objective and then secondly putting in front of country representatives some of the existing solutions, things that are already working to try and get them interested in implementing some of those actions in their own countries. And then And more broadly across the circularity agenda, think there's a real opportunity with this COP, with a zero waste focus, to actually start building some of the understanding in different materials, whether that's in textiles, for example, or across packaging electronics, to help countries see that indeed climate action can involve action on those materials. So we've seen... We've been kind of learning a lot. speaker-1: we've been throughout the course of our our series from some of the people. speaker-0: and there seems to be a mood at this call and maybe it's because it's called that a link now being speaker-1: Thank you. speaker-0: kind of drawn out between the energy transition and the material to a transition. speaker-1: a focus on materials and needs to make that judgment. So in and out kind of in part this movement of seeing speaker-0: I guess we're seeing upstream behaviour change and demand reduction and downstream speaker-1: secure materials and recycling those both. speaker-0: areas which wrap and play into. So how are you kind of navigating those two upstream and downstream? Yeah, it's super interesting to hear you frame it that way. I think certainly in terms of making this issue relevant to people, we're in a different paradigm all of a sudden where resource resilience has become a kind of number one objective aligned to national security thinking. So I think that's helping in general make the case for circular economy as global supply chain just in time ways of working just feel a bit less robust and reliable these days. I think across the different materials we work in, I see different dynamics. So when it comes to food, for example, actually getting people's attention on the upstream has been quite challenging, i.e. food waste prevention has historically had less engagement. Whereas on textiles, maybe the opposite is true, which has been there's quite a lot of conversations in our community about circular design and a bit less about downstream disposal collections, which is something we're really focused on. So maybe we're picking the least fashionable bits and trying to highlight those opportunities. But I guess the other thing I'd say, and this is maybe a bit meta, is that I'm super interested in NGO collaboration in general and I think that's having a bit of a moment. And I see it particularly in our work with Foodwaste where we're working in a collaborative way with the other food waste NGOs globally in a way that I've not seen in any other part of my career of sustainability. speaker-1: incomes ex he's always that I always up to try and get in before he does. speaker-0: I was listening to you this morning and I was interested in what you were saying speaker-1: Let's see. speaker-0: about the food pacts. And that was again, were talking about national, country speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: collaboration across those pacts. And those pacts were speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: kind of communities, if you like. speaker-1: Thank you, sir. speaker-0: Yeah, and you probably heard me use the phrase locally led, globally connected, which is the model we've been pursuing on the the food packs. We were super lucky as a wrap to set up the first pre-packed in this network. You probably know it as the Courtauld commitment originally, right? And this has been historically funded by UK governments. It's been a collaborative action platform that's brought together businesses, devolved authorities as well as national government, local authorities, expert partners, other NGOs, academic institutions around headline targets on food waste. And over the years what's happened is that other packs have either organically risen up in other countries like in the Netherlands or in recent years we've managed to secure philanthropic funding to help us partner with NGOs in other countries to set up a food pack. So Brazil is an example of that where just before COP last year we launched a partnership with WWF in Brazil. Brazilian Semidespa de Adició, which is the Brazilian food waste packs. So they follow a very similar recipe, all these packs, which is they have a target measure act type model, set target, progress, acts collaboratively. They all look to bring together businesses with governments at sort of national municipal level with expert partners. But inevitably they find different routes through and different starting points. And so some of them, for example, will really start with redistribution. That's where the energy is and that's when they'll start. Others will start with supply chain. But networking them, what you're finding is everyone just spotting ideas, whether that's new technologies like 2D barcoding and supply chain in South Africa that then the US sees as like, we're to roll it out with our partners. Or it's campaign concepts like lovely day waste. So yeah, really excited about the network packs. There are 10 food packs now. speaker-1: well. Yeah. I think it's really interesting because you just mentioned the NGO collaboration. I was gonna ask you about who who are you having conversations with across the piece because I guess I mean you said it just before we we started recording, you know, it does feel it's it's it feels like a bit of a different type of COP because of that kind of action agenda as opposed to just thinking about the kind of politics. And we got that all the way through the you know, the episodes that we recorded was the sense that a lot of the things that people were talking about Yeah, w there were still people killed talking about numbers and, the the reasons for change, the reasons for action, stuff and that. But actually most of the things that people were saying could just be done. You know, they could just be implemented. They don't