good afternoon and welcome to the launch of the seventh edition of the global circularity Gap reports I'm Ivon boo CEO of circle economy foundation and very happy to be here today with our partner deloy Circle economy Foundation is the global impact organization behind the annual report and it's a privilege to host today hi and I am d aals I'm the circularity lead for theoy Netherland building a circular world is one of the four systemic challenges that the has embraced to make an impact that matters the much needed material transition towards a circular and a sustainable World requires working together beyond the borderies of your own organization and that's why I'm very happy to be again on stage with circle economy to launch the next version of The circularity Gap report and also celebrate the continuation of our collaboration as with the CGR 23 we are again bringing you this year's report live from our studios in Amsterdam and in the preparation for this we decided to also bring into account a couple of circularity strategies to make this event go a little bit more smoother than last year so first of all of course reusing the format from last year because in general it was good uh but secondly reducing it a bit slightly to 1 hour instead of one and a half because it wasn't Tad long and thirdly important for me we rethought the panel last year we had two people dialing in and obviously the rehearsals went well in practice not so so hopefully this year no technical hiccups with these uh applied our strategies um so let me guide you through uh the next hour what can you expect uh so first of all we will have Matthew Fraser giving you all the ins and outs of this year's Gap report um and then we will go to our panel where we have hega senson from Ikea and Andrea Lani from the World Bank sharing their story towards circularity um obviously we hope to be uh to have an in interactive panel so if you have any questions for them please put them in the chat and then our moderators will make sure that we will see them we hope that the panel will inspire you to put Theory into action because although circular economy is becoming mainstream Global circularity is still in Decline we need you industry leaders policy makers but also financial institutions to agree on a data centered circular road map to accelerate a socially just transition to an operational economy within the planetary boundaries Circle economy foundation will continue our work to deliver on our mission which is to increase the global circularity to 177% we need you to make that happen let's work together to provide decision makers with that data centered circular economy road map but also to ensure that the C the financial flows to incentify Circular Solutions and also to enable key actors to implement those circular Solutions let's dive into the insights from The circularity Gap report 2024 Matthew Fraser Circle economy's head of R&D and one of the lead authors of the report will guide you through it Matt please share with the audience how to walk the talk because it's time to put Theory into action thank you very much it's a pleasure to be here today um let me start off we really began our journey about 5 years ago 2018 with the launch of the first circularity Gap report it was a pioneering effort really to monitor the state of global circularity as the topic gain momentum just 5 years in the amount of discussions debates and articles around the topic have tripled yet at the same time we've seen a steady decline in actual circularity from 99.1% to just last year 7.2% so much of this actually has to do with the speed at which our global economy is consuming materials in that same 5year period we've consumed 500 billion tons of materials and that's just about equivalent to what the amount consumed in the entirety of the 20th century in just 5 years these statistics really play uh display the cold hard truth that despite the traction despite the speeches we're not seeing actionable uh action on the ground nor measurable impact and this really comes at a time when we couldn't need circularity more last year I was standing just here announcing that we need 16 circular solutions to reverse the overshoot of planetary boundaries but furthermore actually meet human needs with about a third less materials let me show you why that's important uh this graph that you see here behind me shows you the familiar trend of human development so as human development increases moves across to the right so does material consumption but we've actually reached a unique point in history where continued material consumption especially in the Rich world the Richer Nations doesn't equate to the same increases in well-being when we also Imagine replicating That same development pattern for low and middle-income countries that's going to be devastating to Earth's life support systems we've already passed six out of nine planetary boundaries what we need is a system that can actually Bend this curve delivering well-being moving people across to the right without the necessary increase in material consumption and how do we do that it really is through materials management using less for longer tapping into regenerative resources but also uh cycling materials over multiple life cycles that's the promise of a circular economy in this year's report we've taken a bold move um we shift from exploring the what into the how instead of announcing a new circularity metric today uh we really scr our heads and figured out or tried to look into you know what do we fundamentally need to change about the system how do we address the root causes and change the rules of the game we've identified three key enablers that we believe can bring about this change the first is creating a level policy playing field developing policies that incentivize circular Solutions and Sustainable Solutions while obviously penalizing harmful and linear ones crucially also building circular expertise and skills educating our Workforce in circularity to usher in a just transition toward uh a circular economy also ensuring decent livelihoods uh are well distributed across our societies and finally getting the economics right this is really a crucial one adjusting fiscal policies to create true prices and leveraging Investments so that money can flow into circular Solutions and we can achieve the scale that we need so policy jobs and finance how do we focus on these enablers well last year uh we've shown that actually just four Key Systems lead to the majority of the overshoot of planetary boundaries nutrition housing mobility and Manufacturing we must also recognize that different countries have different challenges and different uh starting points and what we try to do is actually sort of dig through the entire toolbox of circularity to ensure that grow countries can um stabilize their consumption and production that build countries can really grow using circular economy principles and crucially that also shift countries can reduce their consumption what we've done is identified enablers for uh 12 solutions that we feel actually really speak to each of the uh different contexts of different countries and really allow them a unique Pathway to accelerate circularity I'm really excited to share some of these