 Good afternoon. I'm really delighted to welcome you to today's IEA webinar part of the Environmental Resilience series, which is supported by the Environmental Protection Agency. We're very pleased to be joined today by Ian Golland, who's Chief Executive of Zero Waste Scotland, and we're grateful to him for finding the time to speak with us. He's going to talk to us for about 20 minutes or so and then we'll go to a Q&A with you, our audience. You're able to join the discussion using the Q&A function, which usually you'll find towards the bottom of your Zoom screen. Please feel free to send your questions in throughout the session as they occur to you. Don't wait until the conclusion of the presentation. And I should remind you that today's presentation and Q&A are both on the record. You're also should feel free to join the discussion on Twitter using the handle at IEA. We're also live streaming the afternoon's discussions, so warm welcome to the Zoom community and also to those tuning in via YouTube. Now, to the important business. Ian Golland is Zero Waste Scotland's founding Chief Executive. He was the program director of the predecessor program, RAP Scotland. Prior to this, Ian worked with initiating recycling systems in the public, the private and third sectors, and led the community recycling network Scotland until 2008. Mr. Golland has recently been appointed president of the Association of Cities and Regions for Resource Management, known as ACR+, and is a member of several Scottish government program boards, including those dealing with low carbon and manufacturing activities. He was named the most influential person in the UK waste and resource efficiency sector by Resource Magazine in 2014. He was conferred with Fellowship of the Chartered Institution of Waste Management in 2016. Before we hear from Ian, I'm going to ask Dr. Imer Cotter, director of the Office of Evidence and Assessment at the EPA to give us some opening remarks on behalf of the EPA. Thank you very much, Owen, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for the opportunity to say some opening remarks for what I'm sure would be a really interesting lecture from Ian and to welcome Ian to this lecture series. And indeed our audience, thank you for joining us. We in the EPA are really delighted to be supporting this environmental resilience lecture series over the last number of years. And the core objective of it has been to bring together a broad range of stakeholders behind the message of resilience, focusing both on our individual responsibility, societal responsibility to be good stewards for our shared environment. And that has really allowed us to hear from a wide range of international experts and we would hear from Ian today and learn from how they're tackling the key environmental challenges and issues of our time. So today we're going to hear about the really evolving and dynamic circular economy space, and really about the key roles that the circular economies can play in transforming sustainable production and consumption models. And we know we can do that through concerted efforts to improve our waste management by reimagining the design of our products and our processes to encourage more recycling, more reuse, more repair, and also focusing on measures to prevent consumption. So this has been a really, as I said, dynamic and evolving space in Ireland over the last number of years, and particularly since 2020, we've had publication of a number of key policy documents, the whole of government circular economy strategy, the primary legislation in circular economy act. And with that, then in the EPA, we've had, we've established a new national circular economy program, which now is a statutory footing. And that's really allowed us in the EPA to focus our efforts even more on the circular economy, and to support the transition to a circular economy, and across the wide range of our functions, so including our regulatory functions and with that, and we're really focusing on the end of the race and the byproduct regulations and functions that we have there. In terms of our knowledge provider role, and we produce national waste statistics so giving that national picture and an annual basis of the ways to regenerate and how we manage different and then also in terms of our advocacy roles, partnering, funding, working with others, which is so important in all environmental challenges, and in particular in the circular economy side. One area that we have been really focusing on this year is developing a national end of waste decision for construction materials, and that will ensure that those materials can be used and reused, but also that we're doing that in a way to afford a high level of protection for the environment. We know that there's much more to do across the whole transition to a circular economy. Our circularity rates are 2% in Ireland, so are quite low relative to other EU member states. So really, you know, looking forward to hearing what Ian has to say, we look at the circular economy and how we can also support addressing and progressing other key environmental challenges, in terms of climate action, and we know so much of our missions come from the production of products and the consumption of those products in all countries, including Ireland, and also how the circular economy space can support and help our biodiversity crisis. Again, the extraction of raw materials, one of the key factors in terms of impacting on the loss of habitat and species. So again, those interconnected piece across environmental challenges that come in more to the fore, all of the time, it's something that we're very conscious of in the EPA, making those interconnections, making those linkages, and so that we can maximise what we do. So really, without further ado, I'd like to hand over to Ian and really looking forward to listening and learning about what's happening. Okay. Thank you very much, both of you, and Owen, for the introduction and thank you for the opportunity to come and speak to you today. I'm delighted to have the opportunity to share certainly some insights, I guess, from our work in Scotland, so I'll give you a quick overview of who we are in terms of Zero Waste Scotland, just to make sure everybody's aware of that. About our work. But as I said, yeah, I think the key thing is just to share some of the insights from that work. But also, I am keen to get to the kind of conversation bit of the webinar and get some questions. I'm always keen to make sure that what I say is relevant to the people who are listening. So best way to do that usually is through answering questions, but I'm also keen to learn from others. You've referenced your own Irish strategy and Circle Economy Act. I'm also very keen to learn from others in terms of the journey you're on and how that's working, I guess, how it's bedding in and what you're learning already from it. There's an opportunity for you to share some of that. But also there