really need you know, global I'm not saying dialogues, because they need global dialogues, but you know what I mean, they don't need total agreements across you know, every country. A lot of them can be actionable and I guess you know, you know that, we that, we're working in this field for years, there are practical examples of things that could be taken forward. Yeah. So it does feel like a different corpse. I guess I was I was interested in just so in all the conversations, are you having more conversations with people who are into the action, or is there still this need to try and influence the politicians, the people talk to some dis of the need that for circular economy, the need for this because ultimately that you know that's why we're here really is to say this is part of the climate charge as much as you know decarbonisation, electrification, all these other things, that's what we've been saying for years. Do you still feel you need to make that case or has have you jumped ahead of that and got it straight into the action agenda because that's that's where the impact is speaker-0: I think it's a bit of both. on the one hand, maybe I'll start with food and then I'll talk about some other materials. On the one hand, only I think it's 32 now countries have food lost in waste as part of their nationally determined contributions, right, which is one way of thinking about how they got a plan out of 180, 190 who could. So that's a small number. speaker-1: So yes, we've just, as these things happen, had to relocate to the Zero Waste Pavilion from the UK Pavilion because somebody else wanted the room. That's what happens. So guess I was interested in, you know, this is an action-orientated COP. Do you feel that that's where we are? We're actually talking to people who really want to get things done. I'm not saying we're ignoring the political negotiations, are as important. But yeah, I'm just interested in understanding who are you talking to, who's actually really buying into this agenda and the conversations you're having. speaker-0: And I think it's a bit of a both and. And from my perspective, one of the exciting things about the food waste space right now is that there's enough action happening in enough different kinds of countries, in different places in the world, that it can serve as inspiration to other countries really effectively. So today's Wednesday, tomorrow evening we'll be at an event hosted by the TAB countdown where we'll be announcing the single biggest philanthropic grant ever given to food waste. from the IKEA Foundation and we're part of a group of NGOs, I talk about NGO collaboration, who've collaborated together. That is an action program and for our bit of that we'll be working with the food packs in Mexico, Brazil, South Africa and Indonesia to use that funding to strengthen the work that's already happening. So there you've got food packs that have already been going for, you know, in the case of Brazil only one year, in case of the other packs longer, but this funding will come in and layer into that and support action happening. So is that multiple NGOs? That's multiple NGOs, yeah. And this is what I mean about collaboration. that's both where that's most successful. If I take Brazilian government as an example, they're really engaged in that work. They've supported that work. I think that is part of what makes these programs most effective. So whilst the PACs are voluntary commitments, they're collaborative action programs that businesses join on a voluntary basis to drive down foodways. They're strengthened when they've got national municipal support. and it creates this kind of cascading effect where businesses are reaching out to local cities, the cities are engaging, they're finding it easier to engage with businesses and so you can create some positive momentum. So I think there's enough there that those countries, as you can probably feel, are different from each other. And they're certainly different from the UK where this model started, and the US where it's also grown really effectively, then Netherlands and Japan and other places. you've got a kind of growing community, but We've only got packs in 10 countries, as we were saying. We've only got food loss and waste in any season, 30 odd. So that still feels like there's a lot more scope. But instead of focusing on the countries that don't yet have plans and getting them plans, you can also focus on driving action with the hope that that's inspiring to others and that when they're thinking about, we invest in this or not, they can look at a blueprint of a country that's a bit like them and adopt it. speaker-1: But following that, guess I'm slightly going off a tangent here, but I'm always interested in this, and it's not just from a cop point of view. Do you think the route to see more of this is through that helping, know, exactly getting behind the ones that are already working, scaling them, and then almost like hoping that people will come and join you, rather than doing that kind of... global diplomacy trying to get everybody to sign up to a target and then they all have to work out how to do it. I I always think from our work how do you get traction is yeah because you can spend a lot of time doing the diplomacy and not seeing the action on the ground. speaker-0: I'm a both and gal. mean the space that WAPS in has primarily been enabling the collapse of action bit and then also helping make sure the data is good enough to support sensible targets and sensible measurement. Part, we're in this coalition we call ourselves the global action drive for food NGOs, WRIs in that coalition and a big part of what they do is that policy and advocacy. We have the Champions 12.3 group. Now it's hard right because how do you measure the tangible influence of a network of leaders like Champions 12.3? 