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Episode 7 Libby Peake · Unfolding: a circular economy podcast

• Iain Gulland: Welcome to Unfolding, a podcast which is going to unfold the circular economy. Wayne Hubbard: 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. Iain Gulland: And in this first series of episodes we will be focusing on the upcoming COP thirty one in Turkey in November, where the circle economy has been highlighted as one of the core focus areas for action in the battle to reduce climate emissions. Wayne Hubbard: 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. Iain Gulland: And then myself and Wayne will be going to COP in Turkey to try and put into practice what we've learned or what we've put into action what we've learnt in this series of podcasts and try and influence the COP outcome. Wayne Hubbard: So thanks for tuning in. Why don't you join us on this journey in the road to Antalya? Iain Gulland: I am 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. Wayne Hubbard: And I'm Wayne Hubbard, former CEO of Reel London and advisor to cities and podcaster now. And together Ian and I have well over a million years in circular economy. At least, at least a million years. Iain Gulland: At least a million years, absolutely. 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. Wayne Hubbard: 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. Iain Gulland: And to kick us off this week, we have a very special guest. Who do we have? Wayne? Wayne Hubbard: We have, yes, we've got Livy Peak from the Green Alliance. our guest today is Libby Peak. from Green Alliance. Libby is an expert, on all things circular and was and is, well, was a colleague on the Circular Economy Task Force. So maybe we can talk about that maybe you could introduce yourself, a bit more about your background, the work you do at Green Alliance, and then maybe we could start talking about COP31 and your thoughts on that. Libby: Yeah, sounds great. Happy to be here. So Green Alliance, for those of us, for those of you who aren't aware, I'm aware, is a charity and a think tank. And we focus on achieving ambitious leadership for the environment. And that's across all different environmental policy areas. So we work on climate, we work on nature, we work on resources, which is what I lead the work on and which I think is absolutely vital to tackling the climate and nature crises. We work a lot in parliament, we work with civil servants, work with businesses and in fact there is another original circular economy task force which I'm also involved with which has been going for about 12 years we've been talking with businesses and charities and figuring out what they need to deliver circular economy the circular economy and we were delighted when the government stole the name and the idea and we're still we're still hoping that that task force delivers something actually that we can all get stuck into change the way the economy works. Wayne Hubbard: I mean, we're not going to go into details about the task force per se, that, I mean, in general, you know, a lot of work was done and that document was not released. It seems to me that this is difficult political territory. On the one hand, we always talk about resilience and the ability of the circular economy to help with cost of living. But on the other hand, It's perceived, I think, by politicians as either increasing cost and therefore having the opposite effect on cost of living or asking people to kind of use secondhand stuff. What are your thoughts on that? Libby: I think that there definitely is an educational journey that we need to take people on and I think the reason, one of the many reasons that we've failed to make as much progress as we'd like to see is because every time there's a new person in charge, a new PM, a new Secretary of State for the Environment or in any of the other departments, you normally are starting from scratch. the term secular economy is quite a confusing one, it's not a terribly helpful one, but it encompasses so many different things and could encompass a completely different way for the economy to function. But insofar as people who aren't aware of it think of it, it normally comes down to recycling. And so there's always this very long hurdle that you have to get over of saying, it's not recycling, it's not waste management, but it is a different way of approaching the economy so that you're not just taking materials out of the ground, using them briefly, throwing them away and either putting them in the ground sending them up in smoke or at best recycling them what you're doing is designing the whole system so that you don't actually have to take so many materials out of the ground in the first place so that you have products and materials circulating at their highest value for as long as possible and that does involve things like reuse and repair but I will take you on on the idea that it boils down to second hand and second best because there is that aspect of you can reuse things that other people have used already and that's a good part of the circular economy but like I said there's lots of different ideas that can be encompassed with it so the ideal, or one of the ideals in shifting over to a circular economy is that things are actually designed differently in the first place so they're designed to be reused and to be maintained so you can see different sorts of business models and you do get these in some instances where people are lending or leasing, where they're incentivized to keep better quality products in use for longer. And you do see that as well, even with refurbished things. If things are designed differently to be reused, then secondhand isn't second best. It is just another form of keeping something's value and having access to those high quality products that people want and deserve. Wayne Hubbard: Yeah, I mean, can see what's coming. For the avoidance of that, I agree with you 100%. And Libby: Yeah! Wayne Hubbard: I absolutely do not think that, you know, I wouldn't necessarily use the term second. I would use the term second life, but you know, it's still a euphemism essentially for Libby: Yeah. Wayne Hubbard: reusing something and keeping it, know, keeping it within the economy rather than destroying it by recycling it and rebuilding it. So I think there are some communication hurdles for us to overcome, but Ian, you wanted to come in. Iain Gulland: Well, I was gonna, yeah, so of course I agree with that. Thank you, Libby, for that articulation. But I guess I'm trying to link that back to the subject matter of COP 31, because just at the beginning, you did talk about that, one of the challenges around different leaders coming in, different politicians, guess, not really understanding what the circular economy is about as such, and the detail that obviously we do, but we've been. working on this for some time. But I guess, and we've had this conversation with other guests on the show around, we are going into COP 31, we're going to Turkey in November. And what we are going to find there is a lot of