80 – Evolving and scaling

Interview Transcript

Provided by AI

Catherine Weetman  00:00

Successful businesses keep on evolving, how to circular businesses evolve and make a bigger impact.

Hello, and welcome to the circular economy podcast, where we find out how circular approaches are better for people, planet, and prosperity. I’m Catherine Weetman, everything global. And I’ll be chatting to those people making the circular economy happen. rethinking how we design, make and use everything. We’ll talk to entrepreneurs and business owners, social enterprises and leading thinkers. You’ll find the show notes, links and transcripts at Circular Economy podcast.com, where you can subscribe to updates and to our monthly edition of circular insights.

Catherine Weetman  01:02

Welcome back, it’s episode 80. And thanks for tuning in to hear more stories about the circular economy and how it’s better for people planet and prosperity. If you’re a regular listener, you’ll know that every 10th episode, I zoom in on one or two of the common themes from the last series of interviews. In the last series, we’ve heard from four businesses and three social enterprises based in Australia, the Netherlands, France, Spain, the UK, and the USA. What stood out for me this time was how circular solutions develop as they mature, that might be evolving to improve the range of solutions to strengthen the offer or the business model. And maybe even having to pivot when a major barrier or issue crops up. businesses and community initiatives might also want to expand their scale, so they can make a bigger positive difference. And we’ll come back to that later. Let’s start with the bigger system scale picture. And think about what’s changing for the materials we use those resources that flow through our economy. In Episode 78, we spoke to Colin Church of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, IOM3. The Institute and its work is evolving as more materials come into focus, including critical raw materials. Several governments monitor materials to assess their criticality to the local economy, as well as how their future supply might be affected by increasing global demand, lack of new supplies, geopolitical pressures and climate risks. The European Commission’s first list was in 2011, and included 14 different materials. By the time the fourth critical materials list was published in 2020, the list have grown to 30 materials, including lithium, cobalt, and silicone, as well as more surprising new entries like sand and rubber. Those once seemed abundant, but are now under pressure for different reasons, including climate and overuse. I’ve included a link to the European Commission’s list of critical raw materials in the show notes. The underlying issues for modern materials are complex. And so I asked Colin about how the hot topics for the 15,000 members of IOM3 are evolving.

Colin Church  03:35

The sustainability issues climate crisis, biodiversity crisis, very high on a number of our members agendas. And but in terms of more specific things in terms of materials, minerals, and mining and circular economy type issues, I think there are a number of things that people are worried about specifically. One is what we call critical raw materials. So those materials, which for some reason or other, are at risk in global supply chains, but are essential for the kind of society we either have now or want to have in the future. People are also very much concerned about the future of what we call foundation industry. So the Heavy Industries of making steel and cement and chemicals and plastics and paper and glass. And in particular, how we’re going to decarbonize those to live within our net zero targets going forward. All engineers and scientists when you talk to them will also tell you that they’re always worried about skills supply. And increasingly that gets bound up with inclusion and diversity issues. Although you know, there are separate aspects as well. So skills is a big issue for us. And one particular area of skills. that’s of concern to I am three at the moment is the looming dearth of skills of people who understand geology and applied earth science. It’s really not a popular course it’s at school or university and And there used to be a very active community of of mining engineering courses across the UK there are now undergraduate level, and he that we’re actively recruiting. And I think we’ll probably go on to talk about it. But you know, not having the skills to find an extract material properly and sensibly is going to be an issue for us going forward. Our members are also involved in packaging issues, for example. So here in the UK, there are some big changes coming along to the rules of how one pays for and handles packaging into end of life. And that’s a big issue for our for our members as well. So quite a few of the issues are very closely related to sustainability in lots of different aspects. And really, the members of our industry are fundamental to a lot of those transformations.

Catherine Weetman  05:51

The issues include the complexities of modern long distance supply chains, and Colin highlighted how difficult it can be for those responsible for extraction or production, to know how those materials will be used at the other end of the supply chain. There can be so many tiers of suppliers involved, that the producer might not even know which industrial sectors will use it. Even lifecycle analysis doesn’t necessarily simplify things. I mentioned a case study I’d done on Fairphone. And the difficulties they’d had even trying to establish which country the raw materials came from, and whether it was a fair mind process are not.