is, as ever, our journey to Circle Economy has been, there's been a huge international dimension to in terms of discussion and learning from others and I'll make a bit of reference to that later on as well. But the need to continue that, you know, a very, not just a high strategic level but a very operational level as well to try and learn and understand just how the Circle Economy has been taken forward. But I'll start by just a little bit about the area where Scotland, so we are Scotland's Circle Economy experts. We've, we are fully funded by the Scottish government to lead on a number of aspects of the transition to Circle Economy. We do support the government itself in terms of policy, policy support. We do quite a bit of research on their behalf as well. In fact, our research several years ago really brought to prominence the Circle Economy, the opportunities around the Circle Economy and led to the first Circle Economy strategy for Scotland in 2016 where we basically identified, certainly on a macro level, there was significant climate change benefits from not just thinking about recycling but thinking about the whole design of material systems, but also economic benefits. In fact, that was probably the real plus for us that we demonstrated in some of our key sectors like whiskey beer and fish, as well as manufacturing, as well as offshore, the decommissioning of the offshore. There were significant economic gains by thinking more circular both in terms of jobs but actually economic business opportunities as well as supply chain resilience, even then before we've obviously had things like COVID and other geopolitical events since then that really brought home the importance of having much more resilient supply chains. That research led to the strategy in 2016 and on the back of that ourselves led quite a comprehensive programme to support individual businesses. We've got a business support programme. We've worked with over 250 individual companies. We've invested, we've provided investment of about £14 million into about 40 of those businesses over the period. We've been developing cities and regions programmes. So again, in fact, that's probably, we probably had the biggest penetration is working through city partners like Chambers of Commerce, not just to talk about the Circle Economy and raise awareness of it, but to find the spoke opportunities that are very pertinent to those specific areas, which are different depending on even the locations within So we've been doing that. We've also been running procurement training. So for public sector procurement professionals, both in central government and in local government and through some of the agencies on how do you procure in a much more circular fashion. We've been working with primarily the community sector third sector on sort of allowing them to raise their game in terms of reuse repair, bringing a bit more of a spotlight onto that within the kind of high streets of the speak in terms of the experience the social retail experience through the revolve programme. We've also been vesting in with local authorities specifically on recycling as well and reuse provision at the very local level. We worked with universities and colleges on, you know, shaping some specific courses. That's a practical level on through construction or through textiles, but also through business business management skills in terms of circular approaches and we also work with Strathclyde to set up. At that time, I think it was the fourth Institute for remanufacturing the world, the first in Europe, the Scottish remanufacturing Institute of Strathclyde University, and we've also been developing as I said some other bespoke initiatives to the landscape in Scotland. So there's been and all of that continues. We've also been learning on, you know, some of those programs, we, you know, particularly the business support, we're learning firsthand how to work directly with individual businesses who were interested in being more circular. So whether that was a traditional organisation trying to shift their business model or a new startup with an innovative idea. So we've been very much learning on the job with that but with develop tools and wider support packages for more businesses to get involved. So I think the thing I say when people ask me a lot about the journey that we've been on, it has been a journey with, as I said, we've learned, but one of the most significant things is the shift from people seeing the circle economy as something interesting to do with waste to something that's much more hardwired into our economic story or certainly where we would like to take our economic story in Scotland. And that's not just about individual businesses is thinking about their model, but actually the wider economy and particularly through that cities and regions approach, we've now beginning to see, you know, people thinking about the circle economy in terms of jobs in terms of regeneration. In terms of the social aspects of that in terms of the social fabric, you know, community wellbeing, how the circle economy principles can really, really enhance this situation for communities up and down Scotland and in the rural parts of Scotland as well, particularly. Because the circle economy is a very much a distributive economy, it's not, it's not about dragging all of the materials into the central belt of Scotland and then trying to do something interesting with them. It is about how do we tackle the issue of materials, end of life and design the system much more local and regenerative level. It's now very much front and centre of a lot more people's minds than simply just the waste industry as it probably started out back in 2015-16. We've also got a minister for the circle economy. I think I believe you have one as well in Ireland. We also have a bill ourselves, our own act, which is pending at this moment in time. And we've had a strategy, as I said in 2016, and the plan is to revise that strategy on the back of the bill in the months ahead. But as I think is already being highlighted that, you know, when we we've done our own circularity gap reports, all of these things are positive, but the circularity gap report for Scotland isn't very good at all. It's less than 2% circularity. And it's one of the lowest, I think, of all the kind of national reports that have been done. And but so that in itself demonstrates that, you know, we have a lot more to do. But actually, when you look at the global picture in terms of circularities come down from something at 9.5% to 8.3%, I think it is now a global level. So it's definitely going in the wrong way. But it illustrates again that, you know, even though we're enhancing all our recycling both, you know, in Scotland and I'm sure around the world, we're not actually keeping pace with the consumption of materials. And that's the elephant in the room. We really do need to start addressing our consumption. So we know in Scotland that 80% of