 Good evening ladies and gentlemen to this press conference from the 48th annual meeting here in Davos. It's the evening of the second day of the annual meeting. Welcome to all of you here in the room. Welcome to those of you watching on the live stream whether on our website Facebook or Periscope and of course a special welcome to our wonderful panel here this evening. We're starting late but we're not starting too late to rethink the modern consumption economy which is the title of this press conference but without further ado let me introduce the panel to you. To my immediate left we're joined by Frans Van Houten the chief executive officer and chairman of Royal Phillips based in the Netherlands. He's also a member of the International Business Council of the World Economic Forum. To his left we're joined by Almec Arthur the founder of the Almec Arthur Foundation and right at the heart and center of our panel we are joined by Eric Solheim the executive director of the United Nations Environment Program or UNEP as you might know it. Next to him we're joined by Isabel Fernandez she's a member of the managing board and global head of wholesale banking of the ING group or ING I think as you say in the Netherlands and last but definitely not least this wonderful panel is completed by no one else than Peter Lacy the global managing director for growth, strategy and sustainability at Accenture. Again welcome. Let's start in the seating order Frans. Let's hear from you we had quite some discussion about the title of this press conference rethinking the modern consumption economy because you were quite forcefully arguing you say this has to go beyond our traditional understanding of consumption so I'd like to invite you to tell us about your thinking. Yeah so thank you for that the word consumption we need to associate with the use of the earth natural resources and whereas you could say when you use them in a linear model you could reuse them but mostly they end up on landfills and then they are finite then there's not enough rare earth and other materials to continue to live our lives so we need to do something about it and at the current rate of resource use United Nations estimates that we'll need to mine 180 billion tons of material every year by 2050 double the amount that we use today it's just not a sustainable model besides that we are all worried very much about the effect on the environment and what that will do to new generations so I think everybody agrees with that and the positive thing is is that we are seeing a huge interest in the economic transformation from a linear economy to a circular economy but then people look lazily and say how do you do that you know how do you go about it how do you get on the band wagon and then there is a lot of talk but no action now that's not what we like and last year at the World Economic Forum we could finally see progress on plastics and you will hear about that but we said plastics is one huge part of the problem but we have to do much more so we created together with many people the platform to accelerate the circular economy it's a platform for leadership it's a platform for sharing best practice to scale action and we have defined over the last 12 months a whole slate of projects both topical as well as geographical and we have seen a lot of people step up to the plate and say I'm going to be part of it and that is what we reviewed today and we saw tremendous progress and we want to share some of those successes with you today now for practicality I will report out on the project that I lead we would like in the project that I lead we would like to close the loop on capital equipment right so that is the bigger machines photocopiers medical equipment machines that typically go to B2B customers and actually we often know where that goes I know where all the medical equipment is going and therefore it is obligation to take it back and to recuperate the value from it and so Phillips has pledged to do that and then we said well but that's not enough who else will join that initiative so we send out letters we contacted many CEOs of other B2B companies and within weeks we had commitments from companies like HP, Cisco, Dell, Mitsubishi, Vandalander, KPN, ASML and I can go home right so it is a matter of calling people out on their accountability and say what are you going to do and then of course sharing the best practice you can learn from each other you how do you design for reuse how do you actually transform business models where maybe the ownership doesn't transfer to the user but only the benefit is being sold and so I think together we are creating momentum in the capital equipment manufacturers and yeah that's what we are now going to move forward and of course we also we will regularly report out where we are so that was one initiative that we reviewed as part of the platform and so let's hear about another one yeah let's hear about another thank you friends and all in all you mentioned some all in all it was 40 leaders who who signed on to the platform which is a great success Eric let me actually jump to you I know you feel strongly about the the topic of plastics and I understand that is I hope it's not keeping you up at night but it's something you feel strongly about share with us what what you're working on I sleep very well at night and it comes from the fact that contrary to the media message we nearly all believe in the world is moving very fast and mainly in a positive direction the problems we hear to result come from the enormous success of humanity as