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Episode 14 - Walter Stahel · Unfolding: a circular economy podcast

• Iain Gulland: Hello, 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: So in this first series of episodes, we are going to focus on the upcoming COP31, which is going to be 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. 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 we, myself and Wayne, are going to go to the actual COP in Turkey and try and use all of the things we've learned through the episodes and try and influence the COP outcome. Wayne Hubbard: So thanks for tuning in. Why don't you join us on this journey on the road to Antalya? Iain Gulland: So I'm Ian Gawnd, I am the former Chief Executive of Zero Waste Scotland as well as a past President of ACR +, which is 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 former member of the UK government's Circular Economy Task Force. I think during this series, I'm probably going to stop using the word former and probably tell you something I am actually doing, but there we go. Together, Ian and I have over 60 years of experience working in waste and the circular economy. Shocking. Iain Gulland: Shocking, yes. So anyway, myself and Wayne, we're going to be talking to a range of exciting guests over the 10 weeks in the run up to COP to understand a little bit more about the COP process and what we might expect or should expect by way of agreements or implementation plans for the circular economy specifically, as well as getting to the wider discussions about the circular economy transition overall. Wayne Hubbard: There is an opportunity for listeners and viewers to feed in their thoughts and questions as we go along by email or by comments. And yes, even to suggest future guests we might like to include. We're keen to make this as interactive and as interesting as possible. So Ian, us know who our guest is this week. Iain Gulland: And our guest this week is, well, to some extent needs no introduction. I'm just gonna introduce Walter Stahl, who is, I'm sure for everyone involved in the circular economy, they're just new to the circular economy or they've been at it for some time, we'll know who Walter is. is ultimately an expert. Well, I don't think you can use the word expert to say Walter. He is the godfather of the circular economy and somebody who really has just talked so much sense and we're going to hear from him. Wayne Hubbard: I was wondering if you were going to use the word Godfather. It's difficult not to, isn't it, Iain Gulland: remember the first time I met you, Walter, we got you to come to Scotland to present an event. And I was the chair. And I remember you had something like 30, 40 slides. And you started and you spent the first 10 minutes on the first slide. And I thought, my God, I'm going to have to, I'm the guy that's going to have to. cut you off midstream. And I was just absolutely, but I don't know. mean, you absolutely, you were a tour de force. You just went through your slides, captivated the audience and finished on time. it was just, I don't know. mean, you 25 minutes I think you had. was just, it was electric. I always remember that from me absolutely Wayne Hubbard: You Iain Gulland: dreading that thinking you were going to be there for three and a half hours or something. So yeah, I know that. We've met up many times since, Walter. So it's great to have you on the podcast. So yeah, over to you. A little bit about yourself if you want, but obviously we're here to talk about COP. So your experience of COP or ACOP previously would be really helpful. some of your reflections on previous COP's and where you think the circular economy is. Well, yeah, I guess it is on the agenda. at the COP this year, so your thoughts maybe on what that means for the cycle economy would be helpful. Over to you Walter. Walter Stahel: Well in Copenhagen I realised there are two different events. One is by the NGOs, the other one is by the officials. And they actually don't meet. It's absolutely parallel. And then the last COP where the Minister of Energy was the chairman, I think somebody attacked him and his answer I think was brilliant. He said, if you stop buying petrol, we will stop producing petrol. And that puts it to the point. They are not producing petrol for fun. But as we have seen now with the Strait of Hormuz, economic system could break down if we no longer have any petrol. So it's up to us, the industrial nations, to stop using. petrol and developing other energies. That's with regard to the COP Now, what is the contribution of the circular economy? The circular economy is maintaining assets, capitals of cultural, natural, human and manufactured assets. and manufactured assets, never mind if it's infrastructure or buildings or products, all the energy, which means CO2 emissions, water and labor that was used in the manufacturing are embodied in the object as long as this is in use. So therefore, for example, if you repair a pair of jeans instead of buying a new one, you save 11 tons of water. Because that's the amount 10 tons is needed to grow the cotton, 1 ton in textile manufacturing. And it's similar with buildings, the big expenditure in materials. in buildings is the steel and concrete or bricks. if you and 80 % of these materials are in the anti-energy involved are in the supporting structure. So if we renovate buildings, we tear out anything that is inside, but just keep the supporting structure, then we reduce water energy consumption by 80 percent. And we increase the jobs because you need more labor to remanufacture a building than to pull it down and produce a new one. And so there is a direct link with resources and circular economy. The problem is that the circular economy is a decentralized or local affair and so it is not really of interest to big business. Now if we go to the performance economy, in the beginning the performance economy as I introduced it in 2006 and 2010 is selling objects, selling the use of objects instead of the objects, which means for manufacturers that they have to get their revenue not at the point of sale, but during the utilization of the object. So it's a complete shift in the strategy, corporate strategy. But what has happened since is that now with, if you look at Microsoft 365 or John Deere, tractors or any other smart product, now you don't become an owner if you buy an object, you no longer become the owner of the object. Officially, yes, but in reality you are the user of the object because the manufacturer maintains the control over the object. And even it can exploit the data that you produce to train his algorithms or worse Iain Gulland: Thank Walter Stahel: control the government, the American government can't control what they are doing. the user is becoming the slave of the manufacturers. And this is a huge change from the initial idea where he had The individual or the company had the choice to either buy an object or rent it or lease it or whatever. But the individual or the corporation were at the control. They choose which option they wanted. Now it's the manufacturer that forces you. this servitization forces you to accept a contract where you can only use the equipment or the software, but you no longer control it. So if you have... Iain Gulland: So we get it. Sorry, I'm sorry, I'm jumping in because this is quite interesting already. But isn't that then a positive, know, forget this sinister, you know, the sense of being quite sinister in terms of manufacturers or companies controlling you. Isn't what you're describing good for the circular economy then? If there's gonna be a shift. to companies saying, want you to be a user because we actually want to control your use or get feedback on your use to develop new products and systems. Isn't that good for the circular economy? Because we're gonna see more leasing or subscription models for products. I mean, I'm just throwing it out there. I mean, we can get into the whole, yeah, the issues around that from a moral point of view, but, you know. Walter Stahel: Okay, let's first get back to the circular economy because one of the biggest drivers of the circular industrial economy now is the lack of resources. For example, the TGV Atlantique, high-speed, one of the high-speed train companies in France, was to produce new high-speed trains and after a while, Alstom, after a while they had to give up because they couldn't keep the contract. So they actually re-manufactured and technology and fashion updated, upgraded the old trains when they were 45 years old and so now they are using the old but as good as new trains that can now run until they are 60. But the driver was not economics or environment or it was simply lack of access to strategic materials. And so it's interesting that the circular industrial economy becomes a very interesting option if we lack resources. And of course, that is again energy, water, material resources. Similar thing happened again in France when the sales of selling new cars dropped and I mean really dropped 10 or 15 % per annum. Then Renault, do you remember the R5, the Renault 5? this relatively small car, they realized that that car was easy to remanufacture because there was no electronic in it. So they bought up all the R5s they could find, a new factory or rather reopened an existing closed factory and started to remanufacture the old R5s to sell to sell it again to the public. And by doing this, they realized that by not relying on new parts, but on remanufacturing everything they could from the body to the chassis to the engines, they actually had a much higher profit margin than producing the cars. So corporate is slowly learning the big advantage for manufacturers by the circular industrial economy, repair and remanufacture. Wayne Hubbard: I am, if I may just come in there, you you are the father of of performance economy and here we are you're now calling you know which I find really interesting that we've become a slave and and also so that I guess my point is that nothing is inherently good here we have to fight for for good right so the circular economy isn't inherently a just and fair economy it Clearly, we have to fight for it to be a just and fair economy. So I'm just wondering, we have these big forces that you've talked about, which are geopolitical in effect, like access to material is going to become the big feature of the latter part of the 21st century in late stage capitalism, presumably access to critical raw materials as we become more electrified. So. There's the, you've kind of