 The webinar will begin shortly. Please remain on the line. The webinar will begin shortly. Please remain on the line. The webinar will begin shortly. Please remain on the line. The webinar will begin shortly. Please remain on the line. The broadcast is now starting. All attendees are in listen only mode. Good afternoon everybody and welcome to the launch of this policy briefing on the Sustainable Products Initiative. My name is Martin Porter. I'm Executive Chair of CISL Brussels which is providing the secretariat to the new task force which has produced this policy briefing and to CLG Europe about which you will hear from my colleague Tamid in a moment. It's my pleasure to welcome all of you here today and indeed a good number of you which I think is testament to the interest in the topic that we are going to be talking about which is at the forefront of thinking in the European Green Deal everybody working on climate and the circular economy in Brussels the EU and more widely. We have a tremendous agenda here today and you can see in front of you I hope what we will be doing and we have a number of excellent panellists and speakers beginning with the European Commission Matt Jess Madglide who is going to set out what the commission is doing having heard from my own colleague Tamid Chaudhury about the policy briefing which we are launching today and the work that we are doing with the task force on this issue. After that we will turn to a discussion from members of the business community who are part of the task force and we will hear their perspectives on the agenda that we are looking at today and then go to a Q&A including with Matt Jess and after we have had a few minutes of question, answer and discussion we will then hear reflections on this from the director of Climate Action Network Europe Chiara Martinelli. Welcome to all of our panellists it's great to have you here as well as a great number of participants in this meeting and before we kick off and I hand over to my colleague Tamid let me just provide a couple of words on the rules for the discussion today I hope you will be able to access through the panel that you have on your screen some of the materials that we have in the handout section the policy briefing is also available online on the CISL website so you will be able to access it there as well and in that you will also see the backgrounds and biographies of the different speakers that we have here If you have questions please feel free to put those in the chat function we will be monitoring those and I will be able to relay those which I am able to to our different speakers and panellists so please do put those in the chat as and when you would like to put them and lastly please be aware this is a public discussion it will be recorded and that will also be available to you afterwards So with that and a busy afternoon for an hour and a half or so ahead of us let me pass over and welcome my colleague who has been behind a lot of the work involved in this Tamid who is a program manager here in Brussels with CISL Tamid, over to you Great, thank you very much Martin and it is a pleasure to be here and talk a bit about our policy briefing Before I do that if we can just go to the next slide I want to spend a minute or two just talking about who we are so firstly in terms of the Corporate Leaders Group Europe we are a progressive business platform that is seized with the opportunity of the next five year term within the European Parliament to really influence Europe's response to climate and related challenges and we really push a highest common denominator position among our membership So in all we are a voice of a business that is influential cross-sectoral and pan-European we bring together world-class thought leadership, high-level policy related to convening and impactful communications and engagement So that's Corporate Leaders Group Europe and if we go to the next slide I'm really excited to talk a bit about our new task force our task force for climate neutral and circular materials and products which is linked to the Corporate Leaders Group Europe We are a group of businesses in September 2021 and we're particularly interested in driving the conversation around across our sectors and value chains to bring forward a move away from more linear energy and resource-intensive production of materials to circular materials that are produced without fossil fuels or greenhouse gas emissions as bright products So our key objective is to drive the development, implementation and support of more ambitious future-proof policies and programmes and initiatives in Europe I really hope that we can continue working on this space and so this is not a one-off but something that we hope to do more of in the future So if we go to the next slide just as that's coming up the reason we're here today is to talk about our policy briefing that has been launched today and just to invite you to have a look at that if you're attending through GoToWebinar there's a link through the flyer but you can also scan the QR code in front of you here So this is our new publication looking at the Sustainable Products Initiative which we'll hear more about in a moment and our paper is entitled Accelerating the Transition to a Climate Neutral and Circular Economy How the EU can deliver through the Sustainable Products Initiative So if we go to the next slide I just wanted to take a moment before we delve into the discussion and hear from our great panellists about all of our recommendations and what we're setting out in the paper and if you have a moment you can read the executive summary and indeed the rest of the report which details this a little bit more We have five recommended principles and I'll just quickly go through them So the first one is being ambitious in its aims as in the Sustainable Products Initiative in delivering the Green Deal So I think looking at the global context and the recently concluded COP26 it is a really key opportunity for us to drive the delivery towards the Green Deal and the European Green Deal and I think what we are calling for is something that is ambitious and noting that considering it's based upon the eco design principles implementing acts could take quite a few years to come and so our call is for this to happen and not to get sort of stuck in the block holes but that really does affect change because this could be a real opportunity in terms of a legislative file that can bring together or drive the circular economy action plan that the EU wants to implement The second principle is building a progressive policy framework based upon competitive sustainability and this is you may not have come across the term competitive sustainability before but we talk about it a bit more in the report and indeed we have previously published news in terms of what that term could mean I think the point in this is to say we see the sustainable products initiative as part of a wider movement in terms of looking at a more holistic way of how our economy operates so competitive sustainability can be defined as the ability of an economy companies and industrial ecosystems to excel relative to international competitors in their transition to a sustainable economy with climate neutrality at its core through investment in the necessary innovation so to essentially what we are saying is to bring the two concepts in terms of environmental protection but also in terms of competitiveness together in one wider concept in terms of how we want to drive our future economy so the third one is improving transparency of product sustainability so this is basically the idea that with raw materials it is hard to know whether they are more climate friendly or indeed carbon neutral or not and currently there is a bit of a disincentive if you are creating more climate neutral or climate neutral or more carbon friendly materials if they currently cost a bit more because the technologies aren't quite there if we are basing it purely on price then there is less of an incentive to buy them so what we are calling for is greater transparency and indeed what we understand is that there will be a products passport or a digital passport in the sustainable products initiative and our view with that we welcome it we'd be really interested to hear more about it but our general thoughts were there are quite a lot of different types of information that has been collected so in the constructions we have the environmental products declarations the batteries regulation which has some sort of digital product passport as well and we also have the products environmental footprint so there is quite a few different frameworks and I suppose our view was that we would invite the commission to kind of look at these different things not necessarily take them as face value but to use that as reference point rather than working in silos fourth one is supporting innovation and being future proof so I think this is fairly self-explanatory but essentially the idea that I think this piece of legislation and indeed across this space is about finding the balance between pushing