our carbon footprint comes from, you know, basically the use of materials, the production and use and ultimately wasting of materials and products in our economy. Half of those materials and products come from out with Scotland. So if we're really serious about ending our, you know, our contribution to climate change, we're going to have to do something about that consumption issue. And that's all of the impact that that has out with Scotland. So mentioned biodiversity loss already, you know, water stress. But ultimately, the other third crisis that we sometimes overlook is, you know, basically how do we tackle the inequalities that we face, not just at home, but around the world. And the circle economy is, you know, the fact that we don't have a circle economy, the fact that we have a linear economy is definitely contributing to all of those factors, not just climate change, biodiversity loss, but actually some of these social issues that we see around the world. And these are getting worse, you know, definitely in terms of climate change impacts, but also, you know, as we start to accelerate the delivery of infrastructure, you know, needing to mine new materials etc. And we're beginning to see other impacts around the world as well, which again, for many of us are out of sight, out of mind. So circle economy is certainly, you know, we think probably most efficient effective tool in the box to tackling a lot of those issues. I'm thinking differently about certainly the leakage of materials from the system, but also how can we reduce the consumption by making more of the materials that we've already got in circulation using these assets in a much more productive way again and again and again. But that doesn't happen by accident, that happens by design. So whether that's the individual products being designed differently, but actually designing the system. And that is really, really the challenge for us. So this, this isn't just about one business at a time. One recycling system at a time, what we really now need to start thinking about is how do we redesign our whole economic system. And that's not just for the environmental aspects of this but again from for the widest society and, you know, for, you know, economically and socially. And that is really the focus now of our work is how do we certainly will continue to engage with businesses and raise awareness of circular opportunities that's which are, you know, win-win-win in terms of money and value but we really do need to start engaging with a wider system change for a lot of the opportunities that we see. And certainly there's something we can all do as individuals. You know, we know that, you know, around consumption. So, you know, textiles and clothing is obviously one of the ones that everybody talks about a lot that we all think the average, well, the average UK wardrobe is contains about 4,000 pounds worth of garments, a third of which haven't been worn for over a year. So that's like over a thousand pounds worth of, you know, clothing that just is basically redundant in people's wardrobes which doesn't really make sense both financially and environmentally in particular in current climate in terms of the economic situation that many of us find ourselves in. So food, I'm sure we could talk about food waste, not just costs to us all in terms of the amount of food that we waste but again environmentally one of the biggest contributors to the global climate crisis is the overproduction or over supply and ultimately over wasting of food. The majority of that is actually in our homes as well. So there's a lot more that we need to be doing as individuals, but actually click to flee, you know, as I'm sure governments around the world we need to start thinking seriously about our economic system and what drives, what drives it and how can we, you know, to some extent overhaul it, redesign it. And that is it, you know, because ultimately we don't, it doesn't happen by accident as I've said, I mean, I use the analogy of planting a forest, you know, if you could just plant seeds and the forest would arrive and so be it, but we know that just planting seeds doesn't mean you're going to get, you know, a forest or a crop of whatever you're planting, you need to nurture it, you need to think about the inputs to that, to that crop, you need to think about the growth characteristics. You might even have to remove some of the inputs which support other types of crops. And you need to start thinking seriously about the input so that's, so that's the probably the point I just reflect on is the circle economy is happening. You see it not just in Scotland and I'm sure in Ireland as well in terms of the policy shift, you're seeing it around the world with lots of other countries. There's a lot more acceptance of it. It's really about how great a pace we want to see it being delivered. And for us that is, you know, we need to make some conscious decisions about the inputs to actually make create the right environment for the circle economy to happen. And one of those, well, there's four, four things that we talk about in Scotland that we really need to start focusing on. The first one is governance is understanding how do we governance is all very well having a strategy and having a, you know, having a minister to some extent. How does that fit, particularly if we are talking about wider systemic change in terms of the economy does it how does it fit. How is it being integrated into the structures that oversee the wider economy. So where is the governance it can't set outside this isn't a competing circle economy isn't a competing economy with the linear one that has to be part of the overhaul and the reshaping of the wider economy. We're not thinking about how do we shape that so what metrics are we going to use to demonstrate performance over time how are we going to track them who's going to be responsible for it. Ultimately, we need to see the circle economy beyond just a set of new initiatives at the end of pipe we need to see it much more embedded into the structural changes that we're all trying to do a local level at a national level, but also an international level that needs that collaboration of entity that before, in terms of the international dimension to all our work. The other thing that we do need the second thing we talk about is infrastructure and that's. It's an obvious thing to say, but it's something that's overlooked, we talk a lot about individual businesses and individual companies doing well in the circular economy but we need to start creating different types of infrastructure so obvious things are how do you create a reuse and repair you know one of the challenges that a lot of people find around the circle economy is in terms of individual citizens is accessing the circle economy so accessing was reusing repair services for instance both urban level but also a rural level how do we create the right systems or infrastructure to support things