gone straight to the heart of the fight. So I guess I'm not asking you for a solution, but you must be thinking Iain Gulland: you Wayne Hubbard: about, you know, how, how on earth are we going to navigate these big strategic geopolitical issues in order to get the right, not just the right kind of sustainable economy, but a just unfair sustainable economy that doesn't make slaves of us all. So there's the question, Walter. Walter Stahel: Well, let's look at the industrial circle economy. ABB, I don't know if you want me to name companies or not, ABB motors, the big electric motors, which I had the opportunity to influence. They have realized that the engine itself, the motor itself is practically living forever. So the thing where they can improve the performance is the software. And so they have to, in the design, they have to separate the hardware and the software. So they can upgrade the hardware by upgrading the software. And then if, because they are using very special copper and very special steel, and so if the engine, if the motor comes to the end of life, in the past they used to simply give it to recyclers, the steel and the copper. And then they had to buy back at a high price the special copper, for example, they needed. And now what they are doing, they are no longer giving the copper to a recycler. They give it to a recycler as a service. In other words, they want their own copper back 100 % from that company. And therefore they no longer depend on price volatility on copper because they only pay the recycler for recycling their copper and they have become more or less in a closed loop and they know the risks and they know the price. And I think in many other cases this will convince the COs or CFOs that they have to maintain the control over their materials. They have to maintain the ownership of their materials. That's a complete change from the previous Wayne Hubbard: Change the pace. Walter Stahel: linear industrial energy where you basically give you everything away for recycling and buy new stuff. Wayne Hubbard: Yeah. So you're seeing then the role that circular economy can play in producing resilient and thriving business within a material constrained world. Walter Stahel: Yes, that is one way. Another strategy that is used by several companies is the manufacturers that you follow your products into the market. It started by offering operation and maintenance for your own product. And then they realized that many of their clients had fleets of, for example, compressors of different makes. And so they offered to take over the operation maintenance of the complete fleet of their clients. And in one case, this case discovered there were, I think, 40 or 60 year old compressors that had been abandoned. And so they started to remanufacture these very old compressors at a much lower price than producing new ones. So once the manufacturers move into this mode of optimizing utilization, they will always find it's more profitable. It saves a lot of energy. It saves a lot of waste. It prevents waste. And it saves a lot of resources. But they Iain Gulland: Yeah. Walter Stahel: had first to get this mode, the mental mode, from manufacture into maintaining the assets that there are in the market. Iain Gulland: So Walter, mean, this is huge. I mean, very positive. I guess, you know, of other lots of companies, there's potentially a number of these examples of corporate shifting and thinking differently about maintenance and remanufacturing and thinking about the supply chain. guess bringing it back to the COP process is quite even interesting, even thinking about the European dimension to this. The focus there doesn't feel, it feels more like about how do we, as you said, access to resources. It's all about access to resources. I've been to some events in Belgium and in Brussels and there's been a bit of a focus about mining. How do we expand mining globally, particularly around critical raw materials, critical raw resources that we need for the electrification of our energy systems. So there's that. And then there's also this thing about recycling, about how do we, know, the EU Circle Economy Act feels very much around, you know, a whole single market, you know, how do we capture more materials at the end of life, which again goes back to that kind of material management, you know, context. But what you're talking about, what we're, when you get to the performance, it's actually, it's corporates who are actually doing something outside of that. They're not thinking about mining because they've already realized that. its access to materials is really tough. They're not thinking about recycling because they lose ownership. As you said, they end up then having to pay top dollar to get the copper back into their system. So they're actually moving ahead of all of those types of dialogues, which to be fair feels like that's what COP is about. It's back at the kind of trade, it's about access, it's about global agreements. But is that? Yeah, what's the question? mean, it feels like there's something else happening in the wider economy driven by corporates, which is not really about, you know, downstream recycling downstream or even access to materials. It feels really positive in a way. But what does COP do about that? know, because