Colin Church  06:32

Absolutely, and I think that that whole area of transparency, labelling certification through the chain is really important. And people are very excited about things like blockchain technology, but even blockchain it’s not a it’s not a silver bullet. And be it has its own potential downsides because it can be very energy intensive, for example. So is is a lot of iron ore mined in Australia and tracked by blockchain better or worse than some iron ore mined in Sub Saharan Africa and not tracked by blockchain. Because it’s, you know, you’ve got all sorts of different factors. And it’s really important to try and look at things like lifecycle analysis, but even there, it can be really difficult. So I was doing some work with one of my members last year sometime. And he was saying that he was looking at a dataset for lifecycle analysis around a set of different metals. And what he found was that the data that the world was using to identify the lifecycle impact of a particular metal was based on one mine in the middle of Africa, which produced maybe 10% of the global production. So that’s, you know, substantial. But there’s 90% is produced elsewhere. And we all know that the climate and social and other constraints and opportunities in Sub Saharan Africa will be different from say, the southern tip of Argentina or the centre of the US or you know, pick any other country that you might want to pick. And so even using a tool that could be so rich as lifecycle analysis to understand some of these impacts, and some of these supply chain issues, can be confounded by the data not being good enough in the first place. It’s a huge challenge. But it’s vital that we get on top of it to the extent that we can.

Catherine Weetman  08:23

from a systems perspective, these complexities also go beyond individual companies, supply chains, and even beyond industry sectors, particularly when we’re thinking about decarbonizing and technology for the fourth industrial revolution. We talked about geopolitics and the issue of fair shares…

Colin Church  08:43

We like to say that our role our own three is to support professionals in materials, minerals and minerals to be heroes of the transition to a low carbon and resource efficient society and not villains. And actually, you know, when you think about it, so much of this transition to a low carbon and resource efficient, circular, more circular economy in society depends on stuff, materials, things, whether it’s lithium for batteries, or silicon power, for solar power, or new forms of composites to lightweight vehicle in all sorts of different things. It’s all about material stuff, things. And we’re moving from a world which is using fossil fuels to transfer energy to a world that’s using metals and minerals to transfer energy. So even more important in the future will be stuff.

Catherine Weetman  09:34

Absolutely. And we’re realising that the demand of all these new renewable technologies probably exceeds supply and certainly I was just reading something from Green Alliance, saying that the projected use of renewable electric vehicles, what else was in there solar, solar panels and something else, just those three things that the UK exceeded its fair share of key minerals. So there’s that aspect of it as well isn’t there not just what’s available, but how to distribute it fairly.

Colin Church  10:08

Absolutely. And then of course, tackling as they’re tackling climate change is a global issue. And even if the UK totally decarbonize, which we need to do, if we in decarbonizing the UK economy, stop another economy from decarbonizing because we’ve taken all the materials necessary for that process, then there’s still too much carbon dioxide in the air or too many greenhouse gases. So absolutely, that that fair share argument is, is it’s not just ethical, it’s also deeply practical.

Catherine Weetman  10:40

And it really brings home the need to move to more circular ways of doing things so that we’re designing things so that if something better comes along, we can get all the key resources out of the first product, instead of discarding them and get them get them used again. Also on the subject of materials, this time for performance textiles used in outdoor clothing and gear. In episode 74. We heard from Charles Ross, who specialises in performance sportswear design, and sustainability. Charles and I discussed how biodegradable textiles are evolving. With people realising that we need to use waste from food, agriculture, or forestry processes, not to create materials that need crops grown specifically for them. We talked about the need to focus on keeping things in use for longer, so we can slow the flow of materials through the economy. And of course, reduce the waste and pollution created by all this ever growing production and consumption. brands will have to pivot and rethink the business model, helping people have access to products that lasts for longer, that can be easily repaired, and have a healthy resale value once someone’s finished using it. But my feeling was that so far, most brands in the outdoor gear space are not getting clear on the problem of overconsumption. Let’s hear from Charles.