12.3 but it's certainly the case that food loss and waste is higher up the agenda now than it was 10 years ago. Attribution, difficult but certainly it seems to me that it's worth doing that kind of softer influencing and advocacy not only so that you get targets set and you can hold government accountable but also so that leaders in government understand the issue and because food loss and waste and also so economy, we're all passionate believers that it's this kind of no-brainer and if only people understood. So I actually think in a way, I tend to be a carrot, more than a stick leading kind of person, that I think once people really understand that opportunity and then you make it actionable, then you're going to create momentum that way. think one of the things again that we've kind of discussed in our series is who's the champion, who's the leader, because what you just said about food and circular economy. They're actually, so food it seems to me, you probably say you're not right here Wayne, but it seems to me there is a really good message here. There's a easy to land message. It might be difficult to action, but the narrative is easy, is clear I suppose. Circular economy is such a... complicated and complex thing that landing the message, whatever it is, depends on who you're talking to, what the geopolitics are, maybe even what the domestic politics are. In other words, it's difficult. So to try and kind of get an overarching message that resonates at national level is really tricky, I think. my question, I suppose, is how do you lead in that respect, how we're going to land that message here with the leaders, because all of that really good bottom-up action that happens from the community up through the cities is in danger, think, sometimes of being lost because we don't have the overarching strategic framework to support that. I noticed, I think, like on the list of guests to that announcement that you referenced is Mark Watts. I don't know if the C40 are going to say something, you know, but so they're a city partners then in that, in that partnership. that you talked about? Yes, C4C are one of the partners in that coalition. It's a good question. I can't pretend to have all the answers and I think sometimes we break... So I'm not convinced that the act of persuasion that's needed here is to convince government leaders that circular economy is the opportunity, to be honest. I think food loss and waste is positioning itself within the broader conversation about food systems, which is a very complicated political nuance based in itself. And within that context, food loss and waste is quite easy to make a win-win-win argument. I think when I think about the other material spaces that we operate in, so packaging or textiles or resource management more generally, that they also have their own conversations that they live in if you're a government leader. for example, think thinking about waste management recycling infrastructure as infrastructure like water or electricity, crucial national infrastructure that every country must have in order to have a place where people can have high quality of life, that businesses can do business work. That's not the way of thinking about it, right? That doesn't mean necessarily persuading a country of the benefits of circular economy, but it does mean creating an awareness of the action opportunities there and how those can create climate opportunity, jobs opportunities, better standards of living. And then you've got, I guess, some of the sort of famously tricky things where consumption behaviors are a part of the challenge. So think about our work on textiles. You've got upstream challenges with What are we going to do about the kind of use of virgin materials and the kind of proliferation of that? What can the planet afford? How can we create a circular and sustainable model there? And then you've got the disposal crisis that people talk to me about from just like basically every country on earth is struggling in some way with end of life on textiles as well. Again, I'm not sure even though in for us circular economy folks, we kind of know what the answer is, circular economy. Someone else must have done, is the circular economy stupid, right? I'm going to first think of that. That was one of our names actually. speaker-1: We're nearly called our book guards. speaker-0: you should, I think that's a idea. speaker-1: We thought people wouldn't take us seriously. speaker-0: You want to be taken seriously? Just to come back quickly and then I'll pass it over to Ian, I suppose in a nutshell I'm trying to say that a lot of this depends on demand reduction and so to take textiles as a point, demand reduction is seen as a threat. to brands, retailers, trade, relationships, all the way up the supply chain by, I think, most governments. So what they don't see is like we really need to make a mass move towards reusing, recycling textiles, right? So, that's a political threat, a trading threat, a commercial threat, but we see it as a commercial opportunity. know, despite, never mind who's right and who's wrong in that argument, how do you land, you know, those discussion saying that circular economy business models, because you've just released a report right about the value of the circular economy. Yeah. So, that's got to have some traction somewhere. You know, someone's got to take that seriously and say these, this is right, right. We need to mainstream circular economy throughout government as opposed to, know, it's a kind of it's a it's the end chapter in an environment strategy in a whatever. Well, I've heard I've heard a number of politicians from different countries in the last few days at Carp talking about making it real for people in their day-to-day lives, right? And I think that's also incumbent on us. And when you think about it from the experience of someone in their day-to-day lives, how do you, in textiles, have a better fashion shopping experience? Well, that's happening, right? We can see those circular models growing. The platforms are brilliant and improving. so circularity is generating that. There are parts of that system that are not going to deliver what people in their