are these corporates at COP, are they going to be there saying, look, we don't need to argue too much about access because actually we need to shift. our processes, our thinking in a completely different direction. Walter Stahel: Well, there's also the alternative technologies. If you always look at China, because they tick differently. For example, China has now become the biggest producer of sodium ion batteries that are unknown in Europe. And of course, using sodium ion batteries for big installations, you no longer have to probe the lithium problem. And lithium is a rare element in the sense that it is also used in medical applications. So if you shift to another alternative technology, then you get away from the resource scarcity problem. If you talk about steel recycling or electrification, then hydrogen becomes the the only really green electricity. there was a, or still is a research program in the UK called Sustain, which is green, producing green steel. And then you realize that green hydrogen is the absolute necessity to produce green steel. And then if you look at the role of steel in the economy, there's practically no object that can be produced without steel or without using equipment made of steel. So green steel is really, if you want to move away from fossil fuels, then green electricity is the big driver. Of course, the problem is for water and electricity that all the new technologies like artificial intelligence are huge users, consumers of electricity and water. Now there is something called the new computing, quantum Wayne Hubbard: quantum. Walter Stahel: computing. That promises to be much more efficient and to basically make a lot of this discussion redundant. And Iain Gulland: you Walter Stahel: we don't know how far away quantum computing computing is, but it could actually change the whole discussion about the big server centers and their water and electricity consumption. Wayne Hubbard: But going back to cop again, so, you know, looking at the agenda, typically it seems to me in order to kind of deal with that problem that you just articulated around steel, but you could also say around cement and potentially food, the typical solution is technological solution. So, you know, looking for green steel or... or green cement, have to decarbonize industry in the terminology of the COP. And not a lot of, if I'm, maybe I'm wrong here, but it seems to me not a lot of emphasis, certainly not the same amount of emphasis on demand reduction, which is really where you could argue that the circular economy and to a certain extent, the performance economy come into play here. So being on the agenda at COP 31, we have these two, tactics, if you like, that both aim to reduce our reliance on fossil fuel dependent materials. One is by greening it and one is by reducing its demand. So one, do you think that's a fair point? And two, what role do you think that the circular economy can and should play in meeting the requirements of, in quotes, decarbonizing these dirty industries? Walter Stahel: Well, if we look at the industrialized countries, then the consumer or the user has a big role by the three Rs that are outside the circular economy, rethink, reduce, renounce, rethink, renounce, reduce. But then we have into behavioral sciences and of course then it's a completely different thing. If you look at the less developed countries, a lot of the consumption is increasing their quality of life. It's the beginning of the circular economy was really a problem of a society of scarcity make do or do without. It's basically that it was not a voluntary decision to move into circularity. So we have to look at North and South. If you look at Indonesia, the capital Jakarta is more more disappearing in the water. So Indonesia is now building a new capital in Borneo and of course it has to be beautiful and big and there is an incredible amount of resources including the cement and steel that are going into this. And so the circular economy can only deal with existing assets. It cannot solve the problem of either where people don't have enough objects that they need for their living or where nation states have to think that they have to move away. So in that sense, the circular economy is really an opportunity for the industrialized rich countries of the north. or in general rich countries that already have a big stock of buildings and objects, natural resources, and less for the countries that have nothing. Wayne Hubbard: Yeah, that's interesting because we've talked about in previous podcasts, this tendency again, a tendency for the industrialized Iain Gulland: Yeah. Wayne Hubbard: North to export its emissions in effect to the global South. And then within the context of its NDCs, basically... an element of decarbonisation is effectively offshoring emissions and that's a well documented tendency. So I guess the question then is how can some of the things we're talking about, circular economy, performance economy, how can that help to minimise the impacts of those in the global south as those billions of middle class consumers? emerge as those countries industrialise. Walter Stahel: Well, the driver of the whole linear industrial economy is fashion, or what I call the bigger, better, faster, safer, greener syndrome. And if you