leaders who really don't understand the circular economy. mean, people have said that to us, you've got to bear that in mind. They're all going to turn up. And this is not what they do in the day job, so to speak. there is that. So maybe there's a bit about that communication. So what can we do? guess, you know, that's part of this that myself and Wayne are going to go. So not just us, but others, what can we do to almost, you know, get that communication properly embedded from the get go that this isn't just about waste management. It's not just about recycling, as you've said, it is about addressing that consumption piece. Libby: Yeah, I do think it will be a challenge. I mean, I don't know if you and... But I hope you're up for it. know. Iain Gulland: I know I kind of said it just rested me and did not mean that at all. Libby: So I don't know if you've gone over some of what's on the action agenda with some of your other guests, but I was having a look at what's being proposed and what the host has said they want to look at zero waste for. And I suppose it is worrying. The subhead on the action agenda web page for unlocking the climate action potential of waste management through scalable circular economy solutions. That's how they describe it. And I think that's that's worrying because it says that they're looking, the intention is to look at the climate action of waste management. And so it's putting waste management as the thing that they're going to look at and then circular economy solutions to deliver potential of waste management, which is automatically placing the emphasis at the wrong end of the scale. Like if you have a successful circular economy, circular economy solutions will mean there's no waste to manage. And so I think that they've got that wrong right from the start. So that's bad way to start. And then I was also looking at why it matters. And it sort of doubles down on that logic. It says that the waste sector is the third largest source of anthropogenic methane responsible for 30 % of global warming since the industrial revolution. And then it says global waste generation is projected to increase by 50 % by 2050, which is alarming actually. But that is sort of doubling down on the focus on waste rather than on solutions that will meet I waste is designed out, not just managed well. So I hope that you're not alone there. Well, Greedalize isn't going to be there sadly. I hope you're not alone there and I hope that people will be there arguing for a different sort of focus. And I have seen, not to be all doom and gloom, I have seen other things where they've mentioned consumption and extraction. And the word consumption, even them mentioning that in the first place, is a really helpful thing because it's something that politicians are quite often scared to talk about but one thing that I'd probably suggest is useful to highlight at every opportunity is the UN's own statistics which are more compelling than the statistics that are on the action plan about resource use and that's that the UN Global Resources Panel. So sustainable resources panel, statistics say that resource extraction and processing. that's resource use in its broadest terms, including fossil fuels, biomass, non-metallic minerals and metallic minerals. So extracting and processing those is driving 55 % of global climate emissions. So there is no world in which we will be successful in tackling climate change in less we look at resource extraction and processing, which is driven by the linear economy. And then if you want that, if they need more reason to look at it, I know this isn't the biodiversity cop, but the UN statistics from that research suggests that resource extraction and processing is driving more than 90 % of biodiversity loss. So there is no way we're going to tackle any of this unless we fundamentally start looking at resource consumption. Wayne Hubbard: that's not come across that stat. So that's a fantastic stat. had, yeah, I mean, had said that Libby: It's my favorite. Wayne Hubbard: there is stuff in there. Like we had Jose Manuel Moller as a guest, who's a strategic advisor to the climate high level champion. And he was very clear. He was very, could not been clearer that this is about zero waste and zero waste is not about. recycling, it's about taking actions above that. However, he's just one person kind of in the process. And we do think there is a danger for one to default when the circular economy is mentioned to waste management. We were on a UN sponsored webinar and the host was talking about circular economy, said all the right things about how circular economy is really important. and talked about it, not in the terms of waste management, introduced the first guest who talked about waste management from a global south perspective. And the temptation is that global south have to deal with waste management, global north have to deal with overconsumption. This is the paradigm that we're in. And I just wonder if you would, have you got any thoughts on that? How can the global south, if you like leapfrog, so they don't have to go on an accelerated journey to linear kind of destruction, but can kind of make the move in a coordinated fashion to some kind of circular. Libby: Yeah, yeah, I suppose to add to the sort of... to compound the situation with the Global South. Another thing that the report I was referencing highlights is the flow of resources as well. So it's not just the flow of waste that goes to the Global South and they have to deal with. It's also the flow of resources tend to be extracted from the Global South and benefit the economies of the Global North. And Iain Gulland: No. Libby: so that UN report, again, points the finger firmly at high income, high consumption countries like the UK, like Europe, like the US obviously and Australia, having really high consumption lifestyles that are driving the extraction of resources. I think that there is much more that needs to be talked about at this COP and other COPs about Obviously there normally is on the agenda stuff about indigenous rights and about ensuring that there's that the sort of emphasis of action is placed on the countries that can act the most. But I think that on this agenda even more so and we need to start talking about it. We need to start thinking about how our economies can develop in ways that use fewer resources that are more resilient but also that don't sort of make it harder for the global south countries to Wayne Hubbard: Hmm. Libby: actually have some resources for themselves and to develop their own more local circular economies. And I think that there is... legitimate concern at the moment that a lot of the conversation about resilience in countries like Europe, in countries like the UK, about the need to have shorter supply chains does lend itself to protectionism, to Wayne Hubbard: Yeah. Libby: making sure that we have all the resources that we need in our country and then other people might not have it and that's fine and maybe at some point they'll have it. But what we actually want to see as part of climate diplomacy