for change but also not being too restrictive in terms of some of that future innovation and we see this piece of legislation as perhaps being a framework piece that can set some continuity in terms of direction which can really help innovation as opposed to something perhaps like innovation fund which is looking at particular bits of innovation this can be a chance to set some of the longer term thinking and give that continuity that businesses would like finally providing policy coherence across the wider EU industrial and climate initiatives and if you're listening to this you probably have an idea that there's a lot of legislation coming out with the 555 we have the EU industrial strategy which got renewed earlier this year and I think we are conscious that also with the circular economy action plan there's a good number of pieces of legislation coming up in 2022 amongst when this legislation is coming out so it's really key that we have a holistic view when this legislation is going through so that we don't miss things because one piece is over there and another is over there so those are the five recommended principles I did want to go to if we could go to the next slide so we also wanted to take an opportunity to give some more specific pieces of information in terms of what a sustainable products initiative could do and I'll try and go through this relatively quickly but I think it is also key in terms of giving actual genuine genuine policy recommendations as well as the sort of wider principles so the first one is implementing measures that support EU manufacturers and producers in their journey towards decarbonisation and circularity so particularly putting declining limits on embedded life cycle missions for the most CO2 intensive materials rich final products the second one is strengthened embedded CO2 reporting requirements and material passporting requirements adopting standardised CO2 rating labels for the most CO2 intensive inputs into key value chains whilst making this process available to companies we also suggested putting minimum site recycle content reused or reduce the use of virgin raw material requirements for key materials intensive sectors such as buildings, vehicles and packaging setting cross cutting requirements to ensure that low carbon and circular public procurement requirements are placed in all future revisions of EU sector legislation again buildings public works and infrastructure could be examples of that reforming the rules regarding the EU standard setting process for construction products so cement and concrete working alongside the upcoming construction product and regulation and the Euro codes which I believe are due to be updated and finally establish an ambitious scope for the SPI working with company legislation to include as many sectors as possible based upon an assessment of the most carbon and resource intensive products so this could include new buildings and construction products, automotive and packaging so that was a bit more of a detailed run through but I would really invite you to read the report we'd also love to hear from you if you are particularly interested in this file and without further ado I think that's my bit done so I'll pass back to you Martin Thank you Tamir that was excellent and I think it says to seem seen extremely well for our next speaker somebody who is at the very heart obviously of the work being done in the European Commission on this and who I am sure many of you are familiar with given all of that activity he's involved in and is often speaking publicly so Mad Josh Magli welcome great to see you again thank you for joining this discussion and I think over to you look forward to hearing what you've got to say and to clean up obviously the discussion will have the floor is yours Good afternoon thank you Martin it's a pleasure to be in an event shared by you again and also many thanks to Tamir for a very interesting presentation I have to say that the principles that the task force produce resonate quite a lot I can disclose what we're thinking about what we've been investigating but also they resonate with the feedback we got from a pretty widely consulted general and sort of specific public so I'd like to congratulate first the task force and all the work that you're doing here in Brussels and it's actually a pleasure really to hear the voice of progressive business and the demand that's out there for the work we're doing but I'd like to do in the next roughly 10 minutes and I count on Martin to brush me along if I'm starting to take too long is just to give you a general contextual presentation where the sustainable products initiative came from where we think we're going unfortunately I do have to be a little bit more general than I would like to be because the process is still going on with discussing with colleagues and it would be a bit unfair if I said this is going to be in and that's going to be out but I think I can be specific enough for this to be useful for everybody so if you can please move to the first slide just to sort of remind everybody I think this was said in an introduction already I think two elements I'd like to bring out here first the sustainable products initiative and embedded in the circular economy action plan is part of an ambitious European Green Deal there's no doubt about that the commitment of the president but also of the council and the parliament I think has been confirmed number of times in the past two years but the second sort of dimension that I'd like to bring out is that this particular one really depends a lot on the innovation of the industry on the buying of the industry on the race to the top if you want that was sort of also brought out I thought through the report of the task force so really I think these two components are going to come back to the objectives but really keeping in mind ambitious Green Deal and a big role of industry and consumers in fact to sort of drive this with help of the regulatory framework so if you can please move to the next slide basically what we're asked to develop and we've been working very hard in the past year and a half or so was to make a legislative initiative so not a strategy but a regulatory initiative that will help make products fit for basically the future we need if I borrow from the U.N. terminology but also to help further in reducing waste which is you're all forward looking and looking to the circular economy being developed very fast but unfortunately we're still stuck in a linear economy predominantly which generates a lot of waste so it should help the waste policies and efforts to further reduce it but also again I think was said in the introduction we know that there are front runners out there so we know things are possible and we want to help this process accelerate I think this is the word to get the front runners to be the norm and I'm showing Q&A there could be theological discussions about this and I'm happy to answer that this level for the moment another thing that's very important to bear in mind is that there is a very explicit mandate to revise the eco design directive so the architecture we are investigating is largely based on how eco design work but I'm going to explain in a moment how this could be expanded depending on the final decision so if you please move on to the next one and then just a reminder of why we have Green Deal at all it's not a quirk it's an absolute necessity on the way where a lot of mega trends are heading basically inefficient use of resources planetary boundaries are being exceeded it's again a sort of thing of science fiction and I can't disclose that much for those more initiated among you that we did base a lot of our analysis also on the work of the GRC looking how European consumption production is actually breaching those boundaries and I think very clear evidence to this effect would be presented and then finally the SPI should also be seen as one of the tools helping to move on in progression towards the circular economy which again I don't need to repeat but it's not just keeping the value in the chain and minimizing or reducing weights to zero but also be regenerative in nature I think this is the definition we would like to follow so aspects that relate also to biodiversity should be at least looked at when we are looking at the measures if you can please move on to the next one then on I'd say the same problem but a bit of a different side already indicates a little bit how we're going to go about it is as we like to repeat it comes from few studies but the share of impact it's actually designed in the product so helping to design products differently is certainly one of the most important things we'd like to do information was mentioned before which is not just to consumers it's important that it's this but what we discovered what we knew but confirmed in our process of assessing the impacts is that there is clearly huge demand for having much clear information on what scene, how things are put together, how you can disassemble them also in the business to business relations so this