long as everyone was dirt poor everyone was in a recycling or a circular economy my grandparents threw away nothing because they used everything in their life and the same is this still the case with the poorest people on the planet in India or or or Africa but fortunately we are bringing 150,000 people out of extreme poverty every day it's not covered anywhere that was on the front page on New York Times on the Fox News or wherever it will completely change our perspective on the world we are hugely successful we are much much for a few people people nearly all will in the next decades be part of the global middle-class our aim is that every single citizen on the planet should be a part of the middle class by 2030 but then of course comes the problem global population of 10 billion people all of them wanting and most of them already having mobile phones from the vast majority of humans already have we cannot continue to buy a new phone every year just throw it away and not recycling their component there are simply not enough minerals for that to happen but it comes from the success and the plastic problem also come from the success for plastic is a enormously useful material but when 10 million people are using it and just throwing it away like that it cannot continue and then we need to start acting and that's the cost of purpose of this to bring together citizens business and government into what is smart concerted action to curb the problems and take places as an example we need three ways of action we need citizens actions in India a young lawyer called Afrosha started the greatest beach cleanup in human history it's that's now continued for 110 consecutive weeks at the beaches of Mumbai bringing in any amount of plastic and by that by doing that also making the politicians and business enthusiastic Prime Minister Modi spoke at length to the Indian people about this hero India Afrosha who just started bringing plastic with his own on hands that citizens part then garments need to act many garments are no acting and just that's because in the Pacific Marshall Islands one or two small Pacific iron have prohibited plastics in Africa Rwanda Kenya Eritrea bigger nations are prohibited the one-use plastic the Kenyan government was very uncertain can we do this will there be a pushback then they prohibited it if you come to the Nairobi airport now the first you will see is a huge bin where you are supposed to put the plastic bag so take it into Nairobi you can be in prison for half a year they will maybe not be that harsh to France for me or only if we were to break it but that's that shows the determination and interesting enough the people line up they support it because to see the media benefit or less plastic bags in the streets or international parks or at the beautiful beaches of Kenya so that's the government part and then of course the business part how do we make much better plastic products how can business reduce plastic in the value chain with just today's listen to Coca Cola who will know who will not promise to recover as many plastic bottles as they produce enormously positive commitment and of course it will spread to other companies Nestlé and Danona announced that by 2020 all their bottles will be degradable in nature and they will make the technology available for everyone so a lot is happening this is coming from our great success as humans in making this broad fantastic global middle class but then we need to be much much smarter in the way we consume that's what this platform is all about thank you Eric Ellen Eric mentioned his grandparents the partnership between the World Economic Forum and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation doesn't go quite back that far however we have been partnering and working together for four years quite successful years especially also on the on the area of plastics and most of you here in the room and those of you following these these topics you will remember that that report that had the headline there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish by 2020 it was 2050 sorry it takes takes a little bit more time thankfully but still there is an interest in that topic and you've been working very intensely on that where do we stand what's the latest that you can talk about all the work I think the first thing to say is there's phenomenal momentum that we've seen through the dialogue at the World Economic Forum around circular economy and indeed further afield I think it's important to start at the beginning as to where this all came from particularly as we're here at the Weff because you know the circular economy is an idea which is gaining momentum more and more people are beginning to understand it there's a lot of economic rationale to do it but what we did in conjunction with Weff and McKinsey at the outset of creating project mainstream which we were very lucky to have friends chairing was to say if we really want to build circular change if we really want to make this happen then we actually need to take a material stream and try and change that and that's exactly what we did with the mainstream board we looked at many material streams we picked one which was plastic to Eric's point it's incredibly high volume very low value incredibly useful and goes all over the world and actually the biggest company no coke or Pepsi or Unilever these guys cannot solve it on their own even the sector in many ways can't solve it on their own because you need the cities the regions the chemical companies the waste reprocesses you need everybody to work