is for there to be a lot more effort to ensure that we use fewer resources and can keep circulating them at a high level in our own countries but also that we're ensuring that those technologies and knowledge is transferred to the Global South to other more developing countries so that they can also have these sorts of resilient circular economies and they're not just like feeding us their resources and then struggling with their own linear economy and the consequences of waste and extraction. at the same time. Iain Gulland: Traditionally, I guess there's been a kind high level agreement on a target and everybody then goes off and tries to deliver it, But that whole, we're polarizing it into kind of north to south, but actually within that, there's a whole mix of different challenges depending on the region. But that itself suggests that there's a much more complex discussion that needs to be had. It would be too easy just to default to, let's just look at it from a waste management point of view and try and reduce emissions at the end of the pipe and get on with the other stuff around decarbonization, electrification, which has obviously been, you know, the focus of previous co-ops and not. think too much about this really complex thing because it's all about materials and supply chains and flows and stuff like that. I yeah, I still question, you know, it's like, how can we get through that? because it's gonna be more challenging for certain parts of world to deliver on this. without suffering to some extent, some economic, you know, well, with all those others, an economic dimension to all of us. I don't even have any other thoughts around how we could Libby: Yeah. Iain Gulland: cut through some of this and make it easier for politicians as much as anybody else to kind of really draft Wayne Hubbard: Hmm. Iain Gulland: this and see, yeah, this is a much more fundamental challenge than we probably had before, but it's critical and we need to start talking about it in a much more. systemic way rather than just thinking about what we're doing in the UK or what Europe's doing or what, you know, country in Africa is doing. Libby: Yeah, so I don't think there's a world in which they would get to the nitty gritty details at this point. I don't really think that's necessarily what you'd want from a cop. think they do have their limitations, they do have their strengths, but insofar as they have... galvanized and focused minds. It is about those sort of high-level ambitions and then a request that countries go away and think about how to deliver them. The main thing that's lacking is that sort of mechanism to ensure that the countries go away and think about them. So I think the most useful thing that would get country, would it be useful to get countries to start thinking about is what is that North Star, that high-level ambition with regard to resources and or material use and or consumption that could start delivering changes throughout economies to make sure that we're delivering the circular economy and reduction material use that everybody wants to see. And we've got some ideas at Green Alliance and I know that there things that you've been thinking about as well. So things like talking about raw material footprint, material footprint, raw material consumption targets, high level targets around that. to act as a light for countries to then figure out how to deliver that would be quite useful. the UN does have some, it is quite difficult to come to the concrete figure of like, this is a sustainable level of resource extraction. The UN does have some general guidance, some bulk guidance that the sustainable level of resource extraction per person is, I think they've got it at six to eight tons, but that's based on population, so as population increases the sustainable level of resource per person around the world is going to be lower. But that is a sort of ballpark figure that you can think of in bulk terms. The challenge for resource users is that there are obviously some materials that have much higher impact, some that are used in smaller quantities. So you do need to be able to focus on what's having the biggest impact as well as the sort of overall mass target. And so some something that we've suggested and that the UK could potentially lead on is that there's new indicator sets called the Global Environmental Impact of Consumption which has been developed in the UK which so far has only looked at agri-food products but it has the potential of looking at other types of consumption as well and that can tell you, that is able to tell you the impacts of consuming things in the UK, what that has done around the world and so developing data sets like that to complement overarching targets are potentially really quite useful. I'm not sure if the climate change conference is exactly the place where we can expect people to start talking about material footprints, but we can start talking about that as a potential thing that the UN as a global body could lead on and could start talking about. And potentially at COP you could start talking about things like consumption emissions, which are related to the material footprint and which I think are a really important thing to get on the agenda to complement the traditional territorial emissions that they talk about in COP. Wayne Hubbard: Well, mean, a large part of this podcast has been kind of trying to unpick that territorial versus consumption. you know, back to the politics, I really liked the idea of a raw material consumption per capita figure. It reminds me of something that C40 did. You you'll be aware of that 1.5 degree C urban consumption report, And in the report, you're going from Northern... cities of something like 12 tons per, of CO2 per person consumption emissions on a consumption emissions basis down to 0.7 by 2050. So it's that level of reduction, which is really what we're talking. And this is why I come back to that, you know, secondhand kind of second, that off the hand, secondhand comment, because that requires an awful amount of reuse. And it probably leads to the same kind of number that you would get with a a raw material consumption it all goes to the same place which is we can't keep using new stuff all the time Libby: Yeah. Wayne Hubbard: because that is extractive. Libby: Yeah, it does. Although I suppose the consumption emissions aren't... related to the raw material extraction but they're not exactly the same because there are some bits of raw material extraction actually there's most bits of raw material extraction and processing that in the long run you would expect to be decarbonized. So like I've been in conversations with businesses who deal with these issues on a slightly different way they've got scope one scope two scope three emissions scope three emissions Wayne Hubbard: Hmm. Libby: are sort of equivalent the business equivalent they're the supply chain equivalent Wayne Hubbard: Hmm. Libby: supply chain emissions so they're sort of equivalent to consumption emissions and they, some businesses I've heard in private conversation are