enablers with you but also really to hit on some of the key uh case studies and success stories of actually what's already out there and what's already working let's dive into shift countries so shift countries I mentioned High income Nations consuming more than double the average of global materials the key here is really actually reducing over consumption and focusing really on activities that uphold well-being this is certainly no easy feat uh but re reimagining the manufacturing sector will certainly be at the core of this uh journey in our report we've identified very promising enablers Innovative policies that set standards for material efficiency product lifetime leveraging just transition funds to make sure that workers are trained and educated in circular Solutions but also taxation reform to bring about things like true pricing a really fantastic example of this is actually What's Happening Here in the EU so the right to repair legislation uh which obliges manufacturers to make repair an option uh but also gives consumers a wide range of Rights and practical tools ultimately making repair and remanufacturing easy and affordable it's expected that this one piece of legislation would save around 176 billion EUR and about 18 million tons of CO2 over the next 15 years and this is just for the EU so we're talking about 27 Nations just imagine the impact that such a piece of legislation could have if all 195 nations were to adopt it if we move into grow countries middle- inome countries obviously these countries are transforming rapidly as spiring to high income uh Lifestyles they already have a significant impact on the planet the food system is actually a really interesting system here because it's an enormous OPP presents an enormous opportunity to scale regenerative practices also producing economic benefits to both food producers but also communities again we dry uh draw on a wide range of exciting enablers policies here that both focus on uh enforcing uh healthy planetary uh diets minimizing food waste but also really investing uh investigating economic incentives that promote regenerative agriculture and ensure that farmers can uh move towards that with the necessary skills and education a really great case study here is actually a public private partnership called Coco action Brazil uh it does actually a lot of this it helps producers increase their yield sustainably while expanding Agro forestry and land conservation and crucially also increasing access to funding so that farmers can make the necessary on the ground Investments and make the change happen in just the past five years this initiative has increased Farmers access to credit by over 240% they've also worked with the ILO to set up uh standards for better working conditions um and uh living conditions uh for their communities and finally build countries uh build countries really need to prioritize human development these are low-income countries and certainly a lot of resources will go into building uh all kinds of infrastructure to meet uh basic standards of uh living this also really presents an opportunity for the built environment when you think about the infrastructure needed for Health Care education sanitation housing and one of the key systems that we look at for this country profile is just that a really great example to highlight here is actually what happens in Rwanda just last year they launched their circular economy action plan and one of the Key Systems that they've targeted was the built environment for just this reason what's interesting here is that uh Rwanda is the second highest growing country in Africa and a lot of their infrastructure a lot of their cities will explode in the coming years and decades so getting development patterns policies right now can have a massive spillover benefit in the years and the decades to come what they've pointed out is in their action plan is uh three key uh policies one is encoding circular economy principles through all zoning laws making sure that that's adopted throughout the country uh also prioritizing regenerative and local building materials and construction types but also set up national guidelines for construction and demolition waste I think what's exciting about this is that all of the foundational ingredients are now locked into place so I think Rwanda will be uh a very interesting uh country to watch in the coming years and decades so for the first time I'm quite proud to say that our circularity Gap report really moves beyond the what and develops out a road map the the individual ingredients of a road map for actually how to implement circular economy at scale I'm really excited by all the different enablers that we point out whether that's jobs policy or finance and I definitely encourage you to read the full report but I think what I would like to do is just leave you with a few key thoughts at a high level of where we need to go I think first is actually Shifting the goal poost of development itself towards really achieving that sweet spot of well-being within boundaries we need to also recognize that materials are Central to achieving that formula and hitting that Bullseye I think the second point is really e really recognizing that economics driv so much of what we see around us and actually investing very much in aligning economic incentives around the goals of circularity will pay dividends in terms of allowing the private sector and finance years to roll out funding and really put circularity into practice I mentioned also that Nations really have different challenges have different starting points and clearly like in climate change we need to work together realigning International Financial and trade architecture will ensure that each type of nation really has the means to make the necessary Investments to scale circularity over the coming years and decades finally we really need to make sure that this transition is a just one let's ensure that aligning environmental goals doesn't go with sacrificing social goals it's really important that we achieve a harmonious and Equitable transition and not just uh a circular one at the same time so with that I would like to thank you very much and uh certainly encourage you to download and read the full report thank [Applause] you thanks Matt and I think we can uh move on to the panel so um thanks for all of the insights um obviously it was a pleasure working again with you on the report so uh I think I have a little bit more of a Headway than the people at home um let's dive into some of those questions that probably people have uh later um I think one of the things that you of course the report is all about moving from Theory to action and uh we all know it isn't easy you know it requires uh Vision creativity perseverance it's it's in theory we know what the benefits are of a circular World getting there in practice that's that's something we we still need to figure out especially on the global scale and that's why I'm very happy to have to to to have he here from Ikea who will actually share with us some insights on uh her journey within Ikea to move to a circular world and see how we can really do that on a on a global scale um hega is the uh Global circular strategy lead at Inca group uh so the the re the