Charles Ross  12:09

So you’ve asked me what the biggest problem is. I don’t know there’s a whole array of problems. And I would not say that that our biggest problem is actually the cheapness of textiles, just like food. Because they become cheaper. We now own twice the amount of garments that we did at the millennium, which had doubled from the 1970s. So to me, the biggest problem is the overconsumption of textiles on potentially an overpopulated world. But that is extrapolated because we have extended supply lines. I have just been talking about Spring, Summer 2023 trends, and we’re still in 2021. And the only way to make sure that you don’t run out of stock is you over produce soup, because if you lose the famous shelf space, it’s your rival brands that will move into that area. So our biggest problem to me is the cheapness of textiles and the model that we’re having to push them through, which is a really depressing answer. Sorry, Catherine.

Catherine Weetman  13:31

Moving on to recycled materials. In episode 76. I talked to a circular jeweller Isolde de Ridder, who’s another of the entrepreneurs based at the Upcycle Centrum that had a rocky told us about back in episode 63. It sold her set up her business in 2017, creating high end jewellery using Fairtrade metals. A couple of years later, she found out that the fairtrade certification scheme was pulling out of supply in the Benelux countries, because it wasn’t profitable enough. It sold to look for alternatives and found out about fair mined metals, but looking into that raise more ethical questions about whether it was helping local communities around the mines or just benefiting wealthier white people involved in the supply chains.

Isolde de Ridder  14:23

So that’s when at the end of 2019, with the research I was doing, I came to the conclusion that I was not okay with being a part of that anymore. So I came to a turning point. Do I want to keep on doing the work I do? Or am I going to go in a completely different direction because this doesn’t sit well with me at all. And this is not how I want to contribute to to earth, and the people inhibiting it. So I started puzzling on how to not use fair mind, not use new materials, because that might be considered even worse. And the only conclusion I came to is there’s so much jewellery in everyone’s possession just lying around doing nothing. And it’s so easy actually to renew the metals and make new stuff out of it. And I saw this as my only option to keep on doing what I love doing.

Catherine Weetman  15:43

So it’s older evolved by deciding to pivot from Fairtrade to circular materials. When Isolde joined the entrepreneur Support Programme at the Upcycle Centrum, she’d planned to focus on reusing precious metals from E waste. But it turned out to be pretty complicated…

Isolde de Ridder  16:02

That that’s, that’s been my main focus for the past almost one and a half year, because I thought, since there is quite some precious metals in E waste, I would extract it and just take that and make it into new jewellery. But the precious metals are so embedded in impossible to regain access to them in a small business way. Of course, there’s the big E waste companies that process it and,

Catherine Weetman  16:49

yeah, and have having equipment worth hundreds of 1000s of pounds. They’re setup to do it.

Isolde de Ridder  16:56

Yeah, set up to do it. And for me, I found it super challenging to take it back into circulation because it’s a very thin layer or of silver or gold on top of another material which has a very similar melting point. So I thought I had hoped that it would be possible to thermally remove the precious metals and discard the rest. Sadly, that was not as easy as I had hoped. And in the past, more than a year, I have not been able to regain any precious metals. That way.

Catherine Weetman  17:48

The difficulty of recovering gold and precious metals from that E waste at the upcycle Centrum meant it’s older had to pivot again and help people think about donating and reusing their own jewellery.

Isolde de Ridder  18:02

Well, first of all, there’s people that God word that I am one of the entrepreneurs in the upcycle centre. And so they actually hand in their old precious metals, especially silver, as we are easier to discard of silver than it is to discard of gold because of the value we put on gold. But yeah, so there’s people actually coming to me with a bag full of old silver jewellery and saying, Hey, maybe you can use this. Um, in the clothing container, there’s very often also jewellery discarded. So the second way I get my materials is digging through all the jewellery that are being brought in and picking out the ones that I suspect firstly, that are silver or gold, and then testing them. And if they prove to be precious metals, I will use them.