quite resistant to having to deal with their own, with their scope 3 emissions even though if you're doing things like the science-based targets initiative they are responsible for their scope 3 emissions but they, the thinking that I've heard some businesses say privately is that my scope 3 emissions are someone else's scope 1 emissions Wayne Hubbard: Yeah. Libby: so the supply chain will decarbonise. think it's there are certain things that are quite difficult to electrify or to decarbonize but that is more feasible I suppose than just sort of reducing raw material use. I think the link to climate you can see the link breaking. I can't see the link breaking between resource extraction and biodiversity impact which obviously then does drive climate change in a different way. So I can't remember what your actual question was. Wayne Hubbard: Well, I think my, was really just making the point that, I mean, you're right, you know, around the margins, all of these things are, you know, they're complicated, they were nuances, but it's all driving in the same direction, which is we just have to use, our emissions relating to stuff have to be a lot less. And by and large, there's only two ways to do that. Decarbonization through technology or demand reduction. And circular economy sort of does both, but it's really about demand reduction. And at the COP, there's a big, a lot of emphasis on technology coming to the rescue and decarbonizing through different ways. But that takes, all of these things take time, right? Libby: Yeah. Yeah, I suppose getting back to the point of like who's responsible for the Wayne Hubbard: Yeah. Libby: sort of consumption emissions in the short term, any sort of increase in electrification is going to require a lot of resources to be extracted and processed. Wayne Hubbard: Yeah. Libby: any sort of effort to reduce demand will actually make electrification easier as well because you don't have to electrify so much. Wayne Hubbard: Yeah. Libby: You don't have to extract all of those resources to to drive the electrification agenda. Wayne Hubbard: So you can see, I can see Ian's desperate to come in, but you can see how there is possibly a route through this where, and we've talked to Joss and EMF about this actually, they're really into the critical rheumatism, I know you are as well. You can see how the electrification and the materials agenda actually can meet, but if they don't, you can see how one can have this pretty bad effect on the other, maybe even to negate. the benefits of electrification to a certain extent. Sorry. Iain Gulland: I was going to say something similar. mean, I guess that's still the challenge. Because you've said that, we need that energy transition. I remember speaking at something in UK parliament about this and somebody was reporting, you need in the kind of renewable sector, you need about eight times more materials for a gigawatt of power than you do from a gas-fired power station. So that's, and a lot of that is critical raw materials. So we can talk about that as well. You know, the, the accessibility of that. So we're all, that's not just the UK thing. The whole world is going electric, you know, decarbonizing. So the infrastructure that's been developed at PACE is just soaking up materials. I absolutely understand what you're saying about that. If we just chase embedded carbon, then we get kind of lost in that or, you know, that's somebody else's problem, but they're sorting it anyway. But actually this is about materials, which then has an impact, as you say, on biodiversity loss and water stress. And then that has an impact on climate. So it's that whole system. Again, that comes back to the point. At COPS, it gets very detailed on carbon and just thinking about the carbon numbers. And some of these, I'm not saying they get forgotten about, but it's much more harder to kind of try and think about that whole system. How do we get a conversation about demand reduction rather than reducing consumption or thinking consumption needs to be smarter? at an individual level, but at a global level. And it's because it's interesting, you you started this by introducing Green Alliance as doing climate resources and nature, like they were in three different departments. And I guess that this, and I know that's not true for Green Alliance, but you know, you and I have had these conversations for years, Libby, about, you don't get that, you don't get people talking about biodiversity loss and... circle economy, nobody really makes that link that actually the circle economy is about reducing use of resources, which will have a positive impact on the biodiversity challenges at a global level. These two things do say, and the fact that there is a different cop for biodiversity almost makes Libby: Hmm. Iain Gulland: it easier to say, well, that's for somebody else to discuss. So even that, that kind of system approach is probably still the real challenge that we have, not just. getting the circular economy argument over, but at the COP as well, for the reasons you've just said. And there's no question in there. I just thought I'd share my reflections from my holiday. Libby: Yeah. Wayne Hubbard: Thanks Ian. Iain Gulland: But I guess, but, know, and again, the point you're making about critical raw materials and the intersection, because there is a bit of conflict there that we do need all that electrification. We do need all that new infrastructure, but that is going to create huge demands on resources. So the two things have to be addressed. Somebody needs to be in that conversation. So I wonder whether that is the door that will allow us to step through in terms of the circular economy argument, because we can't just keep mining for all the obvious reasons and at the end of the day, dealing with all the stuff at the back end. We need something that creates a smarter consumption of these materials and over designing things that will last longer, designing things for repairability and not just the... things that we have in our house, at a structural level as much as anything else, you know, all the new infrastructure, wind, wave technologies that are going out there, we can't just be thinking about, you know, just replacing them on an onward basis, can we? I mean, this is just, that just feels, you know, we're not learning any lessons from the past at all. So is that the door? Is this the door that we should all be really pushing at the kind of electrification use of? critical raw materials that would really help get everybody thinking about circularity. Libby: I think it is a really important way in. to come back to the nobody's making the link between resources and biodiversity loss. know, no, no, I know, but I think it's true, but I think there are... Iain Gulland: I know, sorry, that was a bit of generalisation. But I was there to provoke our guests. Libby: But I think even like, I think that is broadly true, but I think that there is... quite usefully at UN level, the UN has started talking about the triple planetary crisis and obviously they have different COPs for different