the retail part of Ikea um obviously the largest um f Furniture retailer in the world so if anyone knows how to do things on a global scale I think it is hega so please share with your story and we'll dive into the questions and afterwards uh reminder for everyone online you can share them in the chat great thank you so much for the introduction am I standing on the right spot so I'm not in the in the way really good to be here um it's always a pleasure to be amongst um like-minded of course and people are trying to together tackle some of the biggest challenges that we face and we've been on this journey for some time and we've made some learnings some of which in five minutes I'll try to share with you but I would say that it's probably just skimming the surface of some of the things that we're doing and some of the things we're learning but my name is heger I work as Global circular strategy leader for Inca group and of of course you will have known most likely about about Ikea we are the world's biggest furniture company but we are also necess not necessarily the biggest um we don't necessarily have the biggest market share in all our markets so it's an interesting dichotomy where we are a big Global player with a huge amount of influence and yet we also are in many markets a smaller player so it's a really interesting Dynamic and I just want to say thank you first of all to the circular economy for the report a report is only as good as how it's applied and how it's used in practice and we have to say that for two years now we've really taken huge amount of learnings from it it's helped us to segment markets and and frame different opportunities and ways that we didn't have before so so thank you for that up front um and I just wanted to say also to really support the focus this year on the how it's really all about action it's about the road maps it's about taking the actions in measurable ways to understand where the biggest impacts are and although Ikea has been around for 80 years um and last year was a big year of both celebration and reflection for us we were 80 years last year and you can sort of track the the linear you know model of success of linear businesses in the time that we've existed and the world was very different when we started the world didn't have businesses that provided lowcost affordable well-made sustainably designed furniture for the many and there was a need for that at the time you argue there is a need today but the world is very different the world is not today how it was in the last 80 years and the future will be a very different future and we heard of course Matt touch on that as well and I won't I won't touch on those messages but of course the the resource Rich pasts that we've arguably got used to as an economy is no longer the future that we face and we have very different opportunities and challenges and just to share that we have from a sustainability strategy perspective these four different areas in our in our um strategic approach to how we have set out becoming a a people and plan a positive business it's how we um become a climate positive and that positive business it's how we mainstream sustainable and Healthy Living it's how we become or a a circular business or more circular business and also how we drive a fair and equal business uh and value creation across our value chain and I think it's important to highlight maybe in in this instance that circularity even if in the way it's communicated even on this slide looks like it sits in a nice box in a silo alongside the other topics but of course it's a tool it's a how in itself for how we will meet our climate goals how we will meet our nature goals and how in fact we will remain a resilient commercially viable relevant business for the future and this is a really critical point and this is something I work on and others in my business every day it's still anchored in our sustainability strategy but is a it's a business transformation agenda it's how we come up with new business models new products new Solutions across our value chain and certainly in the consumer facing domain and just to sort of highlight um from a business perspective we we are the practitioners we need to take the research and the tools and the framings and apply it in action um and we know the devastating realities around the environment biodiversity loss pollution inequality but it's really important as the report states that the business case is clear and we know already that and there's no specific numbers here for reason because your business and the different sectors will be different but we already know that the cost of inaction is enormous even simply looking at legislation legal mandatories um epr alone is costing Millions today so the idea of seeing it as a sustainability Direction alone is something I really want to address straight off um we also know and depending on the sector depending on the business that actually customers won't choose brands in the future that don't provide these Solutions and the opportunities are huge as well so just touching again I think I have one minute left with which is not long but to really sort of summarize this slide we have an ecosystem approach of initiatives across our total value chain and we have to take a systemic approach to how we look at the totality this is maybe one of the biggest transformation from a leadership from a skills from a mindset perspective that businesses need to and all sectors need to address it's a it's a systemic approach where you mobilize and Galvanize your key competencies across the value chain across the business and hopefully you can see that starting from design starting with materials having a huge focus on how that will meet our climate targets but nevertheless really driving from a retail perspective how we create Behavior change around scaling up solutions for prolonging the life for products right now I have about 30 people in my business across five different functions co-creating what a repair scheme should look like so this is also about mobilizing um support across a business and just in in sort of nutshell is to look at we need to work together across a long-term agenda we need a vision we need to measure we need to have metrics um the policies that needs to be there to allow businesses to make financial investments that are confident and long term and I just wanted to highlight that we have already worked with deoe and circular economy on metrics measurement Frameworks we're partnering also with the world Business Council for sustainable development around a new Global circular protocol we need to have unified definitions and speak the same language so we know what success looks like together um and also just one positive message it is complex it can be very challenging but actually what I see in our business it mobilizes enormous amount of innovation energy and Leadership and our co-workers wants to work with us for that reasons do we have challenges absolutely do we have all the answers not yet but we are working on it and we're mobilizing our co-workers across the business to solve them thank you thank you thank you hega very inspiring and I think also your message mobilizing everyone across the businesses I I spoke to someone this