Catherine Weetman  19:08

So you’re having to be pretty enterprising, aren’t you in terms of spotting waste streams or encouraging people to think differently about stuff that might be laying in the in the back of drawers or that granny left to them 20 years ago and they’ve never actually worn it? Yeah. In one of those moments of serendipity, my husband had recently lost his wedding ring. And I was so impressed with this olders ethics and the care she puts into what she does that I asked this older to design and make two wedding rings for us, melting down my original ring together with gold that Isolde had recycled so we have a new matching pair of rings linked by the gold in the original pair.

Catherine Weetman  19:51

Entrepreneurial people are good at coming up with ways to evolve their businesses. And Rob Thompson of Odyssey Innovations is brilliant at this We first heard from Rob back in episode 39. When he told us about the fantastic circular solution he’d set up, creating kayaks made from plastic waste that could help people collect plastic from beaches and the seas. In Episode 71, Rob came back to tell us how he’s evolved the product range, and is expanding the range of plastics that can be recycled from the beach, and ocean plastic waste they collect. They have created litter bins, information boards, and the latest product is a surfing handplane. The range of materials is much more complex than I’d imagined. Odyssey innovations is partnered with specialist recyclers to help them get clear on the materials themselves, including the mixed compositions used in the fishing gear. They’ve identified up to 900 Different materials, making up the fishing gear that’s come back for recycling.

Catherine Weetman  20:59

In Episode 72, we met Gavin Fernie Jones of One Tree at a Time, Gavin had a ski boot business. And after noticing the amount of waste in ski resorts, founded a nonprofit and began working with his local businesses and the community to help them eliminate waste. It all started with a pledge system plus a fix it up and secondhand sales days for ski gear using the proceeds to fund tree planting. Since then, One Tree at a Time has developed a range of services, including repurposing bulk supplies of unused ski gear from ski schools and ski chalet companies, which often involves replacing the original brand logo with the one tree logo. It runs repair what workshops on a pay as you feel basis, and now employs several full or part time seamstresses to do repairs or alterations, and it has a free swap rail at the front of the store for kids outdoor and ski clothes. Gavin noticed that having a community space really helps engage people with those connections and conversations, leading to lots of ideas and new ways to go more circular, help those in need and look after our planet. One Tree at a Time works with a charity called Trees for the Future, cited by the United Nations as the perfect way to plant trees. It works with communities to turn monocultures into thriving diverse plots of land with both both trees and crops. It’s on the internet as trees.org And I’ve included a link in the show notes. One Tree at a Time is evolving how it helps people to win lots of funds raised recently to help those escaping the war in Ukraine and organising volunteers to drive to the border areas with clothes and other essentials.

Catherine Weetman  22:59

Switching to another sector with a big footprint and complex challenges. In Episode 77, we got an update from Steve Haskew on how Circular Computing is evolving. You might remember back in episode 24 that Steve explained the challenges of convincing companies that remanufactured laptops are just as reliable as new ones. Circular Computing really manufactures high end laptops from brands like Dell, Lenovo, HP and Panasonic. Typically, these have around 97% of the performance capability of a brand new model have a much lower environmental and material footprint and cost a lot less. Business leaders were enthusiastic, but often they’ll be a sticking point somewhere else in the organisation, often with the IT person who’d be worried about the impact of possible failures.

Catherine Weetman  23:57

After we spoke last time about all the benefits of remanufactured it back in episode 24, I was so impressed that I finally decided to replace my seven year old Dell laptop by buying a remanufactured circular computing Dell laptop. So thanks very much to you for sorting out all the logistics and the setup support for that

Steve Haskew  24:17

was great to have as a client.

Catherine Weetman  24:19

And in this quick update, I know you’re keen to tell us about the developments with the Kitemark. But first of all, can you explain what a Kitemark is?

Steve Haskew  24:29

Of course, the Kitemark is a British Standards Institute mark of trust for consumers and quite often, Catherine, it’s a precursor to ISOs. So for instance, ISO 14,001 which is an environmental standard. The precursor to that was was designed by the British Standards Standards Institute, from which then the international standards organisation could adopt best practice. So the Kitemark for us wrap present a third party verification around us a standard within BSI which is a technical thing called called BS triple eight seven. And that particular standard says your output from the from a factory must produce a laptop equal to or better than you. And the BSI Kitemark certifies to our users that that actually is true.