things but their triple planetary crisis is climate, nature and pollution and it is actually resource use that sits at the nexus of all of those and so I do think that that's an important thing to point out at every opportunity particularly in the UN context. This is the thing that is absolutely needed to address all of the three crises. that are threatening the planet on critical raw materials. Yeah, I mean, is something that that is rising up the agenda and is definitely a way in. it is it continually surprises me that it hasn't we haven't come up against walls in terms of the limits of the amount of extraction that we can do to deliver these sorts of technologies, particularly with the rise of AI, which will require vast amounts of critical raw materials. And some of them some of these materials are scarce. A lot of a lot of them are quite difficult to to come by. Some of them are very concentrated in terms of their supply chains, both in terms of extraction and processing. So these are very fragile supply chains that people are going to have to reckon with. I think there are occasions in which people talk about demand reduction, but like the rise of AI just sort of blows everything way out of the water, completely out of the water. But we did some analysis at Green Alliance a few years ago that was looking at the energy system and the potential impact of demand reduction. And this was again, before AI data centers were a twinkle in Elon Musk's eye. Iain Gulland: What a thing. Libby: demonstrated that if you took demand reduction seriously through things that would benefit the economy and people's quality of life like much more public transport, diet changes, things like that, you could actually reduce the demand for energy across the economy by... I can't remember what the percentage was for that, but it would have the knock-on impact of reducing critical or material demand for cobalt rare earth element and a few others by about lithium, I think by about... about 50 % over the course of 10 years compared to a business as usual trajectory. I am quite interested to do that. then, and then, and this is the key thing. Once you've done that step of reducing your demand by that much, it makes it possible to meet almost all subsequent demand by reused and recycled materials. So unless you do the demand reduction, you're not going to be able to have a circular economy. You will have to keep feeding new materials in, new materials. But if you do the demand reduction bit first, eventually the circular economy in about 20, 25 years time will be able to provide all those materials that you need. I'd be interested to do that analysis again now with the data centers, the increase in data centers, because I don't think that that will hold true anymore, but the narrative will still be the same, but I'm not sure what the impact would be. Wayne Hubbard: Yeah, I mean, that's really interesting. And to a certain extent, I think the prescription in a way for solving this is out there. in the C40 report. The problem is that, you know, how the hell? If you look at what they were saying, the way they presented it, in raw terms, they had this figure like, I almost don't want to say it because it would be giving it kind of credence to the the alt-right, but there was some figures around the amount of new clothes, what diet changes you'd need, how transport would change. And they were presented quite starkly, but if you kind of had a message that said circular economy, business models and strategies would allow you to live and thrive without feeling that you were somehow, your standard of living had reduced at all, in fact, probably increased. because we'd be living in a better and more livable planet. But that wasn't how that report was framed. So the politics of this are like really key. you you've got to get mayors, so sort of city leaders, sub-national leaders, you've got to have, and businesses and NGOs and communities kind of really bound into this message. And one thing we've learned is, and I think this goes back to our experience, Libby, in the task force, who does that? Who are the... this term transition broker, who are the transition brokers that can pull these people and these organizations together and deliver that kind of scale of change because the demand reduction required is seismic. Libby: Yeah, I do think that there's... I do think that we need to be careful in how we talk about this and the vision that we're presenting. It isn't a vision of taking away things that people want and need to function in the current world, but it is in some instances, and it's important to talk about this, it is taking away the frustration that they have with the way the current world works because there is actually near universal hatred of the throwaway society and Wayne Hubbard: Yeah. Libby: people are living in the throwaway society because because that is the option at the moment, that's how things work, but they are very frustrated by it. We've done, and I think our bits of analysis over the years have shown that this frustration is growing, because we did some work about 10 years ago that looked into this and then redid similar sort of public polling to see how frustrated people were with the status quo, and it has markedly increased. It was high 10 years ago, it's even higher now. 83 % of the British public are frustrated with the throwaway society. Something like nearly 80 % are regularly frustrated by products that don't last as long as they should. They really want to see government act. And then there's all sorts of analysis as well about how frustrated people are by the clutter in their house, by how poor things are for mental health, particularly for children. The focus on consumption, the focus on buying things and having the latest things it is quite stressful and so I think that there are we do need to reframe this as this this is a better world where you're not weighed down by the stuff and the waste that is making you frustrated and sad Iain Gulland: Yeah. Libby: now but you have you have the things that you need you have the the high quality goods that you want maybe your wardrobes aren't as I have a very full wardrobe I do I do like I do have to confess that none of it was new but it is still very full Wayne Hubbard: It's on your bio, it's on your Green Alliance bio that you Libby: Bye. Wayne Hubbard: like buying secondhand clothes. Libby: I it. I know it's how I like I do it that I like I recognize I should rain rain myself in Iain Gulland: lead with that. We're going to cut that right Wayne Hubbard: Yeah. Yeah. Libby: Ha! Iain Gulland: at the beginning of the podcast and say here is Libby. You can talk about your wardrobe. Well, got conscious of time. This has been really exciting because I mean even that thing you were talking about there about the data, you know, that's probably another podcast in itself because it's like who's measuring all of that. So that really interesting report that you're talking about. You kind of feel, you know, we have the kind of annual admissions, you know, reporting and all that sort