 Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Geer Matourney and I'm an Associate Professor in the School of Law and Government at Dublin City University. I'm delighted to welcome you to today's event. We are delighted to be joined by Jean-Marc Simon, Executive Director of Zero Waste Europe, and I would like to thank him for being so generous with his time today. Jean-Marc Simon is the Executive Director of Zero Waste Europe, a Brussels-based NGO that operates as a Knowledge Network and Advocacy Group. It works with 400 municipalities in 24 countries with the mission of redesigning our relationship with resources. Mr. Simon is a member of the Steering Committee of the Break Free from Plastic Movement. He's the author of many influential articles, such as the Zero Waste Master Plan for Cities, and also several books, including Zero Waste, How to Reactivate the Economy Without Trashing the Planet, and It's Plastic Stupid. Mr. Simon has a background in economics and considerable experience of working with governmental and non-governmental organizations in the field of good governance, new economics, social justice, and the environment. The title of today's address is A Zero Waste Vision for Europe. Mr. Simon will deliver a keynote address of approximately 20 minutes or so. After his presentation, we will go into a Q&A session with you, our audience. You can join the discussion using the Q&A function on Zoom, which you should see on your screen. Please feel free to send your questions in throughout the session as they occur to you. I would respectfully ask that you identify yourself and affiliation when you ask a question. A reminder also that both today's presentation and Q&A session are on the record. Please feel free to join the discussion on Twitter using the handle at IIEA. And with that, Mr. Simon, you're most welcome. The floor is yours. Thank you. Thank you very much. And thank you IIEA for this kind of invitation. It's a pleasure to be speaking to you from Brussels today. And to start this conversation in which I'll try to give it provocative about what is, I think what is the state of play and the way forward, I think, to address the secret economy in Europe and striving for a zero waste Europe. So first of all, where are we today? If we look back in the last 30 years, the truth is that there's good news and there's bad news. On the one hand, Europe has reduced the amount of waste that we have been sending to landfilling by 30%, and we have managed to double the amount of waste that we recycle. But we have also doubled the amount of waste that we burn in its generation facilities. The bad news is that we are generating more waste than ever, and that reuse, refill, like what is at the top of the waste hierarchy, you know, that is like prevention, reuse, recycle, and disposal. The top of the hierarchy actually has not much been going on up there. In other words, the bottom of the hierarchy has been getting fatter. Yes, we land feel less, but we burn more, and we generate more waste. So the situation today is that Europe is mainly a consumer of disposable items, not all of the very good quality, which are produced in the other side of the world, and the quantity and the quality of our employment as a result is decreasing. We're going to see how fertility rates have helped in the last 40 years in Europe because our exposure to chemicals and our lifestyle. And as I said, we generate more waste than ever. And what it comes as structurally surprising as this is, this is that we have behind us decades of waste legislation and environmental legislation. Yet the emissions and the production and the disposal site continue to increase. Why is this happening. Sadly, it continues to happen because generating waste, it makes economic sense. Our economy, as you know it's based on maximizing profit, instead of maximizing well being which means that it's good if companies sell more. It's bad if stuff lasts longer because that means that companies will not get to sell as much. And this very quick summary is, and you can find it, the details in 30 to 40 years of European legislation. Otherwise, would we have a guarantee of two years when you buy a fridge or a durable good like a dishwasher when actually these goods are supposed to last longer? Why don't we have any focus on, there's no legislation on reuse or prevention, and all the waste legislation in Europe and the national level is looking at how do we recycle, how do we incinerate, how do we regulate emissions. We don't deal with actually the root causes of the problem. Why, for example, the glass industry, refers to sell single use glass, which is the material with the highest environmental footprint, instead of pushing for refillable bottles. Of course, because if for every bottle that is refilled is 30 bottles less that they will be selling because you know refillable packaging. Many times, the producer will get to sell less. So, I'll just repeat, it's a legislation and it's an economy that is wired for linearity. And I think the challenge we have this day is actually that we know that we are in a crisis, and we need to undo all this legislation and we need to make actually that doing the wrong thing should be more expensive and more difficult than doing the right thing. What we cannot expect is that if doing the wrong thing is easier and cheaper than doing the right thing, the companies or the consumers are going to go against economic or like easiness incentives. And that's the situation today. The good news is that in Europe we have an epiphany with this. When the secret economy back in 2014 was was proposed. It was, it was very clearly stated that we cannot run a linear economy, a finite planet. This is again was nothing new because there's the limits to growth of the plopper from was published in the 1970s. But well, it was the realization that actually that need to be strung in European policy. The challenge here is that for, I would