is one important aspect that we are looking at how to make it easier for the circular economy to work in its different manifestations but also something that is closer to consumers again we have evidence now not just an assumption that products do break down easier than they did in the past we can discuss a lot but depends also a lot on the sector but they break down easier in the past in many cases and it's a bit more difficult to repair them some of it is natural progression because things are sophisticated but this is again breaking it's putting a break on a better easier recycling and manufacturing keeping things in value check finally not to go in much detail it is very clear that current eco design in terms of its impact it's seen as a great success basically energy saved through eco design measures equals if I'm not mistaken entire wind energy generated in European Union just to put it in perspective so all the efforts to promote renewables roughly similar gains as one regulatory tool that looks a bit grey and detailed and slow but with immense potential impacts if we can now move on to the next slide I already disclosed few things from the slide but just really to say again things that I think resonate also the report of the task force materials are more difficult to use there is lack of information a lot of people agree majority also a lot of companies perhaps a bit less than just people or consumers that that products do not sufficiently carry the costs and that their impacts either in being produced or during use or during disposal can create and that's a bit really the trickiest part of how to regulate for such problem because an obvious an obvious solution just to make things more expensive applied across the board is probably not going to work so we have to look into a bit more sophisticated ways of addressing this making it clear how the impacts arise making it more incentivizing buying better stuff but also of course looking at taxation not necessarily at union level at this stage but the national if we can move on to the next one carefully looking at Martin if he starts giving me an ugly I know I'm moving too slowly but so a little bit on what you are probably most of you most interested in is what will come out well first I can confirm that we are really working on an assumption that we would extend the scope of equity design legislation which is currently focusing on energy use stage there is some space for addressing other areas as you know we do have measures that deal also with water consumption and some other impacts but the idea here is to have a flexible future proof tool that can deal with any product that would be significant enough for a group of products or a horizontal measure across groups of products that would be significant enough in terms of its impacts to be addressed clearly we would focus on priority areas at the beginning this is not going to be a Soviet monster prescribing every little chewing gum actually it won't deal with food anyway but it's really looking for impact so I think you can start working on things we already announced in the circular economy action plan but we are further deepening our understanding on how actually to change understanding of sectoral impacts into understanding of product impacts and then how to deal with them for those familiar with the echo design directive minimum sustainability requirements are basically an entry level requirements so what do you actually have to have in terms of performance or in terms of content that you can sell the product we would also look as I hinted few times already now how to increase information requirements including through a European digital product passport the feedback we got from our consultation here and targeted consultations was this could be a great innovation but be careful not to roll out a very complicated scheme at the outset but really progress through where you can and then scale it up so we are now discussing with the number of people inside the commission different departments how to translate this what to think about what we can do and I think it's a very promising area but will require quite a lot of work to get it right but it's potential for both the businesses for consumers even for regulatory authorities could be immense if we get it right management incentives we are looking at how much more closely than perhaps we can now link things such as producer responsibility schemes procurement schemes in member states to performance of the products or to their environmental impacts so that's another area we're working on we are looking at how these different measures could also help what you can call circular business models and value retention you could also use other other expressions but the key point here is to look at how through regulatory tools you can complement what is already going on in removing barriers for new business models that are based more on keeping products as a service if you want so there again the feedback from the consultation we had was you cannot prescribe how these business models could look like but you should look into removing barriers so I think again I'm not disclosing anything inappropriate I would say that we are heeding this advice that clearly came out and then finally again sounds a bit boring but absolutely indispensable we need to take into account the lessons we have from current implementation of eco design in design of the new instrument and then make sure that hopefully we can apply it even a bit faster and with more might but keeping a very transparent inclusive process that is a whole map today if you can please move towards what we are getting towards the end Martin I promise just to remind everybody that this is a joint initiative which I these days I'm an aging civil servant that used to be promising young civil servant I think the category is moving but I'm very privileged to work as coordinator because I work with three director generals in a very tight manner and it's a pleasure to get the expertise and the commitment equal commitment which is very strong from all three and we work with a number of other departments very closely but I'm not going to go in an internal listing of them but it's a very inclusive process internally and I'm sure also it's going to be then externally with other stakeholders whom we consented quite widely I know some of the consultation deadlines were short but it was a immense complexity to manage and we're quite happy to have managed to have both targeted input and general consultations we tried to develop a robust impact assessment so it's taking us a little bit longer than we were asked at the beginning but at the moment it's I think formal by now that the proposal is expected to be adopted still in the first quarter of next year and I think this brings me next slide please this brings me to the end so thank you very much thank you very much Matt Jazz that's an excellent overview obviously of all the work that you're doing it teases up extremely well to hear from members of the task force that you mentioned and kindly said was helpful in giving you perspectives from progressive businesses who are working on this agenda with a view to making it as successful as possible obviously in terms of its environmental impact and also from a commercial industrial perspective as well of course so with that maybe I could ask Harry for her role now Mr. Root Selene and Anthony Abbots to join me on screen and we welcome all of you as members of the new task force and obviously as representatives of the companies who are active outside of the task force remit in your own areas of expertise which obviously go to the heart of this subject to give us your reflections on what you've just heard and any examples or thinking on what should be in this initiative when we see it come out in actually Q1 2022 we have enough time for you to give us five minutes or so each and then we'll have a bit of time for questions and answers and I'd just like to remind everybody do put your questions in the chat or the question box if you're on LinkedIn and of course we'll invite Matt Jess back as well to join in that as well as Kiara when we get to that stage so with that welcome and look forward to hearing what you have to say on this yeah thanks Martin so I'm with Signify the new name for Philip Lighting so the global leader in lighting and I would like to thank you Mattias for your reflections and also for the strong link with the eco designer directive and we were deeply involved in the days of Commissioner Andres P. Boggs who actually then created and probably even in those days with you in the team the eco design directive and so we strongly support also this upgrade, this renewal so to expand its impact and actually when you look at the sustainable product initiative it's in a way as we look at it complimentary as one of the three elements one of the three areas where carbon needs to be reduced and I'll say a few words on each of those and then really link that also to some recommendations for the strategic product initiative so as a company and actually