of stuff. But how are we tracking those that material, know, so even if we're showing that we're not on track or we are on track, but I would, you who holds that? Who can actually, you know, to some extent are trusted. Is that the UN? Is that somebody who, you know, we should be tracking these material, Wayne Hubbard: Hmm. Iain Gulland: individual materials in a way that people can understand what's happening to them because, you know, thing about carbon, as people talk about quite often for the citizens, even business, you don't really understand carbon, you know, it's up in the air somewhere. What does that actually mean? But it does get tracked. But materials you do, it's visible, isn't it? I mean, you might want to turn away and you don't want to actually understand where your materials come from, but you can actually see where the, know, for the quarrying and all that's happening on the supply chains. It's very visible. And we probably do need a bit more transparency, you know, for all of us on the impacts of our consumption. Wayne Hubbard: suppose to just add on to Ian's point that we are aware of this thing called the Istanbul platform that's been created and will have legacy following the COP31. And we're aware of this concept of transition brokers. And it seems to me like globally for the circular economy, the Istanbul platform could be that global transition broker and be the kind of center point for a lot of this information. and could manage these multi-level organisations and partners and cities who have to actually deliver the change. And that has to have a national equivalent. And this is why I talk about the circular economy task force, because we never really talked about that, I don't believe anyway, not giving too much away, but there's no national equivalent of that in the UK. But bizarrely, there is one in Scotland. which is now going to be absorbed into a different organisation. And there is one in London, know, you know, ReLondon and Zero Way Scotland. So these organisations are, in my view, de facto transition brokers, but they're not really kind of recognised for the important work that they do properly by funding and the kind of given the powers. And it seems to me there should be one of those in every kind of mayoral, strategic authority or conurbation. who could manage that transition and deal with it in a sort of more systemic way? I mean, what are your thoughts on that? Libby: Yeah, I mean, I do think that the structures are lacking to drive the transition that we want to see. Certainly something that Green Alliance has called for before is something like an equivalent to the CCC, the UK's Climate Change Committee, but for resources. So that's Wayne Hubbard: Yeah. Libby: an independent expert advisory body that, mean, ideally there would be a legal target that you could hold the government to account for delivering the target. And that also, think some of the key things that the CCC does that could be replicated for resource use include the sort of the five yearly budgets leading up to the ultimate goal which is not something that we have for material use obviously but also the CCC looks at different sectors and the roles that they should play in delivering against the overarching target and I think for resource use that's going to be even more significant because you will want it to be considered by sectors again and there are certain sectors that could move really quickly and deliver massive savings. Like if you get construction right, if you get the built environment right, you can, that's about half your material footprint right there. So you can, you can make really big gains in some sectors really quickly. But then also you will want to consider particular materials like critical materials, which are used on a smaller scale, are really quite environmentally damaging or really quite strategically important. That sort of thing. You'll want to consider those, some of those on a material by material basis. So I think an overall, advisory body for central governments would be really helpful and then obviously within cities in certain places you definitely do want bodies that are advising on making the local transitions and demonstrating how it can be done. Iain Gulland: don't know if I was always having to declare an interest or a conflict in that last remark about, know, because it does chime in some conversations I had as the former chief executive of Zero Way Scotland and around exactly what you're talking about, Libby, you know, because I think that would definitely help having that central authority that respects you in terms of the tracking. Because the other thing they do is create pathways, they? Within that, they're quite sensible approach to not just waving numbers at people, but actually trying to help create the right pathways to deliver on that. think that's something that we really do need to see. know that's something that ZeroWay Scotland particularly is focused on at the moment, not just talking about the circular economy, but setting out what these pathways could be, particularly for construction, built environment. and the kind of heavy carbon intensive industries. But anyway, we have come to an end. So one of the kind of last questions a little bit though, I think that what Wayne was getting to was just, you know, the end. But didn't. But Wayne Hubbard: But it didn't. Libby: Yeah. Iain Gulland: then we like to know, so COP is going to happen and we are going to go there. And I guess what's your own thoughts on, you know, if you could wave that kind of magic wand, what would you be looking for COP? 31 to kind of come out with? What sort of policy, new policy, new declaration, whatever you think, what would be really helpful for you in your work to see coming out of COP31? Libby: I think a genuine understanding of the potential of the circular economy. So like we were talking at the start, not focused on waste management, but focused on resource use and linking resource use as being the essential ingredient for tackling the triple planetary crisis. think that high level recognition is then something that you could build on at national levels and at local levels and would be really quite helpful. getting the circular economy messages across. Wayne Hubbard: Brilliant. That I've learnt, Iain Gulland: Excellent. Good. Yes. Wayne Hubbard: I've definitely learnt something today then. I mean, it's always nice to learn something from guests, but I mean, I really have, kind of got away, got to go and do some research. I always feel like when I talk to you Libby, I've got to go away and do some research. So guess that's a good thing, always Iain Gulland: I Wayne Hubbard: learning. Iain Gulland: was like, I've said this 40, Libby, think it's really always great listening to you because you always come up with these numbers, these little, Wayne Hubbard: Yeah. Libby: Hahaha Iain Gulland: you know, not little numbers, big numbers. You can't remember them. I always struggled, you know, every time I used to have to look down at Wayne Hubbard: Yeah. Note to self. Libby: you Iain