week uh just about the simple implementation of going from single use cups to reusable cups and uh he mentioned everyone in the organization is affected all departments from people on the ground until the accounting department Department because all of a sudden you're going from an operational expenditure to a cap capital expenditure so again everyone needs to be involved so I I really Rec recognize that and thanks for for sharing also that your journey has started within ik but definitely uh still a a bumpy road probably ahead um one of the uh enablers of course in the report is finance and uh it's not just financing uh Solutions within a a particular organization but it's also enabling uh Solutions and financing Solutions across the world and um so get the economics right not just within one country but within the world so uh I think there's a clear role here for international financial institutions like the World Bank and that's why I'm very happy that we have Andrea Lani here he is the uh let me say this right uh the lead specialist in uh World bank's environmental natural resources and the blue economy Global practice so thank you for sharing your uh your story and Andrea will also be the final person on the panel today so um if you have any questions put them in the chat thank you thank you D and um listen it's an incredible honor to be here today um I was asked to um tell a personal story uh of my journey towards circularity I think it very much started a very a very specific point in time where I was trying to make sense to be told and the circularity Gap report was was one of the very good pieces of analysis I think it was the 2018 or the 2019 report um and since then we had the chance to collaborate with circular economy on a number of dimensions and it's really a great opportunity thanks for for being here um obviously my journey is not just the professional personal Journey it's the journey within an institution um I work with colleagues we work with teams we don't achieve anything personally um and forgive me if I mix my my professional Journey with the Journey of the institution perx actually I was delighted to hear that the World Bank is slightly younger than um Ikea I don't think we are 80 years old just about 75 we were born with a very specific um the institution was born with a very specific mandate which was the Reconstruction of Europe out the world that mandate evolved into a growth and development mandate um accompanying the decolonization process in the 6s turn into a very specific focus on poverty reduction and vulnerability attenuation and then in the '90s with a specific pinpoint of the of the Rio conference the bank really embraced the environmental sustainability agenda and I joined a few years later when the institution was trying to Grapple with how climate was also a development agenda I had the chance to end up working on the wdr um on climate and development in 2010 and spent the rest of my professional life trying precisely to implement the kind of ideas and suggestions that we put in wdr only when I had the luck of being posted in Brussels I had to confront what the secularity agenda so my professional journey is pretty brief but what I realized back then is that it is so Central to these major challenges that as an institution the bank is trying really to make core to its business today we know that it's at the center of the triple crisis of climate pollution and biodiversity that those are symptoms of a much more fundamental problem but at the same time I also found frankly that this course was very shrouded in a focus on the private sector and Technology Solutions I found that some of the barriers were you know confined to access to finance why the economics of the agenda still had to be really be put to the test and also that the role of governments was not really yet developed at the time and I'm very very chaff to see the importance of policy in this years in this year CGR and obviously the fact that this was once again a massive developmental agenda r with inequality type of issues both within countries and across countries with the cost of inaction today largely acre on the poorest including on developing countries a huge inequity in the distribution of material use and consumption and at the same time some of the repercussions and the implications of the policies that certain countries are putting in place now probably ended up having a potentially negative economic effects on the poor the vulnerable in those countries and across those countries so we thought of try put this all together we ended up with another little kind of policy piece and I think my journey from now on is in addition to remaining a climate guy to try to implement some of those ideas and practices that we put together in that report in 2018 the bank has been involved in different elements of the circular economy agenda for decades particular municipal waste my first operation I worked on was municipal waste and recycling we have an enormous experience on certain sectors on Energy Efficiency for instance we have experience throughout the world but today we see a true emergence of demand from our client countries our um member countries we are a demand driven Organization for operation and support focused really on circularity per se was in tur last week the country has put the circularity agenda within its own green deal is putting in place an ambitious um very ambitious action plan with support to private sector and municipalities to address these challenges obviously countries like China are at the Leading Edge with a number of very exciting Solutions so I believe that the trajectory of the bank going forward is going to be um very much present on the circular economy agenda I believe that many of you will intersect with our path in that direction so thank you very much for having us here today thank you thank you Andrea and um yeah so I think we have our our panel complete um so let's Deep dive uh into some some questions and um what I think what I really liked about this year's support is that we took some of the insights of course from last year especially on the country profile and I think Andre also mentioned that you know the cost of inaction probably it affects the the poorest countries the most and so that's why also you see different uh actions and different solutions needed for all three of the the country profiles um you touched upon Matt you touched upon some of the solutions already in your presentation but could you deep dive a little bit more on for instance for for the build environment or for others how that differs between the different uh country profiles yeah certainly so I think that's uh of course what I tried to mention very briefly was we really tried to open up the entire uh toolbox of circularity to see kind of what Solutions what strategies were really appropriate for different types of countries I think uh you brought up construction the built environment I think one of the uh key differences if you look at kind of shift Nations High income Nations is we have a lot of the infrastructure a lot of the buildings already in place it's about how do we sort of maximize their uh utilization how do we actually reuse them adaptive reuse things like that those really