together to try to fix the plastic problem and that can only be done a with that dialogue be with then a general understanding as to where we go and I think that's been vital in the new plastic economy work because we've seen not only in a 40 companies signing up last year we now have 11 companies saying we absolutely as Fran said we we absolutely say we will change the way that we do things we are going to aim to have plastic which is 100% recyclable or even 100% recycled or we'll look for different different materials so we're seeing this change and I think what's come out of the new plastic economy is this this kind of feeling that if we have a framework to innovate underneath towards then we can all be on the same path and with the last report here at where for new plastics economy we had the 50 2030 split 50% of plastic should be designable to Coke's point so it can be absolutely recoverable and have value so that's every single piece of plastic that's produced in the future has a value because it's designed to have a value because it's designed to be recycled 20% can be reused and there are many different reuse models and we should move towards more of those because they they obviously they slow down the flow of plastic but there's also the 30% of the very small format sachets which really won't be economically recoverable they're not because they're multi film they're complex they're just not recycled and that's one of the problems we have so much plastic in the world 78 million tons of packaging alone and yet most of it's not designed to ever have value once it's been used and so that's where the innovation space lies that's where the new bottles that by degrade and actually add to nature because they're a resource are actually yesterday evening here at the Weft we launched the we released the winners of a two million dollar innovation prize around the new plastics economy to look at two halves one is the design of plastic packaging so it can be recycled and does have value which is not currently always the case as I pointed out and the second is to look at those different materials to look at that 30% that needs to be redesigned and we've had hundreds of applicants from all over the world and it really was very exciting to be there because it's about the opportunity to build a new plastics economy that really can work and the new plastics economy has led to other systemic initiatives one on fibers that we're working on there's another we launched here at the Weft earlier today which is looking at cities in the circular economy for food real systemic changes that need everybody around the table to make them happen which are complex but once we have that dialogue around the table we really can make a difference and we can start to shift from linear as Fran said to circular thank you thank you Ellen Isabel I wish you were here to say you found a way how we can spend money and then reuse it that it is not however what you're here to announce what is it you want to talk about please all right well I think that's a great challenge or maybe for next year but I share a lot of the optimism of this this this panel here a lot is happening but I also recognize that many of us are multinational companies who have resources and who are expected rightly so to take the lead but we're not the only people out there polluting the earth if you will there are many mid-sized companies who have opportunities but also have challenges if you just look at Europe for instance the small and medium enterprise is make up 99 percent of the companies they make up two-thirds of private sector employment and they make up 64 percent of industrial pollution we need to get them on board and so what have we we've done we've created an opportunity for particularly medium-sized companies because they have often a knowledge gap a technology gap a financing gap and lack sometimes the buy-in from their clients or suppliers so how do we help them we help them with something called the circular supply chain accelerator I think we need a new name but you get the drift it's an accelerator to try to help them because these mid-sized companies form part of a big value chain and if we can help them in their supply chain to understand how they design the business models get the buy-in from the large companies that operate there and their clients we probably can come up with much better solutions so this accelerator will help it starts by industry we've picked an industry with building and construction we started this initiative last year but realized financing is just one piece of it so we worked with our friends at Accenture strategy I'm sure Peter will talk more about it in circular economy circular economy we've also now teamed up with Royal Bam and Arab to see if we can support this and how does this work in practice very simple we identify a problem say in the building and construction industry a block of houses or an office building and invite suppliers to come up with solutions then we help them to see if we in our accelerator can see if we can take all the pieces of that solution and develop that into a circular model and then find this the financing and offer that financing opportunity to multiple to a panel of financiers it's not just about us and just to see if we can make these work and then we go from one sector to the next and the next and the next so I really hope I'll be sitting here next next year with with a lot of new business models that we've actually put into action thank you Isabel Peter none of the especially business leaders who joined