Gulland: my notes to see what was that number I was meant to throw in at this moment in time. But you just seem to, I think that really gets attention. Libby: That UN number I use all the time, I say it all the time. I can't believe you've not heard me say it before. Iain Gulland: I know you say that but then you use luck you use lots of numbers all the time every time Wayne Hubbard: What we're going to do is we're going to take all of these podcasts and try and kind of come up with the answer. So, you know, I want you to know that Libby: Okay, good. Iain Gulland: Yeah, we're good. Wayne Hubbard: you've been, you know, contributed to the answer, whatever it is. We're not sure yet, but yeah. Thanks. Thanks so much, Libby. Iain Gulland: are you hopeful? I mean, I guess that's the other point. Libby: Yeah. Iain Gulland: Are you hopeful about the circuit? mean, not not just in respect to the UK, because sometimes we do get into this kind of, you know, Scotland, UK, even Europe thinking about it. But, you know, I mean, the whole issue around material use. demand, the impact of that, you know, it's hugely significant, but we don't really, you know, we get lost in a little bubble sometimes about what's happening here in the UK. I just wonder whether we're and optimistic about it. Do you remain optimistic? Libby: I think you have to be optimistic on some level to keep trying. Iain Gulland: Yeah. Libby: It can be quite hard. I go through moments of optimism, moments of despair. Iain Gulland: I've said, because I've said to Wayne before, because I mean, I feel really optimistic because, you know, the fact is on the COP agenda. I mean, we could, you know, we debate Libby: Mmm, mmm. Iain Gulland: about the possibilities for it slightly not getting as far as we wanted to get to and all that sort of stuff. So we could, we could debate. But the fact is there, it's on the agenda. you know, and others have talked about this for years. Every time the COP comes up, say, why are we not talking about the circular economy? Why are we not talking about resources? And here we are. It's there, you know, thanks to the Turkish government and the first lady. So it's there. So there is an opportunity and it's about, you know, and it could still be part of a journey, because they're ones and, you know, it's not till maybe the fifth time that we see real progress. You know, I guess our frustration, Libby: Yeah. Iain Gulland: I know will be we've already gone on that journey over the last 25 years of our careers. We don't want the whole rest of the world to spend 25 years doing that. Could be, you know, could be short circuit some of that to some extent. But. Yeah. Wayne Hubbard: I think that's, this is our cop. This is, you Libby: Yeah. Wayne Hubbard: know, that's what it feels like. This is our one cop to really kind of make sure that this agenda is kind of aligned right and goes off correctly. Because if it doesn't, we've probably lost the opportunity for, you know, a number of years to say the least. So I think it's important to be there and advocating the right solutions. Libby: Yeah, yeah, I'm glad you're going to be there. I'll be interested to hear how it goes. Yeah, okay, great, great. Okay, great. Wayne Hubbard: Hey, we're going to podcast from there. That's the plan. So yeah, we are. Yeah, we are. We've got Iain Gulland: every night from a bar. Wayne Hubbard: myself in and our guest. We can announce our host actually, and it's Marcus, Marcus Gover. yeah, Libby: nice. Wayne Hubbard: so three kind of slightly older grizzled white men will be Libby: No. Wayne Hubbard: bearing the torch of the circular economy. T'was ever thus, I guess, wasn't it really? Libby: Yeah. Wayne Hubbard: Great, anyway, look, let's thank you Libby. Been a wonderful educational and really interesting discussions. Great to have had your, you know, the benefit of your knowledge and your experience. And yeah, thanks so much. being with Libby on the task force was really incredible. Libby was always just able to get right to the nub of the issue and really kind of very concisely and with evidence articulate a point, which, you know. She did just an incredible job. I think the idea of a metric around. raw material use is really interesting. I suppose it's the opposite to waste out. I always think, we'll reduce waste out, but of course you want to reduce material in, don't you? Iain Gulland: Yeah, yeah, something. I mean, guess something we were working on, or the Seaweed Scotland will continue to be working on and others. And I guess that comes back to conversations I think we've had previously around there's a lot of this work going on in different countries, people trying to think of potentially what that metric is or what that framework would look like. How do we bring everybody together to try and create the right platform for this? So we do it once, you know, okay, we might not get it Wayne Hubbard: Yeah. Iain Gulland: right, absolutely perfect from day one, but we follow the same path, everybody rather than have every country or every region come up with its own framework or measurement metric and what, you know, because then we'll all just spend years, decades debating, well, you're counting this and not counting that. So I think, you know, that's, that would be really helpful. Wayne Hubbard: It would, it? Because the, I mean, the cop target on waste is, as we know, is to half waste growth. Iain Gulland: you know, have half waist growth. Wayne Hubbard: waste growth, so not reduce waste Iain Gulland: I Wayne Hubbard: But waste is a subjective thing. mean, that Iain Gulland: Yeah. Wayne Hubbard: sounds silly because you know what a pile of waste looks like, but I mean, a pile of waste could be, well, that's my waste. I'm using that for something and then it suddenly doesn't become waste or rather I don't need that and then it's waste. Iain Gulland: I know. I know. Well, even the definition of waste, right? I mean, that's the whole thing. You could just move it. You could change the definition of waste to byproducts Wayne Hubbard: Yeah. Iain Gulland: and then you could hit your target straight away. So I know. Wayne Hubbard: Whereas raw material or virgin material input per capita that is, I suppose, something that could be measured, is objectively a fact rather than subjective. And it probably does hit the big sector, which is construction, whereas if it's municipal waste, then it doesn't. And I really like Libby's point, I really like this, around the triple planetary threat and resource. resources being kind of at the nexus of that. So by reducing resource use, you help to alleviate all these, the triple planetary threats. Iain Gulland: Yeah, I totally agree. think that's exactly what this is about. I guess the challenge is we see that, but it hasn't really been addressed, has it? We've looked at the climate, but we've got a biodiversity thing, and pollution is probably something that is talked about anyway at a kind of sub-regional level about trying to tackle pollution incidents and prevention around that. But we don't really see... materials hasn't really been