in the P. Boggs days we contributed to the eco design directive from an energy efficiency perspective so from a from a product use perspective because we knew and we saw and we know that all today that energy efficiency has to contribute had to roughly half of the carbon emission reduction that is needed in relatively livable boundaries of global warming so that is also why the directive then also started stimulating and also through the creation of minimum energy performance standards a reduction in scope 3 so what is scope 3 for us the energy consumption, the electricity consumption and carbon emissions during product use and in those days we also called for the global phase out of incandescent light bulbs I think you're all aware of that because it happened in the meantime but essentially we called for the total phase out of all our portfolio which in those days you could say were like lamps and bulbs and tubes which are now largely replaced by energy lighting and this also led to a reduction from let's say roughly 2006 when 19 was 19% of global electricity to 18% last year and we will foresee that this will be reduced to 8% in 2030 and hopefully in parallel those 8% will be for a large part powered by renewables then secondly and I'll come back to this part because it's relevant still in relation to the SPI initiative then secondly we looked at our own footprint and in 2015 at COP21 in Paris halfway the conference we made a commitment to reduce our own footprint to zero and it became carbon neutral September last year which was actually a program that ran in a way still running for 10 years so we reduced our energy consumption by 70% 0% we switched 100% worldwide to renewable electricity and a couple of other things and if you then look at the sustainable product initiative you can of course look at it from the demand side energy intensive materials as steel and cement and concrete and others at what you could say the demand side we have a very wide portfolio of multi component products and of course also there we need to increase our knowledge and mapping of the embedded carbon because then looking at the nature of the products are quite some components but also products are sourced so then actually we have the source embedded carbon which we would also like to bring down to zero by progressively also encouraging the market uptake of products that perform better and that have lower embedded carbon but we do a few more things so we're also moving to modular products so that they are upgradable repairable that components are reusable and that is also relevant because it allows us to allow us to launch a couple of years ago a service-based business model so then actually you move from invoicing hardware to invoicing lighting as a service and then within that service you create an incentive to continuously assess the economic and environmental operation of your products and systems and then upgrade those because if you then take the whole life cycle the whole lifetime into account then it's always more economical to upgrade them to the latest state of technology but then we're also moving to different ways of making products 3D printing which means that for part by making products that with 3D printed polycarbonates you reduce the carbon footprint by half we actually also just did a project in Copenhagen Airport where it was almost three quarters embedded carbon was reduced when moving to 3D printing and also there you see that customers can more or less overnight and then use 3D printing here and design products as they would like those and those would be then programmed and made by the 3D printers instead of that you would have a long supply chain let's say from Asia and so also they're cutting carbon emissions so then what I would like to say there is then for part it's important that the SBI stimulates development of low carbon, let's say low embedded carbon products but also it should stimulate the aesthetic of those products and that is why I mentioned a few things on scope 3 so today we are 84% in our sales LED mostly connected LED lighting digital backbone of IOT so also actually enabling those business models but then still two thirds of all installed lighting in Europe and across the world is all technology and that is where BC had that also if we would have circular procurement that not only looks at the economics over lifetime but also at the carbon over lifetime and then promotes at the lowest carbon choice and then accelerates renovation rates in line with the renovation rate for the European Green Deal that is a way to also stimulate market uptake because if we just wait and follow evolutionary market uptake of those better products but today we're also talking about how actually we had to the development of those but then if we would just wait for evolutionary rates then we would never be able to meet to reach the carbon neutral goal by latest by 2050 for the European Green Deal so maybe let me stop there for now there are a few more things we could say about policies but also to give one number linked to the two thirds of still all technology installed based if that would be replaced by latest state-of-the-art that would save 553 megatons of CO2 but also 177 billion euros per year and about between a quarter and a third of that is in Europe alone and we also see that the message is still that Europe imports 23 billion in fossil fuels per month so those are the areas that actually could benefit greatly also from this initiative so I'll leave it there for now Martin. Great thank you Harry and I think we'll come back to the question of how European leadership on this helps from a business as well as obviously an environmental perspective to address these issues but we'll come back to that after we've heard next from Honar so welcome from Norway I presume and great to have you with us. Right thank you very much thank you Martin and thank you also Marja for a very interesting introduction I'm representing Norsk Hydro the largest company in Europe we are present and have operations in more than 20 countries we have a strong interest in the SPI if I'm to call it that I can almost say that our strategy is based on expectations for what this can develop further it has really given an extra dimension the European real deal with the demand side focus since industry we have been operated for years and now we have this demand side focus which is extremely interesting we need demand for the low carbon products that we produce in Europe I'll start by saying a bit about what we do in our company to develop these low carbon products but also what we do together with designers to ensure the eco design and to ensure the sustainable demand and then comment a bit on the incentives afterwards are recycling more and more of the post-consumer scrap the complex scrap they used aluminium to get this back our CEO announced this week at our capital markets day that we already next year will produce aluminium based on recycled complex post-consumer scrap only 100% post-consumer scrap which will take the carbon footprint then close to zero it takes only 5% of the energy to recycle and this is possible because we have spent quite some time and resources to develop the sorting technology and the recycling technology so this is one pathway and then another pathway that we have been following for a long time and that we need to follow further is to ensure that we are based on renewable energy which we are to a very large extent already but we are increasing that and also with hydrogen to make sure that we have the total energy source before 2050 based on renewable energy in all parts of the value chain and we are present in the whole value chain so this goes back to the box site mine and all the way to the product process and then also I am very happy to mention the what we also announced this week is the de-carbonization of the aluminium process itself aluminium is a hard to abate sector and this week it was announced this pathway where we invest in chloride, electrolysis, carbon free and industrial pilot before 2030 so this is a in addition to this because this is new technology that needs to be a new built aluminium electrolysis cell but in addition to that we are also having a pathway for carbon captured process for retrofitting existing smelters so these are big plans and it takes time to replace them so to have also a technology where we have been looking at more than 50 different technologies for direct air captures and it's also capturing of the glasses so to have that technology in place also for implementing on existing plant is one of the pathways to take us to net zero before 2050 in addition to this because this is how we can produce the low carbon material in addition to this we are working a lot with designers and product developers to ensure that we have products that can be reused and recycled to keep the material in the loop we have also a digital passport pilot together with a third party certifier and a furniture producer so the digital passport idea from the commission is very interesting it's something that we are