like reuse and repair, how do we create the right business ecosystem to support those individual companies who are starting out or innovating and seeking new markets. I'm always very taken by certainly in Scotland over the last couple of years that the development of a specific business ecosystem to support technology and artificial intelligence obviously again that approach is seen as crucial to the development of our wider economy that we all need to be much more digitally enabled, both at company level and individual levels how do we create the new tech technology companies so there's a great creation there's a new creation of a new ecosystem in Scotland to develop that both right from school right through universities and tertiary education but ultimately to create the right environment for those types of companies to prosper. And that's the kind of thing we need to see if we're going to be serious about the circle economy how do we make this is that type of profile, not just a particularly a local level but also a national level. So we've seen you know how do we create a design school element to to this as well how do we start to engage more profitably with the likes of universities and colleges around the challenges that the circle economy still faces and some of them are still real some of them are material specific some of them are sector specific but how do we get some designers and the technical experts who are in who are in our universities and colleges and in their schools, I can get them to apply their creativity against some of those challenges so it's really creating. It's not just talking about it's creating the right ecosystem the real business and innovation ecosystem to make that happen. And so what I think is linked to that is about education and skills. How do we get the circular approach for a better word, much more mainstream. How can we get that, as seen as a meta skill for our young people but everybody through whether or whether it's whether in business or whether in the community sector, how can we get them to start thinking much more circular in how they're doing their job because the thing about the circle economy is, it's, we all have to be circular we can have, you know, as we transition, you know in terms of climate change all our jobs are going to change if we're going to hit our targets in Scotland by 2030 2045 everybody's job is going to have to be done differently there is going to be have to be an element of more circularity, whether you're in the technology field whether you know renewables whether you're, you know whether you're whether you're a teacher, you know whether you're a mechanic, everything is going to change. So we need to, we're going to have to embed circular skills in everything that we do. And again, you know we have this in Scotland we have a real push for entrepreneurship in a lot of our colleges and universities now and even in our schools so we're teaching entrepreneurship. So it's seen as a meta skill and that's not to say we want everybody to set up their own business and make lots of money. It's actually seen as a skill that we need to have about individuals again whether you've got a job in public sector or community sector or otherwise no matter what business you need to have a degree of entrepreneurship so it's seen as a meta skill that we need to have prevalent in our society so I think very similar to that we need to have that kind of circular thinking. That's a kind of much more prevalent in our society so people will embrace the sort of step change that we're needing, we're going to see across our supply chains and the activities and the businesses world sector by sector over over the over the next five to 10 years. We need to really think about in terms of inputs is finance. I mean that's an obvious thing to say how do we fund the transition. And this is about again thinking differently thinking about out of the box around some of the products and the way that we apply finance so we've learned quite a lot even supporting businesses. There's a finance a lot of the more traditional ways of providing money even European funding where you find our business and you you fund it has hasn't allowed the kind of supply chain activity that we've been trying trying to kind of enhance in Scotland so that whole sort of system change. How do you then, how do you fund the system how do you fund multiple people in the supply chain to work in concert with each other through some of the more traditional funding mechanisms, you know, because usually whoa doesn't work like that you have to divide everything up find a lead organization. So even thinking differently about how do we fund system change is something I think we need to think about from a from both from a government point of view but also from a business and a finance point of view. The fact that some of the challenges that the businesses face is about cash flow rather than investment and assets so assets become more fluid as if you're on a rental model or a subscription model. You know the assets are actually out in the community so how do you create a much a different type of support role that some investors find quite quite a challenge or even quite high risk in a lot of respects and some more basic finance where you might be just financing a fixed asset. So it's how do you create those new opportunities in the finance world, again, both at a government level but also an individual investment level to see some of these opportunities flourish. And there is ultimately just just probably to finish up about that international dimension. There is an international dimension not just about the learning and the sharing of experiences, but ultimately this is about trade trade of products as I said before you know 50% of our footprint in Scotland has come from overseas. So how what is the dimension there, what is the dimension about products of, you know, you can't, I don't think any nation can be completely circular by itself in terms of resources there's always going to be a need for resources coming in and out of countries. That is the mechanism of trade and the mechanism of the world that we live in. What does that look like in terms of the new dynamics, so we don't all start to some extent create losers and winners within the trade, you know, because this is that's not the purpose of this but we do need to start having much more collaborative around potentially trade agreements, trading between nations trading within different parts of the world and just trying to understand what's the impact of us becoming more circular perhaps in the global north will have aspects of the global south so these are things that we've been starting to think about, we've been having wider conversations as well as all the sort of more direct support on the ground for individual businesses and communities and municipalities in Scotland but there's a wider sense now that as I've said it needs to, it definitely needs to