Catherine Weetman  25:26

That’s a really good phrase, isn’t it better than or equal to a new one. So that’s, that’s a really great label to have on on the product. And I’m curious to know why circular computing decided to pursue the Kitemark and what it involved.

Steve Haskew  25:43

Our target has always been a b2b. And the product itself is central to industry and public sector clients day to day operations. It’s how they do their day job. If you come to them with a product offering that in any way compromises their ability to perform their job, then they’re not going to engage with you. So the only way that they can get confidence is if a recognised third party actually comes by audits, your factory looks at what you do has a really thorough understanding of the process. And then and then confirms actually, what these guys are doing. And what they’re saying, is matter of fact, true. Because Kitemark then represents a knot is more so for our customer, it removes the perception that an alternative to new is second best or second user is second best when it when in fact, if you have a process to bring things back to a new state, is actually much better.

Catherine Weetman  26:50

Achieving that BSI Kitemark has opened up lots of conversations with new customers and with Panasonic, with circular computing now remanufacturing The Panasonic Toughbook making it affordable for lots of businesses that couldn’t justify the cost of a tough book, and had to put up with a higher failure rate of it that wasn’t up to the job of outdoor military grade environments.

Catherine Weetman  27:16

In Episode 79, we heard how biorefining and green chemistry can help create value from waste. Jordi Ferre of Alvinesa  explained how Alvinesa’s business model is an evolution of traditional processes in the wine industry. The waste from pressing the grapes, known as pumice typically becomes bio ethanol, industrial alcohol for use in many different sectors. Alvinesa though has evolved this process to develop a wider range of byproducts, each of which creates much higher value, micronutrients colorings, polysaccharides, natural tartaric acid grapeseed, oil, alcohols and more. Alvinesa is now evolving processes to create similar waste is food innovations for foods like olives, tomatoes, and so on.

Catherine Weetman  28:13

At the start of this episode, I mentioned the challenge of scaling to make a bigger impact. Let’s talk about the best ways for circular businesses to scale. Here I want to mention what Ken Webster and Craig Johnson, two of my original Circular Economy heroes, say in their new book, A, B, C & D. Can and Craig call for us to be clear about the differences between scaling up and scaling out and highlight that healthy growth is about the successful scaling out of regenerative enterprises within distributed local and regional networks. They use a metaphor of enterprises growing outwards, like fungal networks in a forest soil, not scaling up by getting bigger in size. It’s about having a mosaic of local producers. For Rob Thompson of Odyssey Innovations, scaling meant moving to another area of the UK, and working out how to engage a new group of partners and stakeholders. Rob works hard to understand the various pain points of each group of stakeholders, fishermen harbours, the local councils, recycling providers, and so on. And so make connections that break down the barriers and support those conversations about shared opportunities and better ways of doing things. Gavin Fernie-Jones is scaling out his One Tree at a Time model with a new collaborative initiative called Re-Action. I’ve been working with Gavin to think through how it can work for different types of outdoor gear businesses. I’m hoping we’ll be able to ask Gavin to tell us more about it at some point in the future.

Catherine Weetman  29:58

In episode 73 Tom Zacky explained how Loop has evolved by being forensically clear on the most convenient solution for the customer, for the brands and for the retailers. To scale out, Loop needs to help the brands and the retailers to make the business case feel confident about moving forward and progress from online pilots through to instal pilots,  and finally take a big jump to rolling out in store and that scale.