already testing we have a QR code that is placed on this furniture with information about our carbon footprint and also with other information so from our side to incentivize this because it's both about having the demand for these products and it's also and it's big investments so of course I have to mention the carbon leakage measures that needs to be in place it needs to be a sieve and that is workable and then a test that is workable but on the demand for these products to have a life cycle assessment to where durability reusability recyclability etc gives a value to a product is essential standards and labels they need to have clear definitions and transparency as mentioned digital passport information is really needed for the consumer to make the right choices and incentives for recycling of post-consumer scrap because there is a difference there with pre-consumer scrap we of course do that's part of the process but to get as much scrap back as possible because the recycling rate of aluminium is already very high so but now it's we need to do the extra mile to get back as much of this scrap as possible and I finally I just also wanted to mention the EPBD launched yesterday which is very interesting we will look more into it but the disclosure of LCA calculations are mentioned in there so seems very interesting for more side thank you great many thanks for now what I'm sure we'll pick up on the digital product passport and many of the other points that you mentioned in the Q&A but let me pass straight over to Celine and to welcome you and to give you the chance to give us your perspectives on this as well briefly so over to you can't hear you if you're struggling I'll pass over to Anthony assuming we can hear Anthony I still can't hear you so let me allow you a chance to resolve your technical problem and Anthony good to have you I hope we will be able to hear you and look forward to hearing what you've got to say over to you can you hear me loud and clear I'm very pleased to say we can excellent thanks Martin thanks Matcha for a great presentation thank you you others for also good inputs so Anthony Abbott's heading up public affairs sustainability in the Rockwell Group so the Rockwell Group the largest manufacturer of Stonewall products in the world based in Denmark circularity and decarbonisation you know strategic priorities for us and the thing about the two is that they're interlinked so decarbonisation if we take that first you know committed to science-based targets and aggressive targets in 2034 both in scope one two and three and we have three levers to drive that decarbonisation the one is energy efficiency the second one is technology innovation and the third one is circularity and basically the fact that we're able to recycle our product and our material means that we're reducing the carbon intensity at our production facilities by around 10% so there's a close linkage between the two I think when it comes to driving this what is incredibly important is having a clear understanding of definitions and the robustness and governance around the data that defines these different parameters whether it's within embodied carbon whether it's in circularity and it's really important for us that these definitions they're based on science and we're seeing for example within the carbon arena that there are you could say inconsistencies in terms of disclosures around scope three incorrect calculations for example around biogenic carbon and so forth so while we support increased focus on embodied carbon in materials we need to have that increased focus what is important is that we have clear definitions that are based on certain standards and there's a good governance around the data that's being provided for that so that would be a key comment when we look at circularity and I was really happy to hear a number of comments from Mathieu there about the different elements of circularity we see that there can be a certain tendency towards defining circularity for example as being only recycled content and whilst recycled content of course is an important element of circularity it should not be the only one and that's why I was really happy to hear Mathieu mention also material health and mention also durability recyclability of course incredibly important as well and we know that there can be a situation where you increase recycled content to a certain level that means the recyclability of that particular material no longer is possible so therefore you're compromising on the recyclability of that material which means that suddenly you're reducing the amount of time that that material is in society so trying to avoid downcycling another aspect that we need to be aware of is the link to carbon because there can be situations where increasing recycled content is more carbon intensive than having lower levels of recycled content so the fact that when we work with circularity and when we work with recyclability that we need to look at these different parameters, durability is often an area that is underestimated or not focused sufficiently on within circularity and I would say that it's far better to have a lower recycled content of material but then have a long lifetime than having a very short lifetime and having a high recycled content so having a balance between those areas I think is incredibly important we're a company that has clear goals when it comes to circularity we have offered take back systems in a number of markets for decades and we have a clear goal that by 2030 we're offering robust take back systems in 30 countries we're up to 14 in 2020 and expect to go to 17 this year so we are challenged in a number of countries in increasing the volumes that are coming back from the markets and I was also happy to hear Matcha mention that there's focus on removing the barriers to increased circularity we're challenged for example in some markets that landfill prices remain low and that means that there is no incentive to reduce our take back systems we're also challenged in some countries in terms of cross-border transportation of material and I think that what we need as a company if we're going to succeed in having stronger circular business models what we need is that the commission starts developing a regulatory landscape that looks at the material if it has a value rather than looking at it as waste and also regulating according to that so if there is a material stream that can be utilised in another industry and that can be as a feedstock so it can be pre-consumer or it can be post-consumer then it should be easier for companies like ourselves to be able to utilise that material I think that was my input very good thank you so let us see whether Celine has managed to find her voice so to speak I'm afraid I still can't hear you you might have to log out and log back in again if you want to try that if you'll forgive us we will keep going in the meantime and I will get you back involved as soon as you're able to reappear hopefully with the sound working and maybe Matias if you would like to rejoin us as well we've got some questions I've got a number of questions which have been suggested by our audience which I would like to put to all of you some specific individuals as well but one for I guess the businesses here one of the questions that has come up is given all the methodological challenges you mentioned Anthony in particular how do we account for scope 3 emissions carbon footprints of products when we are addressing these issues do we need to have specific requirements for that already how would that be seen by yourselves how would we achieve that maybe we could just quickly tackle that before I then put a couple of other questions I think directed directly to you Matias first Harry would you like to start on that one certainly I would say a way of working that we have in actually then promoting more energy efficient solutions that have a lower scope carbon impact is return on investment payback time so where we look at the lifetime of a project over a scope of 5 years or 7 or 10 but most of all we would also see that this should be included in public procurement and that is also by some time the Gobi coins and now we are using the term circular procurement because that's the perfect way to promote efficiency over the lifetime of a project and thereby already to account carbon but then also to include as I mentioned before embedded carbon so if those are included in procurement you then see the ranking of a project on payback time on economics and also on the carbon and the environmental impact that should be driving choice and we see that still today a lot of procurement decisions are based on lowest initial cost and actually had then some the terms had then cost and value are wrongly used because it's only the lowest initial price tag it's already long long ago we said the cheapest lamp is the most expensive I think we all know that and that is why we are so much involved in this work we should look over the life cycle we should actually take away the barrier of the symbol's higher investment or of the renovation