homes and communities want. Every time I walk my children to school, I walk past an overflowing textiles recycling bin, like charity bin, And that is now just a form of kind of urban litter. But in London, it's a common sight. I think that's true across cities, across the UK and probably in many other countries, certainly in France and the countries like that. if you take, if you start, come from that starting point, again, I say the answer to the other mums and dads at school gates isn't, guys, the answer is this is circular economy. The answer to this is a textiles collection system that works, okay, and how do you create that and what is the systemic model that does that? So I think that's my way in and our way into that and that's where at WRAP we're increasingly trying to focus our programming around solving those system level barriers that are needed to bring about that circular living future that's in our vision. speaker-1: Yeah, I can see that, yeah. And that's quite interesting, about the whole textile shift as well, you know, in terms of the platforms that people are using and it is to some extent changing that shopping experience for many people, even online shopping experience. But I guess the point probably that we've been trying to try and understand is that... A lot of the, even in one of sessions this morning, know, the downstream action is still very much framed in that environmental policy making, know, recycling collections, know, methane capture, all of that, you know, all of that, and you know, that's right. But the upstream action is more of an economic framing. And guess that's, it's great to be here. It's great the fact it's on the climate agenda now. But where's the economy people? Where's the way into them? Because it is about how do they shape markets? How do they create new markets? How do they, to some extent, balance the playing field so circular business models are much more attractive to scale? And guess that's, I Texas is good example of that to some extent. And some of the other circular. material markets really do need an economic framing for this. I guess that's the thing we've been trying to understand, how do we get into those conversations. It's great that we've moved from environmental waste into... climate, know, I think the numbers are there, you know, to some extent, you know, we've been pulled into this conversation through the COP 31 process for sure. But yeah, it just feels there's still a journey to get into the economic story, both at a, even at a local level, because, know, we obviously from our experience working in London and Scotland, we can see economic potential for new business models and all that sort of stuff. So it's not just, it's just not, it's not just a national thing, it's even a local thing to really get economic development people much more aware of this opportunity. speaker-0: think I think I totally agree. And I guess there's a couple of things that there's in general at this COP. I don't think there are anything like as many consumer goods businesses possibly as there have been in the past. Well, so we had our event this morning, had Compass Group, Dial and Enjoy, which I thought was really impactful because you've got food business talking about food. There are a few around, but they tend to be, I guess they're the very large businesses with very large corporate affairs functions for whom keeping an eye on global climate policy conversations is really essential or worthwhile. When you think about action conversations though, there are loads of food businesses who are investing a lot in action with us across food and textiles who are not a cop because they don't need to be. So just because the action conversations aren't happening here doesn't mean they're not happening. When we come to cop, or certainly particularly for this cop, my objective, I think as I said earlier, is really to engage countries. and engage governments. so if I think about the parallels between our work in food and our work in textiles, we've got food packs now, we've got 10 different food packs now, we've got this kind of growing support from philanthropy, we've got more more governments engaging. Textiles, we've got the UK textiles packs, it's convening textiles brands and retailers, but also the collection, all the collections community as well. We're focusing really hard on trying to figure out what interventions we can make. you'll have seen us talk a bit about that recently. But do we have textiles packed in other countries? No, not yet. And so although we have the Textiles Action Network, which is a kind of fledgling attempt to start growing that global network, it's nowhere near at the stage of maturity. And there is, as far as we can see, very little philanthropic funding available to support that agenda as well. And it's often that philanthropic money that enables that to get going, to produce some of the proof of concepts that then gets governments interested and starts growing it beyond Well, they tried this thing in the UK. Maybe there's something in it kind of model. So I think we're much earlier in textiles On the other hand, we've had some really interesting conversations with businesses about collaboration on key circularity attributes, like for example on durability, where we recently have done some work with a group of global fashion brands to think about how do you define durability across different countries, what would it take to extend the life of the active life of clothing, part circularity. So there are signs that there's interest there, but I'm sort of with you in that I don't yet see that conversation happening at the of scale that's needed and certainly not at cop but then maybe CUP is not the place for it I guess is and there might be other places so New York Climate Week was there a few weeks ago London Climate Action Week was huge for us this year and a lot of those conversations a lot of businesses are there sending senior people to have proper action oriented conversations so that makes