move on from being a kind of individual business strategy to something that's much more about redesigning our economic strategy for Scotland. So I'll leave it there, hopefully that's been the 1520 minutes and we can open up for some questions but thank you again for the opportunity. Ian it has indeed. Thank you very much indeed, right on time. And I think it's certainly the radical nature of the kind of changes that you're talking about you, you haven't understated them in my in my own area my own industry. I've been really interested to see that recently an office building in Oslo has been completed, not a not a huge office building but they have identified that it was constructed of about 80% of recycled materials and new and new office buildings. So, there's a huge amount that can be done. I remember a colleague of mine, and not working in Ireland actually but he came up with a means of reducing waste on the construction site, which he was responsible by outlawing waste bins, no skips were permitted on the site. And he said it had huge impact because each trade then started to look differently and if the carpenters cutting a piece of timber to length. He or she started to work out well, why were the, it produced a lot more length, more ways, a lot less waste if people were responsible for getting disposing of their own, their own waste rather than putting it into a nearby skip. We clearly have things in common because I think a more caught her at the beginning said that our performance relative to our fellow member states and the you was very poor I think at 2% we were second worst. You mentioned the similar figure for Scotland. One obvious question the beginning is, how do you measure what does the measurement of circularity mean. How do you how do you measure circularity. So the way we've measured it is, and we were looking too much the technical aspects of it is basically looking at data sets which are to do with the flow of materials in and out of your economy. So, including the materials that are to some extent mind in your own economy. So obviously for Scotland we produce a lot of materials. Obviously, predominantly oil, oil or gas. And that these are materials that flow flow through our economy. So we deduct that from the materials that we use in our economy. And also the materials that were importing into economy so that's a high level way of measuring and then ultimately understanding through that kind of. This is called Sankey diagram you can start working out how much of those materials are circulated recirculated recycled or create a circular pathway through your economy. Now, what that does show is exactly that we're all really a very low level of circularity so we're consuming lots of materials in our economy, but we're not actually circulating as much as we really want. However, although those numbers that will probably be the same for all those numbers are very low. There is a number of there's a huge bulk of materials that are actually built into our buildings you just mentioned that so they are. Technically, we have used them with a, we've absorbed them into our housing stock into our building stock into our infrastructure stock. So they are technically we could be available a later stage for circularity, but that's the trick you see they're not actually been circled at the moment but we need to make sure that we do circle them because they ultimately don't become waste, but have we designed the infrastructure the buildings, you know, in such a way that we can redeploy those materials again and again and again. So there is there is a and this is an international methodology that it's a consultancy based on Amsterdam have developed. And it has now been used in a number of these national circle at the gap reports. But this is this is very much at the beginning of this, you know, I mentioned something about the government structure what is the right metric is this the right make this right metric. And that's something we're very keen we're part of a kind of wider group of other nations or certainly academics looking at this, trying to decide what is the best metric, you know, what is a good metric to have so we can all not just measure what we're doing now but more importantly how can we measure progress how can we set ourselves targets, you know, and that's something we've been talking to Scott's government about is like what is, you know, having a resource consumption target or resource consumption metric that we can track over time to really understand what does that actually look like, you know, how practical is that and how can you apply it is it done at a national international level is it done at a national level but actually could it be done at a local level. And you could actually see whether that's individual councils or individual regions starting to really understand the flow of materials through the economy but more importantly where are the opportunities for them to minimize the carbon and even economic impact of those materials. It strikes me that there's a considerable complementarity between the move in the energy sector in the building, for instance, to put much more emphasis now on embodied energy, which of course drives you towards emphasizing the reuse of buildings rather than demolition and and new build and so on because embodied energy or indeed embodied carbon accounting is becoming central thing and features in the draft work being done in the European Parliament on the energy performance directive. Yeah. Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think I mean you hit the nail nail on the head. I mean, people in the building world know that there's been a huge focus on operational carbon and all buildings. And in terms of insulation and the way buildings are constructed to reduce that and that. So the actual, but the total carbon impact of any building, you know, you know, it's half of a kind of exact statistic but you know the percentage that is operational carbon has been coming down. So the biggest percentage of impact in terms of carbon is now the actual building materials and the industry is recognizing that and is now beginning to understand both in terms of measuring the impact of that thinking about the supply of materials or the types of materials that they're using. But then, and that is going to drive the circular economy. So that's that's a positive, you know, and we're sure others are very engaged in the industry because they're now not just trying to understand where the materials are coming from their understanding. So we might buy them once but we're not going to buy these materials again and we can continually refurbish, remanufacture or repurpose the materials, you know, and it comes back to, you know, like passports within buildings, you know, material passports understanding what what materials are in a building and how they're in the building so they can actually be extracted or removed or buildings can, you know, take many forms of