budget that is required through the different business models but the decision making should clearly be based on circular procurement including the euros and the carbon great thank you can I turn to you Ronak and then you Anthony as well with probably the same question yes on scope three emissions in our company we have been calculating the carbon footprint throughout the value chain for I think we started back more than 10 years ago which has been essential for our all our investment analysis we have always calculated of course the profitability but also the carbon footprint then everything has gone into that back to the both side mine shipping etc so it's essential that we find the way to do that what we also need to include and that's another dimension the environment and social dimension also to for disclosures I don't have the clear answers now but these dimensions needs to be part of the total picture in the economy so no clear answers to but to calculate the carbon footprint throughout the value chain being present in the whole value chain we have done this exercise and it's possible to do it great thank you same question to you Anthony and then I'll come to you so the devil is in the detail and when you look at scope three emissions then typically data is provided based on a combination of life cycle assessments and primary data from for example suppliers when you look at life cycle assessments we all know that there's an incredible amount of uncertainty when carrying out life cycle assessments so what is key is that there is a standardized harmonized approach across Europe when when calculating and doing LCA in our industry we're using EN 15804 which is a standard but even then when there is a standard there will be large discrepancies between companies reporting on carbon and one of the reasons is for example that there is no requirement to what databases are used so you can basically cherry pick you can say okay I prefer this particular emission over here because the emission factor is lower whereas over here you know it's less good and there is that opportunity to do that we're not doing that we're using GABI but we know that that opportunity is there so I think that what is really important when it comes to LCA is there is a clear governance on what standards to use and that is harmonized we also know that there are some emissions that sometimes are not disclosed for one reason or another and it creates that level or unlevel playing field so our request here is yes we should be doing using LCA's but there should be a much stronger governance on what data is used great thank you and Mattias I'm going to try and summarize several questions that we've had from the audience as well as pick up on some of those points if I may one broad question you mentioned planetary boundaries the dimension that this initiative is taking into account to what extent do you think that means absolute reduction in material consumption or not in this agenda that you're developing the second question is linked to the role that chemicals policy plays in this and the aspiration towards a toxic free environment and the link between this agenda and that agenda is what you're working on combining the two and the third from different perspectives many people are interested obviously in the detail around the digital product passport is there anything else that you can say that would give more indication of what is going to be required in that given obviously you're still working on it but if we can start with those I hope that gives you enough to get your teeth into using me plenty thanks a lot interesting to listening to the others as well so I'm getting a lot of questions myself but I'll let that for later on it's just really interesting to hear your examples and also a couple of pitfalls you pointed to so maybe just very briefly to say SPI will be ambitious it is not time to say it will be sort of an instrument that will help structure I think over time also the regulatory landscape deal with things that are not being that today and help other instruments by addressing things they can't but clearly it is not like one big piece of legislation that removes everything that's been done before so just maybe this clarification is useful and I mentioned several times it will work based on equity design model so that means that it will be through implementing measures that a lot of things will get done it is not that exact specific requirements will be set out at the moment we adopted clearly we will be clear enough about the methodologies that we would use in those measures and we would set out as much detail as we can to keep it flexible enough so it's a bit of a balance we have to keep there as well on a specific question first absolute reduction of material we have a scientific study basically established that in three of the planetary boundaries European consumption alone so your consumption in Europe is breaching those and this is a particular matter it's climate change obviously and the third one escapes me now which gives me a lot of food for thought next time to have defensive points in front of me but I can actually share the study with all the participants later on so you can look at this so what we'll try to do is when we are prioritizing which products or horizontal measures to work on so called work program that we really one of the key determinants will be how much impact can we achieve but the nature of the instrument is not setting targets because it's basically a tool so what's foreseen for the moment is not to set targets for absolute reduction rather to see how you would go about such reduction but clearly and the third thank you the third planetary boundary is actually resources so clearly getting clear impact would be rest virgin resources used for products in Europe that means resources that are either taken in Europe or taken elsewhere so that is basically the answer I don't think we see targets discussions still to be held at political level so I don't want to be quoted as saying there will be no targets or there will be targets but the eco design model that we work on is not about setting absolute targets but it's about designing tools to bring certain elements of consumption or material use down so that would be my first answer my second one is we're very closely with chemicals people also on implementation of the chemical strategy and I think I can say that the SPI is not meant to be replacing rich or anything of a sort but but we would deal with both information requirements that are actually needed for businesses on one hand to a clear understanding of composition of materials so that they can take this information into account when they're either taking them apart or re-cycling them or re-manufacturing them and it is also very likely we would deal with information requirements that help consumers understand if products themselves contain chemicals that would be interesting to them which is very likely to happen but I wouldn't go further than this stage but just to reassure that both the technical experts who are working on developing chemical sustainable chemicals next steps in the strategy and experts who are working on the SPI are talking to each other and making sure that we roll out complementary not competing or overlapping instruments on the passport but we would really like to stay away from the detail at this stage because we're all talking a lot so I'd rather I'm afraid I have to say the level of principles that we don't expect we would organize a huge database hosted by European Commission that would get all the information in the world about the products we rather looking at decentralized ways as long as we can ensure that there is integrity of data remains protected on a need-to-know basis because we clearly heard that a lot of businesses are concerned about disclosing everything to everybody so there's a lot of discussion still to be held on what is on need-to-know basis and we'll be looking closely at the pilot projects that are already running so thanks a lot to Rona for mentioning one but we've seen also quite a few others so we will be really looking at how things can be done and the second principle that I agree on is to start with intersection where the need is the biggest and readiness is the closest to roll out so it's not designing a very hypothetical tool that could catch every detail but it's rather setting out an empowerment and basic principles so that we can all have an informed discussion about it because once we come up with the proposal everybody's got a period to look at it to provide their opinions but also we'll have targeted discussions with most concerned stakeholders so we want to continue discussing based on some very clear principles that we want to set up and then understand really how to get the right balance between what I was saying and then do that through an implementing measure that's a bit how the philosophy of developing looks like. Thank you. Thank you very much and I see that Celine has rejoined us and I'm crossing my fingers that you've solved the sound problem