the platform for accelerating the circular economy would be able to do this if there there wasn't a business case behind it it has to it's still it's still a company right so from your perspective at eccentric strategy can you give us some examples of how this works well the first thing I think to say is wow isn't the circular economy on the move from capital equipment to plastics to fibers to finance if you think about where we were just a few years ago the pace to pick up on the platform for accelerating the circular economy good circular economy puns you know always but the pace really is picking up and so is the scale three points the first is that to your point about the business case what we're seeing is a real uptick in high quality innovation innovation in business models innovation in applying the next generation of fourth industrial revolution technologies to both create impact in the circular economy but also to create very competitive very viable business models and that's one I think we will know that circular economy has come of age is when actually it just becomes the way in which markets function and the way in which businesses think about strategy and we're probably only at the foothills but we are now climbing the mountain I think in terms of that level of innovation innovation the second point would be momentum Ellen mentioned that as well as a proxy for that the World Economic Forum in conjunction with a number of other companies and with Accenture Strategy have for the last four years run the circulars if you like our answer to the Oscars for circular economy innovation in government in business in large companies exactly to the point Isabella in small companies and medium-sized companies and oh my goodness what an extraordinary shift over that four years in terms of the quality and quantity we had the prize on Monday night entries up another 50% 300 organizations from around the world and what is staggering for me is just how impressive some of those companies are not just the large multi nationals like the Ikea's and the Philips and and INGs and all the folks who are sat here but also phenomenal businesses like AMP robotics looking at deploying artificial intelligence for example radically rethinking the way in which we manage waste in different municipalities around the world and my final point would be scale because what we also saw in those awards was that there is a global diffusion taking place on circular economy so this isn't the preserve of Northwestern Europe or the US what we saw with this year's circulars is that we saw 45 countries entries from 45 countries on the table in six continents and what I think we're excited about what we're physically about is that this is now becoming very much a developing economy issue as well we've all just come from a session where we saw innovation from Indonesia from Rwanda from all over the world so that final point that this is becoming a real global phenomenon and so I would just say more pace, more effort in 2018 we need to take this to scale at speed as the circular economy becomes more and more something of age. Thank you Peter, friends let me come back to you, we said 40 leaders have signed almost 3,000 are in Davos so there's room for more on that platform, what's your message to your peers here in Davos? Yeah I think a lot more people need to step up and commit and that is clearly a call to action. Now I was very pleased today because we had many government representatives participating we got a letter from the China Council for International Corporational Environment pledging that they will put this all in their five year plan and when China decides something it gets done. We had the government of Slovenia, Indonesia, Peru, Rwanda, Nigeria here among others and they are all mobilizing there in the local communities, companies and NGOs to get this done so I'm positive if you look at companies you know we had Cisco, HP, IKEA, Coca-Cola and many others if we just get impact with these people is going to set the tone and the pace and the example in the world so I'm more interested in people who join who really do something than trying to measure by the sheer numbers right to have 3,000 signatories that do nothing is not valuable so I feel that with the people in the room everybody is doing real action also next week when we are back home right just to explain and to be transparent about it we have had a review call every month you know for the last year just to make sure that things progress and we are now heading in the second quarter to the meetings of the GEF and UN where I think there's going to be real momentum on setting free resources to push this so the platform is gaining momentum and we are clearly not there yet you know it's going in the right direction it's picking a pace to learn from Peter here thank you very much friends let's see we're out of time but let's see if we have one or two questions from the audience maybe we allow us to be a little bit unswis with the timing here can I see a show of hands if there's any questions no so that's that is after all a Swiss Swiss organization okay thank you for respecting that it's good for you to know that there is also a press release with a little bit more information on pace going out as we speak you'll find it on the forums website and if you remember of the media here in Davos you'll definitely have it in your inbox as well follow this space for the interesting developments thank you very much to my panelists today and thank you very much all for being here and for watching thank you