the lifetime so that that's that's again that is happening. I mean obviously it's being led by some of the bigger bigger companies bigger developers and that will then have an impact on you know the supply chain. But yes, it's it's definitely it's it's beginning to some extent, but you know, there'll be lots of innovation and others to come. There's a question from Sean Keating who's a retired local government director. He says, while the circular economy is about much more than waste, should we allow that sector in particular to move ahead while we're working on the broader picture, given that it has such potential for early wins. Yeah, I think I do think there is an opportunity and I think you could argue that the waste industry or the wider whether that's waste management, local level, local government as well and even community sector organizations. You know, in many respects, they're the bridge into the circle economy feature. You know, because they've either they're there and you know they're moving material around they understand the material flows as well, possibly not not the more macro level but certainly within the materials are working so I think they do have a massive role to play. And I think that again it's about language and how we frame it if we're seeing, you know, sometimes get nervous about this because sometimes people talk about us, you know, we need to end the waste industry we need to, you know, but I think it's a transition, you know from waste through resources into that more circular dynamic, rather than seeing it as a competitor to some extent, but I definitely think the bridge I talk a lot about that, you know, I think, recognizing that they could, you know, that industry that wider industry and expertise. And knowledge that they have capability as well. Definitely, you know, definitely the bridge that could get us there faster. Former government minister Richard Bruton asks, what if you found most useful to drive change, setting targets for waste or reuse, or using grants, or regulating. And what scale of change are you incorporating in targets? I mean, how quickly can we move? Yeah, so we, so we, I mean, simple answer to me in terms of our change has been leadership. I say that we've certainly had a government for a number of years now that has been really leading on the circle of economy. Certainly in the policy direction, they've taken it, you know, obviously it's come out of so much of the kind of waste space that they speak in terms of recycling. But it's very much much more talked about across government in terms of an economic opportunity. So that that's where we've probably seen the biggest change. And it's embraced, it's not just been around local authorities, cycling targets, it's not just been about waste industry, you know, keeping stuff out of landfill, it's now embedded in economic opportunities in terms of jobs, sectors are now much more navigating, you know, the opportunities in terms of changing systems, changing materials, changing, you know, supply chains, both individually, but more again through that kind of cities and regions approach, we're beginning to see that place based thinking about those opportunities. That's it's not we've not really been target led. I think that's interesting because, you know, we are because of our bill coming through. There's been an opportunity for more, more regulation coming through on the back of that and potentially targets being set. So that might, you know, come back to you here or two time, but what's really been the change has been the leadership and we've seen that now from the top for the government into local authorities and to business as well. And because of that has it has brought attention to some extent to Scotland's a lot of investors or other businesses have come to Scotland who are interested in locating to Scotland, thinking of, you know, supporting other businesses or, you know, smaller businesses in their supply chain in Scotland because they've seen that that that agenda they've seen that kind of really the profile of that agenda has been very positive. You know, one of the big aspects of our work is supporting their, you know, the renewable, the implementation of renewable systems, particularly offshore wind and, you know, all of those things that are happening in Scotland, which is hugely exciting. And, but, you know, we need to make sure that they're done in a much more circular way that we're not just creating kind of way stream for the future but also, you know, all of that metal whether it's steel and all of the lithium and all of the other precious critical materials that are going into all that infrastructure, you know, will have will have an embedded carbon and ecosystem and potentially, you know, societal impact in other parts of the world so you know we need to build in the circularity into this and use the assets that we've already got so that's and that industry recognizes that, you know, because they're up against those particular supply chain issues and thinking about resilience and thinking about, you know, the wider impact of that infrastructure across the world because they're not just doing wind in Scotland, they're doing wind in other parts of the world as well. And Andrew Wins already dealing with this thing of the re-blading of turbines and those things are big things to lose if you haven't designed it for recycling. Well, there's nothing really gets anybody's attention because you like all of these big players have now got some probably some shed somewhere with lots of blades in them. So there's something looking at it and thinking, hmm, what do we do now? So yeah, and again, we've been working with some companies in Scotland that have, you know, we've got some quite innovative solutions to that. Yeah. And I think that's the point like I was trying to make in the beginning to building there. There are solutions if proper thought is devoted to this thing if we don't mindlessly continue the old path of the linear extraction. Yeah. And that was the point I was making about, but we need to design that school for design or a system and ecosystem that really does that. So we're highlighting what those challenges are. And we're bringing the kind of clever people, the innovators, the entrepreneurs, you know, whether that's academics or otherwise researchers or people with those technical expertise into that, you know, because it is happening. I absolutely get that. You know, I mean, we've all got great stories and, you know, I know there's lots of good examples in Ireland as well as Scotland, but we're really going to do this at pace with, you know, with the right structures in mind. We need to invest in those interfaces. We need to invest in the kind of clusters and the, you know, the tech scalar hubs or whatever you want to call them equivalent to really drive us and get people onto this, get people engaged and, you know, not just the opportunities, but even some of the challenges so