Yes, that's good. Wonderful. You've missed a few minutes but hopefully you can pick up from where you heard and we're looking forward to hearing what you have to say in response to what Mathias and others have said over to you. Yes, okay. I try to be brief. Lots have been said already. I work with Sangobar which is a French company we're active in building materials and solutions. You would find us in the glazing solution, insulation gypsum and many others. That's for the background. A few very interesting remarks have already been made regarding drivers in the industrial sector and the drive to circularity. Maybe at this stage I would pick to one point to just mention Mathias which is the reduction on the pressure on natural resources which will need to be factored in how we define recycling. So that's I think something to be kept in mind for future work. Maybe I would point to two things. One are generic comments on the ecosystem in which we are working and the other is maybe specific areas for recommendation. There are so many different initiatives in the Green Deal and the FIT455 that says it's super ambitious and that's great. What we are there together with in that journey is to make sure that it is working and it's synchronized when it's going to the different actors in the value chain and that's actually the difficulty and where maybe the work with this system of product initiative can help a little further. For example, it's about for us when to plan for an evolution and incorporating recycled content and investments that belong to it and trying to anticipate when there will be an actual market and demand for that. Same goes for decarbonizing levels and investment into a switching process in order to have renewable energy supply. For us, I think the big challenge is to get that big picture right and understand what's happening in the building sector at building level the different drivers for decarbonization and plug that into a product related policy. It was mentioned for example earlier on that the energy performance of buildings directive which has been released yesterday is progressing on the recognition of a whole life carbon, therefore the embodied carbon of product. The question is will that go fast enough? Are we equipped and is everyone using the same methodologies in order for true compatibility of product and solution to be in place? Lots have been done in this sector the levels framework has been developed is up for incorporation uptake on the market and that's actually great but then at product level I would see maybe a few challenges on which we really want to progress together with you and all the actors and networks in which we are working. I think the one is maybe to clarify what sustainability is in construction product and how that relates to the building level but then as was mentioned by Anton is a big challenge is the transparency and the understanding of the different impact and it's one thing to say that we indeed have a number of methodologies and yes they are there they can be improved and are fundamental for compatibility but the big challenge is also the training in the sector Sangobar has taken quite an early journey on EPDs environmental product declaration at present stage we have over 1,500 of E-verified EPDs this is I would say an evolutionary process and it's part of our 20 objective to have all of our product categories covered by EPDs but we see the challenge as something for all the rest of the construction of the construction world which leads me to something which is important in relation to the sustainable product initiative I mentioned earlier synchronization in terms of timing but another aspect is the synchronization in terms of policy tools because in matters of construction product that sustainable product initiative will come together or at least in terms of timing as we understand with a revision of the construction project regulation that also intends to accelerate on sustainability and that's great and we support this and also incorporate some requirements for disclosure but also possibly for recycle content so there needs to be articulation and a smooth one preferably in order to make the change happen even faster the link between tools which are therefore an Andrews product or inter-majorie product is important so it has a transparency, the synchronicity of the tools and also the wider picture and that's where elements mentioned already by Anthony are important for circularity in the sector just the very fact that it's still authorized and it doesn't cost enough to landfill construction materials that doesn't make sense if we want our product no longer to be called waste because indeed they have a value recycling goals in the construction sector we have overall recycling goals for all of them which leaves basically lightweight construction materials in a nowhere situation because they are not visible enough and the incentive is not yet there to drive their circularity yes where shipments and waste is very important that link between buildings and products will be a mentally important that's why also I think it's going to be a focus in the construction cluster so that's another piece of the puzzle that we are looking to the construction roadmap and how and how to move forward at least in parallel the requirements on buildings and products and I know time is short and I had those issues with the microphone just to say that it is a top priority for our group Sangubar adopted in 2019 it's 2050 carbon neutrality goal and immediately after in all of our businesses all of our activities in countries nearly 70 of them work was going on regarding clarifying what does that mean for our roadmap to 2030 within which circularity and process change is actually key so I'm just here to say that all of what we are discussing here also has greater relevance internally and the more we can help in bringing clarity in how that regulatory framework will evolve at European level the better we can catalyze change internally not only in Europe but also outside of Europe where we are present and I think here the opinion has a great role to play so sorry for the changes and the issues thank you very much I'm glad you solved your issues and indeed we don't have a time I'm afraid to go back to put other points to Harry, Rona and Anthony but the point you made about these rules in Europe leading to effects not just within but beyond Europe and indeed encouraging the companies and market players who are active here to innovate and excel in this before others is indeed very much what this group is also looking at and how best therefore to do that to get those benefits for the businesses involved but also obviously all the environmental social impacts having passed my request would be now that we hear from Chiara Mattias if you would like to stay with us I'll ask the others if you would like to leave us and I'll call you back in if we have a moment to be able to put other questions to you thank you in any case if not and with that please let me introduce the Chiara Martinelli who is the new director of Climate Action Network Europe great to see you again Chiara thank you for joining us and you've heard lots and I hope you can get your head around all of it and give us some thoughts before we obviously need to conclude today so the floor is yours thank you thank you Martin I will try my best of course as you said yes we heard a lot but first of all thank you thank you very much for the invitation to participate kind Europe to this important debate and overall I will say that I will try to react to what I heard by sticking to the overarching message is that we do need to work together and I think that this is this webinar is an important sign in that direction if we want to move forward in this industrial transformation we want to see avoiding neglecting an important element being the climate the social or the economic perspective so I really welcome and thank you again for this opportunity as kind Europe we do work on industry I just wanted to briefly say that is a work standard that also for us as a civil society organizations climate working on climate and energy is a quite a new commitment and we are trying to develop in this work within the umbrella of the production and conceptual partners and why I'm saying that is also a way to say like how much it's needed to work together across different actors and also because we believe it's an essential way to really address the climate emergency to address its causes but most important to provide pathways that are possible to reach the climate targets that we have so I just wanted to recall all of us that we have been working very hard I think all the people in this call in trying to get binding 2030 climate target we now have it so I think now we just needed to all turn on into the mood that we needed to work on the how how do we open up these clear pathways to make sure that we reach this target and I'm very pleased that also the experiences and the examples we got from different people in the panel were really into this direction and maybe if you