claim that for almost everyone except for some industry front runners some visionary policy makers and change makers in the NGO and research and academia. Most people thought that the secret economy was just a new password was coming to replace the green economy or sustainability which basically have been so much in Washington going on that they have lost all its money. I don't think that that's that has been the case until now, but what has changed, I think we are entering a completely new era, in the sense, because we are seeing how the global supply chains have been disrupted we're seeing how the shortage in in microchips a shortage in toys. And this is prices are going up. There's a shortage of construction materials the price of transport of transport of metals of wheat are increasing. And I think for me what that reflects actually that what we have we are past the peak oil and gas oil, and we believe that in the future energy is going to be more expensive means that everything will be more expensive. And so what that means for the secret economy I think for what compete that concerns us today is that finally, the secret economy, or zero waste is actually touching all of us. All citizens and all companies in Europe are today suffering that high prices of energy is suffering the consequences of climate change, etc. Which means that, well, this is not only about the policymaking. It's about, I would say, almost crisis management. And again, transitioning from a linear socially unfair and polluting economy to a secret toxic free society. It's not something that can be done overnight. And, and the fact today is that most of us, I would say all of us have our homes filled with toxic chemicals present in packaging furniture flooring etc. We don't have access to locally produced seasonal food, or are able to make responsible choices when we're buying clothes, it equipment toys, etc. So when shopping. It's not possible to know whether a product is safe, recyclable recyclable or durable. And all of this needs to change. And I think that's that's the, that's the challenge to get to a zero a zero. And you need to understand that, that the secret economy is a system, whether we like it or not. And it's not a product that is circular or it's not the ways, the way we handle the ways that is. Not because you make product recyclable is going to be recycled, not because you make you collect something separately and you recycle it, that that is circular. But it's the whole setup together that that is circular. And that's the complexity of that that we're dealing with. And, and I think that that is that is the challenge that fact that the units to adopt a multi dimensional approach tackle the waste problem, but not only the waste problem, I think I would say it's also the economic challenges. And the policy makers need to replace half a century of legislation and economic incentives favoring this possibility with a new paradigm resource management. So I think that the journey matters, but also the, the speed at which we are traveling matters. And I have the feeling when you look at legislation and when we look at policy making these days, the faster we need to go, the slower we move. So, as you know, if you're familiar with policy making in the EU, it takes within five to 10 years between like an issue is affected to actually the legislation is passed is transposed is enforced, if it is ever enforced. And as a result today we're working on legislation that as from 2030 we should have packaging that will be recyclable reusable, or by 2050 we should achieve carbon neutrality, which in other words what it means is that nothing needs to change in the next year, and of course you're going to have front runners in the industry that are going to be doing everything right, but most of the people most of the industry. If it's only because of legislation, they're not going to start moving. And as we've seen on the other side, we see how the reality today is that energy prices resource scarcity is hitting us. So the legislation is going to slow for the speed of change that we need. And what we're seeing, if we look at the European policy making is is rather the opposite. We have we have the example of the corona crisis of something that we were not prepared. And when emergency arrives legislation didn't matter, because it meant that the European Commission had to improvise a common response, coordinating travel measures that production and purchase of vaccines. And finally, personal protective equipment and ventilators, etc. That is not legislation. That's a different kind of intervention. And I believe that the traumatic events of last summer because my climate change energy prices and stability of supplies, etc calls for changing gears. And the question that I leave, I go there to my next point is, do we have the right tools in policy making or in the way our governance is structured today to facilitate this transition. And I would argue that policy making as usual is necessary but it's still insufficient, because creating the rules for markets to operate works in times of certain stability. But if something we know, and the current crisis is an example is that markets don't function well in crisis situations what happens in a crisis situation is that the state needs to intervene. And actually you need to take the lead, be it the war, be it a pandemic, be it a natural disaster, etc. And I think that because of the multi dimensionality of the solution, precisely because there's no solution in one sector in one company, but actually solution that needs to be systemic. We need to have a European Union that does more than just framing conversations, setting goals. We need to, yes, facilitate where we need a leader that ensures that the transition happens and happens soon and in the right way. So it's great to have the microchip strategy digital security strategy etc. But as we see the scarcity of all these materials of