look at car publicity, I just read one this morning, it's even now with the fossil fuel engine cars, it's it's bigger, better, faster, safer. greener, but it doesn't solve any of the problems. So the real change in the north is really to go to smaller remanufactured cars, like this R5 from Renault, and get away the mind shift, get away from the fact that a bigger car is better. or a car with more electronic is better. then the thing, of course, coming back to the things like the John Deere tractor, where actually the American state now has condemned John Deere to pay a fine of almost $100 million. because they do not give the soft code to the buyer of the vehicle. Because if the buyer of the vehicle has the soft code, then he can ask any local repairman to repair the equipment as it was with the purely mechanical equipment. And so in Europe we have this right to repair. But in the right to repair of the EU, you have all the spare parts and access to information and all this. But you don't have the access to the source codes of the software. Because that is in any smart product, that is the thing. If you don't get access to that, you cannot repair it yourself. digitalization of the economy, the smart products, is definitely a challenge that is Iain Gulland: you Walter Stahel: used by manufacturers to better control the Iain Gulland: Yeah. Walter Stahel: use of their products. Iain Gulland: But that comes back to that. I mean, we did mention that before, and maybe that comes back to the point of question I was asking. mean, Wayne said there's possibly not, you know, that doesn't feel good. But actually, maybe that is the compromise as we shift to a more circular economy of product utilization in terms of that, know, subscriptions and all of that. We have to give up a little bit of that. control and accept that we're buying into that kind of interface between you and John Deere. Because that's, yeah, I mean, it still feels, I mean, I'm not, I'm just throwing out there, that still feels positive shift in terms of manufacturers thinking about the product in a different way, i.e. utilization, thinking about constant use, upgrading me. So the actual money is made in the subscription of the kind of rental or the kind of buy into that product over a longer period of time, which will be upgraded to maximize performance over a period of time. It feels that that's a positive step, but the downside is you're losing some Walter Stahel: you Iain Gulland: control. Walter Stahel: Well, yes, any longer life of an object, as I said before, has the advantage that the embodied resources, water, electricity, material resources are preserved. The question is who benefits from it? In the old material, electronic, mechanical world, it was the owner of the object that benefited for me. So there is nothing in it for the manufacturer and that's why the big driver for manufacturers to make any object into a smart object because then he also gets benefits or he gets most of the benefit at the expense of the poor guy who bought the thing. It may be different for buildings, because buildings are a special case. lot of resources, the majority of resources, go into infrastructure and buildings. they're the... Normally, they are fleet managers, very often are the owners of... infrastructure or buildings and they have an interest to extend the service life of their investment. So we have in Europe now we have a big drive to convert old abandoned factories into either exhibition halls or into into lofts into anything rather than pulling them down. And this is a new phenomenon. And then it's interesting that this becomes an international game. For example, when they renovated the Saint-Pompidou in Paris, a professor at the ETI in Zurich realized that the escalators were covered with half-moon plastic elements and so she bought for probably peanuts all these elements and then reused them as internal separations in office buildings and so you get by finding a new use for something that the owner no longer needs or wants you actually make a good deal and also you preserve all the resources in these materials or objects. But it needs complete re-think of where we find the new resources because it's these used objects that are the new resources. If you want to have a look at specifically buildings, get into any search engine and type deconstructing a hotel in Tokyo. And Iain Gulland: Okay. Walter Stahel: it's a one minute video and it's Iain Gulland: Sure. Walter Stahel: crazy thing to start deconstruction from the top but recovering the material, all the elements, the interior fittings. and by lowering down in an elevator, which means you also recover the part of the energy that was used to produce the building, which is normally in the end of life phase difficult. So it's really lack ideas like this. OK, it's probably more expensive than demolishing a building the old way with a a big ball, demolition ball. But if you put your mind to recovering as many objects and components as you can for reuse, and you develop markets for, obviously, for the reuse of Iain Gulland: Yeah. Walter Stahel: these materials and components, then we can produce a real circular economy. on an industrial scale. That is also beneficial for the environment socially because it uses more labor, but