allow me I just wanted to literally read what the European Green Deal text is telling us about these kind of pathways that we wanted to see to reach these 2030 targets the text is saying that we call for fair and prosperous society with a modern resource efficient and competitive economy where there are no net emissions of greenhouse gases in 2050 and where economic growth is decoupled from resource use so I think that we have the vision there so I think we already a good step forward will be to stick to what we committed to my second point is really appreciated preparing for this panel and reading the briefing that have been launched today I think this is an important tool for all of us engaging this discussion to keep calling on you Matias and who you represent on making sure that this initiative this sustainable production initiative is going to be an important element of a progressive policy framework that we need and also a policy framework that is not limited to the aims of the 5th for 55 package but it's going beyond beyond the dossier I believe that you companies need more than carbon pricing or carbon garden mechanism and more than increased access to renewable energies uses to achieve European green deals objectives the second element I wanted to but I mean I already heard like in the exchange a lot about that so I allow me to just repeat and also share how much can Europe is supported that element that we are calling for an integrated approach to reduce emissions by 2030 by 2050 anyway to reduce emissions and this integrated approach I think we should be clear that means looking beyond a narrow technological decarbonization pathway and here I'm bringing back a little bit the elements that can be raised about having an holistic approach having an holistic definition of sustainability principles and across like we call it like horizontal sustainability principles but also that we are very clear of what those principles entails and we probably need to mention a little bit more like what those principles are and what they are not so really to help us to move away from a narrow techno and quantitative approach forward I'm just looking at my notes sorry I think the other important element I wanted to share in that sense about about the principles we wanted to stick to I wanted to share that as can Europe we and there are many also many studies out there many data as can Europe we developed some what we call Paris Agreement Compatible Scenarios that really set out sector specific pathways for achieving the emission reductions we need to achieve the 1.5 degree goal and across these different sector specific pathways what has been very clear is that reducing material and energy demand is systematically systematically a priority across sectors so I'm very happy that I heard especially the last speaker speaking a lot about that and I think in that sense I see progress like this discussion I think is moving and is reaching different spaces but there is still a lot of resistance especially among the industry actors and we need to stop this resistance and maybe one way to stop this resistance is to ensure that at a new level we can have resource reduction targets I think this will be a very concrete call to to answer to the challenge that we have that of our planetary boundaries and I think this is definitely something we will welcome by looking also at the SPI initiative I mean I'm not repeating thing on the eco design I think everybody already mentioned that so maybe I just conclude because I know time is also running by saying that as we are very happy to see this group of progressive leaders moving forward we'll be happy to continue working together and I would say like across a couple of main elements the first one by calling together for a more complete policy toolbox to make sure that we make the most companies capacity and creativity towards truly sustainability goals and the second element really like by keeping companies accountable being companies accountable and to be stopping greenwashing and really tackling the root causes of the unsustainable production partners that we see today as dominant so maybe I stop here for now that's great, many thanks and before I wrap things up Mattias there's obviously a lot of questions that have come in which we can't get into now but I promise those of you who've asked questions will come back to you separately but they cover everything from packaging product and environmental footprint methodologies targets per sector per material and so on we can't go into that now thoughts on what you've heard from Chiara and our other panellists just to wrap up before I say a few last comments on CISL and the task force side No, just my first one would be that it is clear also from listening to Chiara and everybody basically the challenges to our environmental and societal sustainability in the coming decades are immense and they come basically from resource use, they come from consumption and production so whether we're discussing climate change or we're discussing quality of air we end up with the fact that we are consuming quite a lot so there is a global problem that we are addressing with different tools from Paris Agreement to products policy and I think this is one of the most important megatrends for the next decades and policy that we're developing now has an important role to play so that's why I said it's not panacea I didn't want to be dismissive of our own work but it can really play an important role but it is part of a sort of toolbox if I can borrow the term and it will have to work moving in line with the others and I think here it's important that also for us at the European Union level at the Commission that we're looking at what we're doing together with the stakeholders such as the industrial strategies ecosystems and the key value chains oriented approach of the circular economy are working hand in hand things are complex we cannot pretend we cannot simplify them to absolute minimum but we have to try to be conceptually clear and then work issues through so that would be my sort of one key thought and the second one is that I have also many questions for the next coming months and years probably of clarifying them but it's very encouraging to hear so many industry leaders being very engaged understanding that this is a mega trend and wanting to contribute to solving it so I think that this for me is encouraging it's easier to wake up in the morning when you know that you're not doing something that is going to end up nowhere so that would be it for me I'm very grateful also to the audience and Martin as usual to you for the chairing of this meeting and I'm looking forward to widely distributing its outcomes when they come also to my colleagues who may not be attending today thank you. Great, many thanks and yes I can but concur that I think there are a number of key points that come out of this discussion today and indeed of the policy brief that we've produced it's clear there is a large area of agreement a common agenda to work on here and the companies that you've heard from and the task force are representative of the business community that wants to play a very active, engaged, ambitious role in that with you not just with policy makers but also with you Kiara and colleagues because we have a lot in common much more than than divides us I would say the second I think is also that that process that you said you're looking for input insight we and others will obviously continue to do that and the paper is a first step in that direction we hope it's useful it sets out a little bit of what you've both said policy principles but also some specifics and much of the devil is in the detail here of course but without that clarity of conceptual thinking the detail becomes more difficult to resolve we will keep working on that the group is determined to work more on this with other partners as well research organisations think tanks within CISL and beyond and we look forward to sharing that with you and obviously we look to show how this is obviously contributing to the Green Deal agenda in environmental and social terms but also the competitive sustainability dimension the economic benefit to Europe from leading in this area is also crucial for the economy to demonstrate that it is successfully making that transition in that way as well as the environmental and social dimensions so with that let me bring things to a close to thank both you two for your excellent presentations and contributions all of my colleagues obviously from the task force some of whom you had speaking today so many thanks to all of you and of course to Tamid and all my colleagues at CISL who have worked behind the scenes to make everything happen I am just the mouthpiece for all the people who do all the hard work so thank you to all of you and I wish you all a very happy Christmas if you celebrate Christmas and obviously a restful holiday period which hopefully you can enjoy with your family and friends in the near future so we look forward to seeing you all again in 2022 with that goodbye and thank you