spare parts for cars and for production etc is happening today. And the legislation we passed today on circular economy is not going to come in time to actually to address all of this. So, even the future, we need to decide whether we, the few microchips we have available need to go to play stations, or to hospital equipment. Who's going to decide that we're going to leave that to the market, or we need to actually change gears and address this. And if this is really a crisis situation is the European Commission equipped to do this as less than 300 people in the European Commission working with circular economy. At the local level, actually, the enforcement is rather weak, and we don't have many resources to do that. So, when the resource scarcity crisis hits us. Do we have the infrastructure do we have the governance to intervene on that. I think that that requires rethinking governance in the way we do policy, policy prevention. But of course, if we look at the policy making concretely what what needs to happen, what, what we are advocating is that the prevention and reuse need to become the new normal. We're not necessarily having reuse quotas for packaging, but also for other materials, construction materials to clothing, etc. deposit and refund systems standards for packaging and for other products so that we can know how to better repair them refill them wash them, etc. are important. We're going to need new infrastructure as well, because for the same reason as you don't run trains on roads, you cannot run a secret economy on the linear economy infrastructure. And that requires new infrastructure, the recycling infrastructure the collection infrastructure is not useful for a economy is based on circularity with stuff is reused is repaired, etc. We need transparency we need to have a product passports, but we also need to link the product passports to some sort of a material budget per capita or some sort of connection between what is the climate agenda the resources available and the consumption that we can have for people. And we need to stop focusing the feeling on like reducing lung filling or incineration and really focus on how do we generate less less waste. I will say, it's raining here. As I said before I think it's important to also invest in enforcement capacity. For example, in 2023 the European Union needs to enforce separate collection of bio waste. I think this is a peak opportunity, this 80 million tons of food scraps that are not being collected today in Europe that ended up in landfills and incinerators. And this could be used for many applications to generate biogas compost, even bioplastics, and, and these things that we are missing. But how are we going to make sure that this and this other examples, we're going to take advantage of this opportunity. And we are going to really make this resource secret. So, I could go a lot more detail into the policy proposals that I think are necessary, but again, just remind that we will talking about legislation that will be actually enforce what probably I think it's going to be played so I think we need to start moving. To see how countries such as France for example is already having conversations about like how to implement infrastructure for for reuse, but actually with concrete targets, etc. It's good to see that different countries also taking some measures here and there, but what I'm seeing is like scattered and coordinated efforts and European Commission completely overwhelmed by the situation. We're seeing at the same time as well we need them the most how burnout rates in the long still servants in these units are quite high. We're seeing how legislation is being delayed, for example, the vision of the packaging and package was directed has been delayed. Again, the same for the Sustainable Product Initiative, we are seeing as well how the quality of impact assessments and other quality and processes in the commission are like being duplicated and not being very efficient, and it's a clear sign that I think something needs to change that at the governance level. Just to conclude, from zero waste Europe we try to apply this logic to ourselves and it has been presented at the beginning we are working with more than 400 municipalities in Europe. Trying to implement these solutions web certification for zero waste cities. We see how actually when some countries are dragging their feet at the local level some municipalities are as really like stepping up and creating the infrastructure for change to happen. We are also helping facilitate conversations among the industry to build all of these. And the opportunities are out there. Yet, we are just an NGO and we are mobilizing lots of people we are mobilizing plastic movement here in Europe. We do what we can, but I think we're going to need much more if it's true that we're entering really the time of scarcity of resources and high energy prices, which for me kind of changes the rules of the game and I'm convinced we're going to see many changes in the coming years. And of course it would be good if we would be better prepared, but one is never prepared for crisis from this time is that I think that we have the environmental social economic and political crisis, or hitting us at the same time. And it's hard to be prepared for that. So, we thought without legislation we will need to redesign the way we deal with resources in the coming years. And sorry for the pessimistic outline but I want to see this as an opportunity to actually for to change things for the better. I see that as an opportunity for civil society to work with industry to work with policymakers to work with investors to actually rethink the way we organize our production and consumption in order for Europe to be a lot more resilient a lot more sustainable and and and providing quality jobs for the people. So if I would conclude using a game of trans analogy feels like winter is coming. So we, we need to get ready.