me feel quite hopeful speaker-1: I think it's quite interesting to think about the philanthropic funding, because in a way you kind of think is that the first thing that happens, know, that type of funding becomes more available to food or textiles and stuff like that and then other types of finance, other types of economic pressure comes to bear on it. I guess I'm interested in what, I if you want to say, but what do you think make... the donor that is going to put the money in, know, what's switched them onto this in terms of food? mean, do you know that? Is there something they... speaker-0: Yeah, it's a good story to tell on this, which is that, as I said earlier, think NGOs find it really hard to collaborate. It's really hard to be an NGO right now. Our costs are going up too. It's very competitive funding landscape. And that makes it hard to collaborate because everyone's trying to raise money. A few years ago, and I can take no credit for this because I was not involved, some of my colleagues at WRAP worked with colleagues at other NGOs. So I mentioned WRI, but also WWF, Refed, Global Food Banking Network, other charities whose names I'm going to forget embarrassingly. a philanthropy roadmap for food loss and waste, right? So this was a collaborative process which involved some funders from the start and had some seed funding from a couple of key philanthropists to actually just create a shared language and a shared definition, almost like a shared theory of change about, if this is the challenge, how do we solve it? What are the interventions that are needed? What are we gonna call them? What kind of contribution might they make? That roadmap has become the platform for funding. And so and then what happens is that different philanthropists discuss it with each other and they can kind of go okay Well if I fund this bit and you fund that bit then I'm leveraging other sources of funding and particularly because our model also brings in funding from other sources so businesses and governments and others then you start building momentum and philanthropy loves that because they want to de-risk that kind of cascading momentum so NGO collaboration has stopped us all going for the same funder with eight or ten or twenty versions of this is the solution on food waste. Instead we're going, OK, we've got one story about food waste. We've all got a role to play in it. Our roles are different because our strengths and capabilities and geographic coverage are different. But instead of competing together, we're going to collaborate together. And honestly, we love it because it's also really enjoyable. speaker-1: I guess I'm thinking is that the model then you're trying to replicate with textiles and I'm also thinking I that's a story in itself regardless of the fact it's food or text doesn't to understand how you create that funding that collaboration and then even hearing it from the donors that that's what they want to see happening that you can think about that across lots of know, challenges that we have or opportunities that we see in the circular economy to create that opportunity solution. I just think it's really good. think, you should be broadcasting that because that's the first time I've heard that. speaker-0: We call ourselves the global action drive and as well as collaborating on that we collaborate on our call to action at COP. So we've been, you know, together we come together and someone picks up a pen and it's usually someone different each time and they go guys how about this is our call to action and then we all go well we don't agree with all bits of it but we're all gonna get behind it and then we're all gonna use it consistently. am, my team sometimes call me naive. I think now that I'm CEO a great part of my job is I go and I try and collaborate with basically anyone in another conversation with me. What makes it successful, honestly, the thing that I've learned is you need shared vision, you need a willingness to properly compromise, trust. It's hard work and the reason my team might call me naive is that probably only one in ten times is good and then at least five in ten times you end up accidentally being slightly taken for a ride. Actually I don't think people take advantage of each other so much as priorities shift and change and we're in this quite bumpy world and you can be in a conversation about someone with a collaboration and all of sudden there's a change in their board or like a strategic thing shifts and then you're no longer their priority and that is both hurtful when you're like me who invest heart and soul but also you you waste a lot of time potentially so I can see why NGO leaders don't do it but honestly I think we stand next to no chance of achieving our goals if we don't get a lot better at it which is why I don't stop doing it and although my team kind of roll their eyes when I bring them the next thing I think they are convinced and I'm because I'm convinced we're all convinced I think that it will work like it will but this is how we'll get circular living in every boardroom in every home it won't because the 250 people at Wrapp have made it happen. It'll be because we've been good collaborators with the incredible talent that's out there and all the networks and ideas and innovation that people are sourcing. So that's our dream really. Great. Okay. We don't want to take too much more of your time. So thank you. What's your... What's the rest of your cup like? Is it busy? I imagine it's terribly busy. It's pretty, it's pretty, I'm only here till Saturday. And yes, so I've got an event on food waste this afternoon, Access 3 has a thing to, a project to plan to accelerate solutions. So I'll be talking about that. And then Thursday and Friday, I've got a combination of some food stuff and some broader materials things as well, which I'm looking forward to. and then on Saturday I'm going to fly home and see my children. Very much. Thank you so much. Thank you both. For taking the time. Thank you. Good to see you.