we can really make them make the shift. That's what we need. That's what we wouldn't probably not seeing yet at that level and that scale of investment. In your remarks, you referred to another area of industry, another sector, and there's a question from Keelan Mussolivan, who's a researcher at the IIEA, and that's about fashion and clothing. And she notes how fast fashion is an incredibly harmful industry, a huge environmental footprint, both for its production and for its disposal. She notes that the fashion industry is the second largest industrial polluter accounting for 10% of global pollution ranking higher than emissions from air travel. And she wonders, would you talk about the work that you're doing on this space within Scotland, particularly in encouraging stricter legislative action, or is, she says, is the solution in the hands of the consumer rather than the legislator? I mean, there is, I think there's quite a lot of responsibility in the consumer. And that's something that we're just about to, you know, do a launch a campaign very soon to really raise awareness because we've, we do a, what we call a carbon metric assessment of household waste every year. So, you know, basically looking at what we all throw away and understanding the true carbon impact of that, not just so much about the waste but the actual embedded carbon and all of those materials. And what's shown this year for the first time is that the clothing that we throw out, the clothing that we, you know, at the end of life is the biggest contributor in household waste. Although by volume, it's very small, it's about 4%, it's over 30% in terms of carbon terms. But at the same time, when we went to talk to citizens about this, they weren't aware of that. There was a very low, kind of the exact number, but it's a very low percentage of people actually understood there was any carbon impact to the clothing that they're buying, they're consuming. And that's, that's what we're going to talk about over the next few weeks. I just don't think that people are wearing this. And it's a very similar story that we did during COP26 when I was in Glasgow, we did the same about food waste. People thought the biggest, the biggest environmental damaging material in their waste stream was plastics, but we demonstrated that actual food waste was three times more impactful than plastics. And I think that's the type of story we need to tell people. People are just not aware that there is a carbon impact of everything that we buy, but particularly clothing for the reasons that Keelan said, you know, the footprint, the global footprint of our textile industry is hugely significant. And we need to, we need to start talking about it and, you know, made the statistics about the stuff that we all have in our wardrobes. Unfortunately, you know, we are, we consume far too much clothing in terms of what we actually need and what we actually wear. And we need to start thinking about it. So there's a lot, I mean, obviously there's lots of solutions around that in terms of buying second hand, buying things to last, sharing clothing, you know, not buying fast fashion or being clear about where your fashion is coming from and what's, what is the carbon impact. We're much more aware of the social impacts of fast fashion now as well, but we need to start talking about the carbon impacts of our fashion. And, you know, how the clothing is made and what we do with it, particularly after we have to reward it. So that's, so I think, you know, before we get into regulation, there's lots of things we could do, I'm sure about regulation, but ultimately this is about clothing possibly more than anything is the one that we could all do something differently about on a personal basis. Yeah. And I think, I mean, your, your emphasis on education has come across loud, loud and strong as well. Would you, would you for a moment to talk about maybe examples of places where the circular economy model is thriving is where, where are our exemplar where do we look to for exemplars is it Scotland. So yeah, one of the chances is we all are a starting point here I don't think there's a place you can go to and say that's what it looks like yeah because it is, I don't think we're, I don't think anybody any country or regions actually embrace that whole economic system change. There's good examples of businesses that are doing good circularity, there's, you know, there's good approaches in terms of legislation, there's, you know, in terms of restrictions obviously France have been doing quite a lot in terms of second hand clothing and other products. In Amsterdam, well, sorry, Netherlands has always held up as the leader and we go back to the circularity gap numbers the circularity metrics they they're the best performer I think they're up about 20%. So they're the kind of global leader or certainly seen as the global leader. But then when you look, you know, when you go and look at what's happening in, you know, parts of the southern hemisphere, you know, particularly in Africa and stuff like that. I would argue that a lot of what they're doing is the circular economy. So there, although there are significant waste issues in those countries, I accept that, you know, and there's obviously a lot of programs to support, you know, particularly around plastics and stuff like that. But the reutilization of equipment and repair and, you know, even organic treatment, you know, much more awareness of the use of organics and stuff like that in a much more circular way, particularly our local level. It's quite interesting, you know, when people say that, you know, people always want to say is our country in Europe, we should all go and visit it. But actually, you know, sometimes I say, well, actually, there's probably parts of Africa that we should all go and visit it because, you know, there's a much more, for obvious reasons, there's a much more focus on the retention of resources or value of resources and products within theirs. And that's, and I think we can learn from that. And I was just having this conversation this morning with somebody from Wastaid, you know, just really understanding that, you know, we shouldn't just think about the circular economy as some sort of formalization of recycling infrastructure at scale and then just kind of ride over the top of what's actually happening in some of these other nations around the world. And that's, you know, they need support and investment as well. But there's something that we can all learn here. And again, that comes back to that international dimension. This isn't just about, you know, with respect to ourselves, Ireland and Scotland sharing that we need to start thinking seriously about what's the impact or what's the opportunities from learning from from others around the world. Well, that leads naturally on, you did emphasize the education skills, what kind of skills are needed to move this move to move this forward. And also, what kind of