come to mind um whereas I also brought up the country of Rwanda rapidly growing country a lot of their infrastructure and built environment will only be let's say formally uh developed and scaled in the in the years to come so there we really look at you know how do we uh enshrine uh as they've done um you know codes around um construction waste and demolition procurement really making sure that those kind of fundamental skeleton building blocks are already in place um so I think that does kind of speak to the different contexts of uh different nations kind of based on where they're sitting along that development curve okay and um well of course if if you look at repurposing I'm always very proud of the building that we were in used to be a garage and we have kept certain elements but also repurpose it to be uh offices uh which we're sharing also with other companies so we also maximize the utilization of it um I think it's uh it's it's it's clear if you mentioned you Rwanda it's a different setup you still need to build a lot of things um uh Andrea you just mentioned China and I know you've done a lot of study as well on on developing countries and what they what they need so uh also from from your point of view what would be key opportunities for those countries to already incorporate the C Solutions while they are building um not just the infrastructure but actually the whole country yeah thanks the I think first of all congratulations to again to the C CGR team for this very useful differentiation of Count's characteristics and the other dimension I think that every country comes to this agenda from a difficult kind of domestic perspective some of them from an environmental sustainability agenda some of them from a trained agenda others from a kind of um resource security agenda with resource scarcity and I think you can plug different uh country groups in that one um there are a number of very exciting uh public driven programs um being thought through already implemented in countries you know ranging from China to Chile to Turkey um a small activity but an exciting one which we implemented recently is on Croatia is exactly on the construction sector and how to make it more circular it's important once again to think about what the where the opportunities lies as as you say and you know in our view the opportunities lies in making the economics right very many countries today do not still have a landfill tax in place it's difficult to move to circularity when consuming wasting and disposing of materials is actually free very few countries today have Incorporated life cycle cost Assessments in the public procurement practices with public procurement typically responsible for 15 to 20 sometime 25% of GDP in certain developing countries and no elements of circularity there it's very difficult to create markets for new upcoming firms and lastly we know the fiscal systems both in developed and developing countries are still heavily geared against circularity value added tax systems tax materials every time they're looped in and subsid is subsidize extraction and consumption unless we reverse those fundamentals policies at its core at their core it's going to be more difficult to see substantial gains Beyond Niche and uh specific sectors thank you yeah I think it's uh get the economics right I think that is very important especially of course also for the for for corporate businesses like Ikea you you mentioned you are present in so many countries it it differs so how how can you look at all of those different countries and um get the economics right for circular business models in each one of them while still maintaining a global brand that must be a daily challenge almost yeah I think that's like the golden egg to try and solve that one but I think um just just the picture I showed earlier if we come back to that to really understand the ecosystem and there are business models and incentives across the total value chain right it's it's not one business case for the totality and I think what we Tred to do of course is first of all starting to look at where our impact sits and that's where we've been Focus um have have a lot of our Focus around the material use really Shifting the use of materials in our in our products not to just regenerative sources but also recycled content um but using as an example just building on what you're saying there Andre we we invested already in 2018 in a mattress recycling facility here actually in Harlem just outside um um Amsterdam and at the time it was viable to do so because the incentive and the policy landscape in Holland allowed us to have enough of confidence to invest in this business and now we have four factories in Holland and we're expecting to expanding to the UK and Belgium but of course it takes this policy levers to enable the confidence to to scale um and then I would say again it's not it's of course the the the economics the policy levers but it's also to really understand that the consumer sentiment is changing as well so to remain relevant for example in the nordics we're already seeing that if we are not present in a pretty aggressive secondhand Market we are going to lose out big time so so there are so many levers to to pull on and I I think it's it's um important that the business and the sector that's looking at their value chain really understands what they're missing out on if they don't do a bit of analysis around the long term um yeah to change it and I think you're actually also answering a question that came online is how to convince businesses to implement circular Solutions even though they are more costly than Baseline Technologies and solutions and yeah might be an investment now but if you you're not doing it at one point either from a supply chain perspective can you still get materials uh are your customers still willing to to go to you so you know plan ahead think ahead of the curve and uh I think also from a from a moral perspective I think you also if you have the needs of the sorry the um the means to do so you know lead that because Global Solutions in the end is also what we what we definitely need um I think also Partnerships have come up a couple of times you know working together working beyond the boundaries of your own uh organization um does the World Bank have any key Partnerships that they are leading or that can really make a difference in in this field yeah um I think first of all I said before we are a member country-driven organization so every pretty much everything we do always entails a partnership with in my case I working on the public sector side of of the World Bank involves a partnership with the government with the government Authority with government agency or multiple government agencies my colleagues from the IFC the private sector size basically deal with with the private sector but I think the role of the bank um in this sphere and in others is also to facilitate Partnerships right um this is a complex agenda clearly it's a a multiactor agenda um think of the private sector per se there is no single firm today uh based on the way the economy is structured that can decide to implement a purely circular product on its own uh firms are embedded in input output relationship it's a value chain is