discussed up until now. It's going to be at least in one of the corps. You could argue that it should be in all of the corps. You know, people should be discussing this to make sure that we are seeing that system, you know, systemic, you know, seeing it through a systemic lens rather than just thinking about it from a carbon point of view. So, yeah, no, that is exactly it. Yeah. I like this stuff. I mean, she talked about having that North Star ambition. I guess that's, Wayne Hubbard: Yeah. Iain Gulland: you know, it doesn't... mean, the metric absolutely is part of that, but actually just talking about this or getting this on the agenda that this is the thing we should all be talking about and should have an ambition around reducing that footprint, reducing our demand for what is really crippling the planet as much as the economies of our various nations. Wayne Hubbard: Well, we've talked about being involved in organisations who were developed to deal with waste. know, Zero-Escotland, we're London, the London Waste and Recycling Board, and our kind of north star was reducing waste. So if circular economy could help reduce waste, that's how we got into it. But actually... And then when you have these conversations about demand reduction and they start to move into lifestyle, you know, buying less new clothes, changing what you eat, eating less meats, using shared cars or whatever it is, it starts to get like not about waste anymore, it starts to get about. you know, the economy and Iain Gulland: . Wayne Hubbard: society and all of this other stuff and you feel like, I the one who's supposed to be in charge of this? Do know what Iain Gulland: Alright. Wayne Hubbard: mean? but that's the reality, isn't it? That's the point that this is systemic, it is about society and it does need kind of these transition brokers to manage that because it's not about waste, it's about resources, it's about raw material resources and reducing those. So that's... That's kind of like, for me, that's a bit of a light bulb moment. Iain Gulland: Yeah, and I know from my personal experience having that discussion even about critical raw materials with government was that it wasn't a waste issue. know, there wasn't like there was piles of the stuff that needed somebody to do something with it, you know, or there was a pollution, you know, so the real challenge around critical raw materials is the accessibility and the, to some extent the geopolitics that sits behind that. Wayne Hubbard: Right. Yeah. Iain Gulland: and then the climate impacts of all of that beyond. That's an input challenge. having that conversation with the Inverted Government's Waste Department of Government was really challenging because they looked Wayne Hubbard: Yeah. Iain Gulland: at us, what's the problem here? There isn't a problem. The problem is whether it's a trade problem, whether it's an economic problem, whether it's a sector-specific thing like the renewable industry or AI. industry trying to access more critical raw materials for its products. That wasn't the usual place that these conversations came from, the waste department or even the environmental protection department as such, because it was upstream. that's maybe the point I was trying to say, is that the door that we should be really all getting behind or pushing through? Because that is the place we want to get to, we want to start talking about. the economic challenge and the geopolitical challenge as much as anything, the resilience challenge around critical raw materials, which then would lead on to other things, other materials as much as anything else. Even food, know, food's in that same space, you could argue, in terms of, yeah, we have a food waste issue around, you know, making more from the stuff that people are throwing away, but actually we have an upstream challenge around feeding ourselves and providing affordable food. Wayne Hubbard: Right, yeah, yeah. But as soon as you Iain Gulland: in a way. Wayne Hubbard: go upstream, I mean, you know, I guess another theme of our podcast is it's upstream and it's not downstream, baby. As soon as you go upstream, you're like, no longer, I don't think, talking about waste management. And that's the point. We will go to cup and we'll constantly be fighting this battle. be literally rowing upstream, know, come followers upstream and the tendency will be for everyone to kind of follow, go downstream. It will be. Iain Gulland: I know, but in a way, but it's about language, isn't it? Because, you know, that's where it is sometimes positioned that it's coming from there. So therefore it's easy to push it back in there and say, yeah, okay, we get all this, but actually it's a waste management issue. You guys need to go away and sort it out with respect, you know, prevention activities at the local level and EPR schemes and all of that stuff. That's all waste management. And we'll get on with the, you know, the electrification and the decarbonisation agenda. But actually, need to... Who's the people in the middle? Who's the people who are actually looking at the upstream? What's that upstream management association? Who are they? Who are they? Wayne Hubbard: And that's a point. mean, this is why, who are they exactly? I mean, this is why, going back to national level, I suppose, or even city level, this is why you need circular economy across. Iain Gulland: Cross. Wayne Hubbard: If you read Square in the Circle, Andrea Liverani and the World Bank, they're quite clear about this. Again, a lot of this stuff is blooming obvious, but it just needs codifying. Of course, you can't leave this to the environment department because it's not their remit to go upstream. Their remit is to deal with stuff downstream. Of course, Iain Gulland: Yeah. Wayne Hubbard: they don't have the locus. It has to sit across many departments and in particular, the treasury. of my things now, but if you're going to spend more money on maintaining stuff rather than buying new stuff, that requires a different set, possibly of fiscal rules to enable you to do that. Iain Gulland: Yeah, yeah, no, totally, Wayne Hubbard: Okay. What do reckon then? Are we done? Iain Gulland: That's good. We're done. Yeah, we're done. We're done. so thank you. That is the end of this episode. You have been listening to Unfolding, a Circle Economy podcast. I've been Ian Gulland, he's been Wayne Hubbard. Thank you. Thank you to our guest today, Libby Peake, and hopefully you will all listen again next week. Wayne Hubbard: Thanks, comment, like and subscribe. I love the way that when you said your bit and then you're going to say I'm Ian Godden or I've been Ian Godden, you're completely like who am I? That was just... Iain Gulland: Well, I nearly said, cause I was like, I nearly said, I've been Wayne Hover. That's what I should probably say. I've been Wayne Hover. Wayne Hubbard: And who's been in Culland? Iain Gulland: He's been Ian Gullum. So we are glad. Wayne Hubbard: I just, don't worry, we'll get the AI to make that look Iain Gulland: Yeah, I don't like that. Wayne Hubbard: less like you know who you are.