it's still mostly a local affair. Iain Gulland: Yeah, that's, yeah, I mean, great examples. And again, you know, I love listening to you, Walter. You always give these great current examples as well. You know, things that are actually happening, you know. So you are sounding really optimistic and hopeful. And that's, yeah, that's fantastic to hear. So guess just going, just to kind of finish up thinking about that cop that's coming, is there anything you think? we should be asking for at COP, know, that's part of it. Myself and Wayne are actually going to go to COP and try and insert ourselves into the kind of discussions that are going on there. So I guess, how do we, is it just about going there and sharing these examples to say that there is a kind of, you know, the circular economy is happening and it is an opportunity here, or is there more that should be done at that kind of international level to... harness, to make more of these examples happen. Walter Stahel: I think you will find that most people at the COP, the minister meeting, have never heard of the circular economy or the performance economy. So I think they really try to explain the basics that a extension, project life extension or service life extension of objects has the benefits of saving energy, reducing CO2 emissions, saving resources including water, producing local jobs and therefore you get a sustainable profit because you maintain jobs or even create new jobs, you preserve the environment and you If you save resources, you obviously reduce mining. Mining and waste. If you optimize the use, Iain Gulland: Yeah, full Spanish. Walter Stahel: then you reduce at both ends. And if you do a very simple calculation, by doubling the lifetime of any object, you reduce by 50 % the production and by 50 % the end of the recycling. And that shows you why it's not really of interest to the companies at the production side, nor at the end of life side. Iain Gulland: Yeah, and that's really good point. I'm scribbling that down. Because I think, yeah, I guess the fear is that the circular economy is still very much framed. Yes, it's a good thing, but it is just about waste. It's the other, they don't really think about the mining, but they're thinking about, absolutely, circular economy will reduce waste, which it obviously will, as you said. It does have an impact and that's possibly where it still is a bit framed in that place, that this is about waste reduction. we don't really get into conversations around that product life extension and the performance will actually reduce the need to go and make things in the first place. So yeah, that's absolutely well put with some good credible numbers. Wayne Hubbard: Yeah, great. Okay. Well, I mean, I'm kind of, I'm going to need like to go and think about some of the things you've said and decompress and get my head around it. It's been like quite an education listening to you, Walter. I guess before we go, is there any kind of last thoughts? You know, are optimistic about the future? Are you do you think we have the ability to, save the planet, I guess? Walter Stahel: Actually, I'm optimistic about the future because we are going back to the origins of the circular economy, which was a situation of scarcity and poverty. And I think what is happening today is through the wars and all the social unrest, the governments, the nation states become more more aware. that resilience means to be independent of the global supply chains and that they should look after the assets they already have and make better use of that, either because the supply chains become uncertain or too expensive or whereas the resources Okay, let me quote one of my one of my preverbal expressions. The object of today are the resources of tomorrow at yesteryear's prices and available locally. Wayne Hubbard: Yes, fabulous. Well, I think that's a really suitable place to finish on that. So can I just say thanks, Walter? Iain Gulland: Yeah, yeah, no, that's fine. Wayne Hubbard: And yeah, we'll end it there. just to say that was brilliant. Thanks, Walter. I appreciate it. I appreciate Iain Gulland: Yeah. Wayne Hubbard: you giving us your time. Amazing. Walter Stahel: Thank you Wayne and thank you Ian. Iain Gulland: It was really good Walter, great to see you Wayne Hubbard: So the first thing I think is you've really got to fight for the, I'm not going to quote the Beastie Boys here, but you've got to fight for the right kind of circular economy. It seems to me like I, you know, you know, he articulated there in, I guess, you know, quite a stark way that this isn't all good, right? And we know this, right? There were clearly bad, you know, bad outcomes from some of the, in quotes, disruption that the circular economy creates. So I think it was really interesting reminding us that we have to kind of fight. And for me, you know, that fight takes place in these three levels, in the multi-levels, you know, national level, you have to fight and make sure the right... instruments are in place to get the right outcomes for the population so that power is not divested out towards big corporates. And at the city level, you've got to fight to make sure that you have what you need in order to survive. have the right objects, as Walter would say. You have sufficient objects