a sectoral type of perspective um we think that firms like Ikea that are very often lead Global value chain type of leaders have a massive role in leading that chain in partnering up with the chair and facilitating change across that one the agenda is going to be a trade partnership agenda where future trade agreements free trade agreements will need to incorporate negotiations around what does it mean to insert circularity Clauses in in this type of Dimension um we certainly facilitate partnership within governments again governments are not necessarily to to think develop policy and Implement policy around circularity because very often these treadles across different sector different ministers and agency and there's an element of vert vertical coordination between central other but let me finish by saying that we also as an institution we we're not alone there are a number of international financial institution multilateral development Banks and a very positive sign at the last um world circular economy uh Forum in elink last year that a number of um directors from the different institution came together and decided to join hands and also think of common approaches and common solutions to partner in different countries towards um making making a real change in that effort so yeah well and I think also we try to contribute also to the uh to the conversation with with the report and I think especially this one and it shows some of those key enablers policy being One Finance being one and the third one being skills where I see that there are a lot of comments actually coming in the chat about skills education Etc how can you use it as an accelerator um Matt care to to elaborate on that yeah actually I'm I'm glad that came up so uh one of the key enablers in our report was looking at jobs as a lever um often it's sort of overlooked I mean policy and finance are kind of obvious ones but actually what um is maybe a little bit surprising is you know all of these circular economy Solutions sound you know maybe quite well known the people to execute on them and actually make them a reality actually does require a huge amount of uh training upscaling um um all of the above really when it comes to really kind of retooling Supply chains uh at scale so um the role of Education the role of training uh professional training uh is actually a huge lever that we really try to hit on in every uh country profile and every system um so the short answer there is that the role is uh very big um and in fact uh at Circle economy Foundation we have an entire program dedicated to uh bringing knowledge and bringing tools uh into that space it's um uh it's a very of sort of looked over uh enabler but a huge one if we really want to make these big transitions across the four systems happen clear any yeah know I can contribute to that I think it's um what we see is that we we're developing a custom learning offer that really looks at what is relevant for each function so that we take this quite abstract concept and make it real and tangible um and that really needs to be relevant to people's roles in their jobs so they can get this sense of Mastery what does it mean for me how can I activate it in my sphere of influence and of course to have a learning offer that allows co-workers to go deeper if they so wish and and and really kind of make that easy for them but I think think it's also not to underestimate the importance of an inspiring future to live into um and we see that again and again we can get lost in technicalities detail minua particularly when you start uncovering uh reporting legislations and all sorts of wonderful details and depths of spreadsheets that you never knew existed but then to actually lift it up and to remember to create this inspiring destination and the journey that we're on so the combination of making it easy making it applicable to to people's Liv experience and and yet with a Visionary and and goal um so that's something we're working on at the moment maybe actually I can I can jump in because you know last year's report was really about you know how can circular economy Solutions bring us back within planetary boundaries I think the other piece that I tried to bring in here was that also needs to be uh an element of well-being we also need to have that aspirational future um and I think very much on that meta scale it is really about you know scouting out a just transition we know that there will be massive Transformations not only in the Energy System but in uh the four systems that I mentioned so you know can we get ahead of that actually can we sort of scout um how to make that a just transition for um our Workforce but also just people at large and I think also sharing the the fact that circular economy can also you know it's it's not just okay it's more costly or I need to give up something but there are also well fun elements or other elements so you know how to create that level of well-being with less use of of resources um uh and education I think of the the consumer is also very important in that sharing that positive narrative uh that's I don't think we need to we shouldn't underestimate how important that is not just from a circularity perspective you also see it for for climate but sharing that positive narrative okay where it is that we're going what is that Vision otherwise people get lost and make it practical and uh I'm I'm currently involved in a lot of intera lot of discussions on on waste how to minimize it but we need to make it easy as well for comp for for for consumers and not you know people leaning over a garbage bin with five different boxes thinking okay where do I where do I drop this make it make it easy and don't depend on huge changes coming from people needing to make knowledgeable choices because it's it's it's different we need to make it the the worst chores need to become easier need to become better and just to add to that I think of course we do we are a consumer facing brand we have an enormous platform to influence that story and that change and we research um together with globe scan across all our markets every second year and even today you would not think this is still the case but people are still confused about the right thing to do you know they still perceive that it's too expensive they still find it confusing what the most impactful things are so I think this combination of simplifying it making it affordable making it relatable and yet also really this story around you're not compromising your well-being and your aspirations there will be some changes no doubt but is nevertheless needs to be part of this um yeah meeting the well-being needs that we all have well and from that perspective I really loved the the green Friday at at least in the Netherlands and from from Ikea uh I think it's part of a broader Global uh campaign right you know we started a few years ago um and and again it comes back to how do you get started you know we don't don't take one big leap straight away for all markets so the campaign started really with the idea of like can we mobilize everyone around secondhand and looking after things as a complete opposite to Black Friday so it started with a campaign idea and that has really worked for us and we continue with that