Catherine Weetman  30:28

We also covered scale in Episode 75 with Helena Norberg-Hodge Helena told us how local futures is helping communities scale out local food. Connecting local producers to buyers is a great way of joining the dots to strengthen local economies. The UK Small Business Association quotes research showing that 10 pounds, dollars or euros spent with a local independent business means up to an additional 50 pounds goes back into the local economy and helping your community to thrive. The article lists 15 different benefits of shopping with local independent traders. And Helena’s LocalFutures.org website also has a page explaining why localization is a solution multiplier. World Localization Day is coming up in June. I’ve included a link in the show notes where you can sign up to be involved. One of the forces pushing against local economies and encouraging us to treat things as disposable is that lots of products from food to fashion tech to travel, or to cheap? Whilst it means more people can afford supposedly better things. The downside is that in making things cheaper, someone or something gets exploited through poor pay and working conditions, through inhumane conditions for farmed fish and animals. And from the effects of pollution and waste from low cost production processes. Things being too cheap was a topic in several episodes as well raised by Gavin Fernie-Jones and Charles Ross talking about outdoor gear by Helena Norberg Hodge talking about the injustices and unfair practices underlying cheap food. And by Colin Church, talking about materials. Here’s Colin answering my question of what he would do with a magic wand to change the world.

Colin Church  32:26

So it really is a magic wand. And that would be to raise the value to society of raw materials verging raw materials that would, at a stroke, put in place a lot of incentives that we need to have to change how we deal with things, stuff is too cheap. It does not to us the economists speak you know, we don’t internalise the externalities of social and environmental damage from the extraction, processing and transport of stuff, we just don’t. And so we overuse it and abuse it. So that will be the magic wand. But the having said that it really is a magic wand because I think the complexities involved in doing that are particularly if you couldn’t do it at the global level. And I don’t think we have the governance to do it at a global level. It’s like thinking about a carbon price, or a carbon tax in times more difficult, because there are 10 times more things to worry about. You know how you work out the value of the materials in a particular product, for example. So very, very idealistic magic wand waving that

Catherine Weetman  33:37

it says shame that we can’t have that magic wand to transform our communities and businesses to become circular, regenerative and fair tomorrow. But the guests we’ve heard from are all taking positive actions for a better world. And we can all do much more to help accelerate the change we need to see by talking about why the circular economy is better, and how it means we can provide high quality, affordable products with a much lower footprint, less materials, land use greenhouse gas emissions, and of course less waste and pollution. And we can be the change to finding ways to make your life and what you do at work, more circular and more values driven.

Catherine Weetman  34:24

Finally, a quick update from me. I’m still deep into writing my next book focused on helping businesses to get started with circular economy and regenerative solutions. But every time I read the newspapers or check out what’s happening online, I see yet more examples of businesses starting to make the transition and compelling reasons why businesses must get on board with circular approaches if they’re to survive and thrive. I’m finding it difficult not to keep adding more stories into what I’ve already written, which is not helping me get it finished. So that’s it for this episode of the circular economy podcast. Thank you to all our guests this series for sharing their time, knowledge and thoughts. And thank you for listening. I’ve included the link to those articles on the benefits of local economies, and the link to Ken Webster and Craig Johnson’s new book, ABC and D in the show notes too, at Circular Economy podcast.com.

Catherine Weetman  35:28

If you want to find episodes on a particular Circular Economy strategy, or for a market sector, or specific countries, check out our interactive podcast index. There’s a link on the podcast homepage at www circular economy podcast.com. And every episode includes an interview transcript. Don’t forget that you can help make the circular economy happen to with the choices you make at work and in your everyday life. Buying pre used, keeping what you have for longer repairing it and making sure it has another life. And you can help spread the word talk about the circular economy and help other people find this podcast by leaving us a rating and a review on your podcast app. Email, a screenshot of your review to podcast at Rethink global dot info. And we’ll give you a shout out on the show. If you’d like to learn more about the circular economy, why not go back and listen to episode one and two, or buy a copy of my award winning book a circular economy handbook how to build a more resilient, competitive and sustainable business. The book takes you through the concepts and practicalities with lots of real examples from all around the world. The Circular Economy podcast is brought to you by rethink global helping you succeed with circular. You can find information on our talks, workshops, coaching and advice and circular economy resources at www rethink global dot info. All connect with me Catherine Weetman on LinkedIn. Thanks so much for listening to the end. And if you like what you’re hearing, please hit subscribe and we’ll see you next time.