to live a fruitful and happy life. And then at community level, you've got to take action. We didn't really talk about that, but that's where, there's lots of hope at community level. You can do this stuff. And, and all of it, seems to me, boils down to, we talk about circular economy business models and we talk about ours and strategies, but really all of that boils down to two things to me. And that is performance and access. And we have to fight for the performance in the objects and the things that we use and access to them. And I think that is the nub of the sector economy. There you go. That's my... Iain Gulland: Yeah, and I agree. I know you put it across very well, Walter. And I think I've stood on platforms and said, you know, the circular economy is going to happen because you can see, you know, as Walter said, because of the, you know, the restriction of access to resources. corporates or otherwise are beginning to think differently about their supply chain, thinking differently about their products. And even if they're thinking they're losing money in the manufacturing, the more traditional manufacturing linear system, they're thinking how can they make money through that kind of performance. that's all. So as I said, it is happening for a variety of reasons, but you're right. We've now got to design the circular economy in a way that isn't just another. another bad version of the linear system called the circular system. need to think through how we deliver that for social value, social benefit, economic benefit for all, and as well as environmental benefit. And I think that's what he was. For me, in one sense it's great to hear all of these examples and I'm sure we all know of these examples and we can all trot out companies that are doing really interesting things. So that's all really hopeful, but you're right, what are we thinking about the underlying good? And I guess maybe I... think we're not, again, Wayne Hubbard: Hmm. Iain Gulland: we're carried away in environmental thing around resources and depletion. And we're carried away in about, you know, because of supply chain, global supply chains, geopolitics, resilience at that kind of security level. All of these things are, you know, put in. Are we spending enough time thinking about that? You know, that, I don't know want to call it, you know, that moral. moral bit within the circular economy and how do we design it so we do you know we don't just hand over control to to others to some extent I don't know who these others are but you know I mean that becomes the fight in you know 50 years time you Wayne Hubbard: Hmm. Iain Gulland: know the same as you say you know we have to we have to be aware What's the role? And guess that's, maybe that's question for another podcast. Wayne Hubbard: Well... Iain Gulland: Who should be doing that? Is that national governments? that city governments? that through procurement? Is that ourselves as citizens? How involved are we in, you know, as long as our product, because the performance thing is as long as our Apple phone works or our, you know, you know, or Packard computer works. do we actually start thinking about what's the sinister, if there is anything sinister happening behind the scenes about control? Wayne Hubbard: Well, look, we, we, we, no, no, of course, Iain Gulland: That's not to have no apple or hedgehog. Wayne Hubbard: but it is the tendency, right? mean, and Walter, he kind of articulated the tendency for corporates to hold on to some copyright, to some IP, you know, whereas circular economy was always about open source. and access to in order to repair. you know, I remember speaking in the podcast that I used to do with ReLondon to one of the founders of iFixit, you know, and they had big battles with Apple in particular at that point in time. Yeah, Iain Gulland: Yeah. Wayne Hubbard: because they were opening it all up and Steve Jobs was a real, this is a sealed unit, it's not for tampering by, you know, use those words advisedly by... by the consumer, by the user, it's our product and it's going to look like this and it'll have three different types of screwdrivers that you need and they won't be accessible or easily findable, all that kind of stuff. Now that's to a certain extent, we kind of moved past that now, but there is this tendency, isn't there, to hold on to that IP. And I think that's what Walter was kind of warning against. I think that's fair comment. He seemed in a way to be kind of, I wasn't sure that he was particularly enamored with those elements of the... I don't know if he would regard them as the performance economy. I wasn't quite sure that he was, you know, mean, he called the user was becoming a slave. Iain Gulland: Yeah, I know, I know. But in ways, we say, the expression is we're all slaves to the economy, the current economy type of thing, people use that. So it's interesting to see he doesn't see us escaping into that, into some, wherever we're trying to get away from being a slave. I think he was painting, yeah, what's the word, a picture that we need to be careful of, I think. But it's interesting, isn't it? Because you could get into the whole thing about the 1950s were all about obsolescence, that Wayne Hubbard: Hmm. Iain Gulland: way that, let's be face it, the economy or