um and it's as simple as an idea to say keep good things going and then it's up to allowing and depending if it's Global Brands listening or other sectors but to really give the tools and the narratives for companies and markets to make it their own in their markets make it fun make it engaging um but I'm really glad to hear that it caught your attention I was I think one of the the very positive ones I I I heard last November um Andrea I see a question in in the chat coming from uh um to you uh you mentioned coalitions between the public and the private sector and I think there are people online curious if you can share some successful examples uh on that yeah okay let me let me start from this let me start from this country um I think the Netherlands are probably partly based on its um political culture um has been at the Forefront of putting together these sectoral packs really driven by the public sector setting clear targets bringing together Chambers of Commerce sectoral Chambers of Commerce and you know lead firms in in the different sectors to try to come together with commonly shared broad broadly shared targets regarding material reduction in with in the sector in their own operation this is a very useful experience which I believe the Netherlands should export much more uh I I suspect that in in certain settings will be more promising than in others simply because of the complexities but um other countes I mentioned a couple of them um a lot of these um a lot of these is about transaction costs okay and proximity is a way of eliminating some of those transaction costs and this is about physical proximity and also virtual proximity anything that the public sector can do to reduce the distance between actors uh including private sector actors is an important one and you see countries like China but also turkey Chile others investing substantial amounts of money in Echo industrial parks that today take a material exchange between firms situated in those industrial park into perspective I think it's an important element of um public private partnership and then you know the organization of secondary material markets it's massively linking today we know that it's not just a matter of price of secondary materials very often they cost more but also simply that there is no actual Market or the market is so fragmented and dispersed that you cannot have a nationwide scrapyard to kind of um draw upon but this is very locally and I think a country like China is really at The Cutting Edge of creating such secondary material market so these are some of the some of the some of the collaboration uh opportunities that the public and the private sector have I think I I uh I read that uh also China is really ahead of the curve and in some areas especially on the energy transition I think their current strategy is to be fully circle with batteries and all the materials needed for the energy transition by 2059 whereas in Europe and in in in the US I think aiming at 2070 so hopefully everyone can bring that number down down obviously but I think that's still uh quite showing the ambition although I must say I'm a bit proud of course that you you start with mentioning the Netherlands first and perhaps that's also uh not surprising then that Circle economy is uh headquartered in Amsterdam and that we're also hosting this from Amsterdam uh so I am proud of a lot of the examples that we have in the Netherlands so hopefully we can also stay ahead of the curve from that from that perspect perspective um any questions also to someone in the room here yes don't want to miss out on the live audience that we have here hello I'm hilka simonides from AVB a potato starch producer in the Netherlands uh we have a lot of ideas always in the company to become more circular but we always struggle on how to prioritize so what things to do and what not would you have recommendations for us like to share a bit about how we go about it and again depends on where you are on the value chain of course but as I mentioned the early driver for circularity was very much understanding where our climate footprint set knowing that 50% or so of our climate footprint sit in materials extraction manufacturing so it was a a sort of a no-brainer to start there and early on also knowing that of course the product end of life and that was sort of where things got momentum and therefore also looking at where is there energy in the business for us so really seeing that of course the customer sentiment the The Innovation capacity in the business around prolonging product life the design side so that that was part of where we really got momentum um then I would say and I think I've touched on this in the current climate just even the cost doing a quick calculation of cost of inaction when it comes to potential 4% of your turnover by the way can be your penalty if you don't meet greenwashing legislations right so there's all kinds of Dimension that you can do a sort of calculation around and also where are the markets coming in what are the nants what are the opportunities around your sector um that's that's how we've um approached it and again looking at the market we don't have one Global approach to circularity potentially right so it's again being Market specific about where the real sort of opportunities are thank you any other questions thas mayor Nelly signify maybe more philosophical uh question so thank you for the report I will read it with uh with enthusiasm and also for the examples I was thinking I like the idea about bringing the story more positive especially in this time that is leading to my question I see there's a lot of turbulence in the market there's Wars around there's also pressure politically because you heard that in Europe there there's uh in Europe is also an an an movement to the right wing where they say this uh criticism about too much on environment so my question is how do we keep this pool for sustainability for circularity how do we keep this pool although there are uh signs that maybe in the US and in China there's a little bit push back I think from a lot of lot of angles there are still uh you can deep dive into what could be uh benefits of the circularity uh supply chain resilience uh tapping into new markets uh Second Hand um but also uh industrial symbiosis where you work together the the IND industry Park that you have so I think those are all positive stories you can share despite I think of the political landscape and I think for Europe with everything going on and and the lack of Natural Resources we have for for for some uh materials especially regarding the energy transition um creating the urgency and and destroying saying hey this is where you want to be in the future I think regardless of where you are on the political Landscapes should be in well for me at least a positive narrative to to tell but curious well maybe just very quickly as an extension of what you were saying I think like also the the resilience of what that creates I mean if if you really sort of uh you know develop an architecture of a system that you know keeps materials in use for longer and that that system works very fluidly you know you do develop um a resistance to Big shocks so a lot of the geopolitical examples that you mentioned um and I think you know that is maybe not something that's visible for most people but that's very much a real thing uh that keeps um that keeps sort of a positive framing I'll add a perspective I think bringing it right down to human needs it's about I guess depending on who your audience is and who you're speaking to and who you're trying to reach I think it's also about really understanding what people's needs and concerns and fears are because ultimately right now cost of living crisis we don't go out with a circular message as the main leading message is about meeting allowing people to have their needs met in the most cost-effective way based on what they need what they need and I guess that's sustainability communication 101 um it's not about necessarily that it's a majority sorry minority necessarily who actually take the action because they want to be more sustainable you know it tends to be other needs so leading with a message based on people's needs and understanding what those are um and being also honest about it's not all positive at the moment right so how can we hold space for those difficult conversations whilst we engage in how to meet people's needs in a complex time it's a really good question um it's uh once again probably a question of priorities there are a number of priorities facing uh governments today um but it's challenging think about one of the most basic measure of circularity that you can think of today it's around Energy Efficiency and you know for both residential and Comm Commercial Energy Efficiency payback times of any Investments are typically around six seven years really really quick and those then are crew into benefits and still you find it difficult to convince citizens to invest in Energy Efficiency in many countries you know the wealthy do but the non wealthy they have to put down a down payment and then wait for seven uh eight years to they they don't and once again I think the power of policies try to come up with solutions that not only aim to convince and show those benefits so that people get convinced but try to help the kind of um economics and the financing so in countries where utilities are now paid to help consumers save energy rather than are paid to supply the energy of the consumers you see a number of measures like for instance the possibility to spread the loan to the initial investment over several years um other countes simply resort to subsidies but um those Solutions exist okay uh the Technology Solutions exist the costs are in some sectors incredible for the transition typically those are the sectors where emissions are also very high hard toate type of sectors but um it's a matter of priority and priority setting in government as well as in business is um sometimes Complicated by other um events taking place thanks for uh for your uh elaborate I think answer to to the to the very good question and I think this is something we can uh discuss for hours on also after the live stream and uh we're actually already uh well one hour is uh is very short perhaps but we are entering uh the the final five minutes of the live stream so we have a broad audience both in in in the room but also online and everyone has different positions in their own organization what would be a a practical advice that all of you can give to someone to get started in their own organization to move to to circularity and uh because of the time uh try try to keep it a short I'll let you go first Andrea um thank you um I think for something like this um is the capacity to find find a solution or an approach or a specific policy that works and um have the courage of time the energy um to scale it up and demonstrate it elsewhere um it's a long whole agenda obviously it's going to be something that is going to stay with us over the generations but we need to really make an effort to create a momentum as soon as possible and kind of shock waves so that these type of solutions are you know replicated across businesses and across countries so everything that you can do whenever you have your specific solution your specific Center make sure that it works and advertise it um that would be you know the kind of recommendation for ourselves is something that we try to do in our work as well find one thing tell the story and scale it yeah I'll build on what I've always said already shared around trying to understand your biggest impact depending on the sector and and yet saying that not let Perfection stop action because we do not have the right data that we need we do not have the level of granularity to inform ourselves with 100% confidence so to know enough to take action um and Learn by doing and nevertheless also be both humbly but also openly sharing of the journeys we're on and mobilizing where there is energy in the given business I think it's it's it's more important to get going with the information that we have than to sit and wait for perfection like I think that's uh that's great uh hard act for me to follow um actually one thing that I always uh do say is that a lot of these examples I always feel a little bit silly for standing up broadcasting these examples because they are kind of no-brainers in the end uh and actually as you both said I think it really is about kind of seeing what works and how to scale that um in a sense I I think that would be also my advice is um kind of you know don't reinvent the wheel but actually just look at what's already working and see how to add add that extra little bit of Top Spin that would give it that much more momentum yeah yeah and I think one one final thing I think also sharing what doesn't work so others can also prevent making those same mistakes so don't reinvent wheel but also don't reinvent the 15 wheels that don't work or try to to do that so um so with that we're coming to to near the end so Ivon I would like to invite you to come stand behind the desk with us so we are all together and you can do the final final closure right thank thank you um very insightful discussions um this year's CGR calls upon governments and Industry leaders to move um from Theory into action um we're also very proud of the um spin out that happened last year from Circle economy Foundation we launched Circle economy Consulting to exactly help uh like the question from the audience where to start what to do what to prioritize it's very important to have an approach that fits your needs um not every sector is the same not every country count is the same um the environment is different the policies that you have to work with are different so um with that the Consulting team is also enabling those businesses and we're very proud today to announce that um in addition to our current partnership on the circular Gap report um circular economy Consulting is working very closely in a partnership with deoe which will also be announced in a press release today um and uh with that I think it's um a time for us to close the live stream at least but thank you all for for being here um the full report is as Matthew said available online um it's in the chat um my colleagues have dropped the link there else follow us on LinkedIn um we look forward of course to uh see you again next year for the circularity Gap report 20125 thank you thank you [Applause] all