industry thought the only way they could make money was to make things obsolete very quickly. So you bought something and maybe this is the next version of this. I think that's what I got. He was painting this picture of the commerce, corporate, know, that word. is reimagining a world where they can make money and to some extent put us on the hook. Hook all our consumers like they in the 50s to make sure that we just kept buying stuff, using advertising and all that sort of stuff. That's interesting. Are we getting sucked into a different context? different way of life? Wayne Hubbard: Yeah. Iain Gulland: But it's for the same corporate... engine that we're all going to basically be brought back into. But if that new corporate engine, that's the point I was trying to say, if that new corporate engine does mean that we buy less, or not buy less, but we consume less globally and materials are recirculated, or products are recirculated and remanufactured and stuff like that, mean somebody will say that's a good thing. Wayne Hubbard: Hmm. Iain Gulland: Is that the price we have to pay for the... for tackling the resource challenge that we have. Wayne Hubbard: It is interesting. You my background was more about, and maybe you dealt with corporates more, I dealt with corporates a lot less, and my background was much more about communities and startups and innovators. So it was easier to see them as being circular economy and therefore, even though they were, you know, not even though, they were trying to make money out of being circular. And to me that seems, still seems to be there is no contradiction between doing the right thing and earning money. And that's what the circular economy is all about. Being able to thrive, but do the right thing and use the economy to kind of make that work. But what I didn't, you know, and what I have less experience of is this more, the kind of strategic big, big corporates and what is driving them. And my, guess my, where I met that head on, I suppose was in the fashion world. and you know where you've got big interests in the fashion world and you know that is a heavily consumptive world where there is a tendency again for those companies to blame the consumer and that that's why I was interested in in Walter's opening comment really about, not Iain Gulland: You heard it. Wayne Hubbard: he was reporting that. I remember that comment actually, you know, that if you stop asking for it, we'll stop giving it you, which is like. Iain Gulland: I I that's it. mean, I know we talked about this before and maybe that's another way to find a guest to come on and debate that because you're right, there's still a sense that it's an overproduction problem rather than a consumption problem in many cases because that, know, get businesses export, know, the whole nations want to export and you produce more than you actually need because that's the way the kind of economy works. So we're almost incentivized, businesses are incentivized to produce more and create markets, put their products and services into new markets. Wayne Hubbard: Yeah, and also like big business, so businesses who are existing linear, to make that transition Iain Gulland: Yeah. Wayne Hubbard: from linear to circular, we need to do a lot more work there because the Iain Gulland: Yeah. Wayne Hubbard: danger is, and again, the tendency aspect is, if we have a successful circular business model within a linear company, then it becomes additive, added to their portfolio of sales rather than displacing linear. Iain Gulland: Yeah, I think that's my experience at the moment. Most of them that I've met or worked with, yeah, they are doing something like that. It might be a product, it might be particular service. It's to the side. mean, that sounds a bit flippant, but yeah, it's to the side of their... what they're actually doing as a business. And that's because they're either experimenting with it or there's a particular market opportunity, a particular client group that they're working with, particularly around remanufacturing, I think, but they're still, know, their core business is still in the space. I think it'd be interesting to see whether these businesses ever flip, if you know what mean. Their regular business comes up with problems. Wayne Hubbard: Yeah, I think the only good examples of that is where you're in an area of business that is going out of fashion, know, like Netflix. Iain Gulland: Yeah. Wayne Hubbard: The Netflix example is like, they only really recently stopped hiring DVDs out, as I understand it, by post. But, you know, they moved from that to something which was much more... They didn't do that as a circular... Iain Gulland: video. Wayne Hubbard: move. They did that as a survival move to survive in the market. But yeah, it'd be interesting. I mean, it's an open invitation to any company that's listening to come on the podcast and discuss this with us because we are genuinely interested in how that's going to work, how that tendency to become more circular whilst displacing your linear activity could ever work and would ever work and has ever worked, I suppose. Alright, good. Wow, very good. Iain Gulland: That was very good. Wayne Hubbard: Well, I suppose we should end it there. Thanks for listening and we'll be back next week.