jobs are likely to be created as as we move as you make this transition towards the circular economy. So we have, yeah, so we've read a number of reports about the numbers of jobs with the types of jobs. I mean, they're quite different from different sectors. I mean, obviously, we start to get into the remanufacturing repair of those are the types of jobs rather than building something from scratch, but that that skill itself is not that different, you know, from building a product as opposed to repairing a product or refurbishing a product. So the skills are quite interchangeable. But again, we would see quite a lot of those types of jobs or service service jobs, people servicing equipment or products, local levels. Again, that's quite a distributive economy rather than having to ship all your material or your products back to some other part of the world for them to be repaired and shipped back again. But there's other more. I mean, I think what the point I was making about the circle economy, I think it's more of a kind of meta skill about embracing the more circular system thinking and how do we get people to embrace, you know, different technologies or different approaches to product use or, you know, product manufacturer. Certainly we definitely need some more people involved in the measurement, the metrics. So there's a lot of, you know, people understanding to go into business, whether that's consultants or environmental consultants, there's lots of people scoping out how sorry, measuring, you know, scope scope to emissions but very limited ability, I think to really get into businesses and start talking about scope three emissions and actually how do you measure that how do you map all of that in terms of your supply chain both up and down. And that's, that's, you know, we would argue that that's, that's something we really need now because once you get into that conversation you start to identify the carbon in terms of scope three you then start to identify strategies to reduce that which are usually more circular, you know, there might be material substitution, but a lot of the strategies you will end up doing will be more circular, and you will be investing in conversations and dialogue with your supply chain, which will not just benefit you but it start to benefit wider supply chains. So that's a skill that's really immediate now how do we get in and having those conversations with individual businesses both, both big and large, sorry, big, small and large about scope three emissions. And yeah, so there's some real skills are needed now but going forward. I think it's more about kind of mindset that we need to, to get embedded into our wider society. And that is maybe a complimentary perspective and that's a question someone has constructed it's. Is it possible for us to arrange for those who contribute most to the race waste creation to be part of the solution in a circular economy. Is there a way that policy makers can work with such corporations in a meaningful way. Yeah, I mean, I'm trying to put the intention is behind that. So yeah, yes, I mean, I genuinely think businesses I mean I know there's always the stuff the media angle for some of this but I generally think all the businesses we work with, you know, the ones that are sitting in the ones that we invite ourselves into a genuinely on this journey they're trying to understand how they can reduce, not just the waste but think, think through the supply think through the products that there is pressure coming. You know some of that is citizen led you know in terms of some of its regular obviously regulation or just things that are coming down the, down the, down the pipe but a lot of it is, you know, consumer led consumers asking questions about the transparency of materials that have been used or, you know what's happening to the product after after life, but also supply chain obviously, you know, Scotland, you know, predominantly predominantly, you know, SMEs who are probably part of much more larger supply chains. So there is a bit more pressure coming down from the bigger suppliers who are asking those types of questions so there is there is genuine dialogue. Again, I think it's, I think what's holding a lot of people back is, you know, he decided the skills available to actually to measure it to to monitor it and then to make the, you know, to take forward the initiatives, you know, and a bit of capacity obviously I mean there's lots of other things going on over the last couple of years for businesses you know whether you're a large business or a small business, you know, in terms of the pandemic and you know obviously again the geopolitics there's lots of things, you know, but at the same time there's, there is genuine, I think there's a real, you know, real appetite out there still for this. But how do we match that demand, so to speak. I also think government always has a role to facilitate these conversations, you know, is to provide and again it comes back to my thing about ecosystem if you, the government's role for me is to create the right ecosystem to write to create the right support infrastructure accessibility of the of the knowledge or information and you know I guess that's what we do we provide that interface on behalf of the Scottish government with businesses in the space and we work alongside a lot of the other business support agencies to provide this the kind of more circular dynamic to that awareness and support it's how do you create that that infrastructure as I said to actually make it happen that's that's what we need the government should really focus on not not perhaps the individual conversations it's like create the right infrastructure for businesses to access the information and the knowledge that they need to make the decision that's, you know, and ultimately the funding it whether that public funding or private fundings to create the right interface as well because that's another thing we get asked a lot about, you know, from investors how do we, how can we get into those type of the right conversations at the right time with individual businesses or supply chains to really see how their investment could be shaped. So it's that interface that's required. You know, you know, in Ireland, we do have, as I think you noted that we do have a minister for circular economy. This is Smith, TD. We now as, as Emer noted, I think it was from 2021, we have the national circular economy strategy. I gathered. I think the Dublin has been selected as the whole city for the 2023 circular economy hotspot. And you wonder what kind of recommendations I mean we're we're drawing to conclusion now, but are there recommendations you'd have for the citizens of Ireland's to contributed meaningfully to because I think you know you talk about structures you talked about a lot of things are there okay there's gaps and skills, but a lot of it comes down at the end to the to the consumer and to what he or she will will do with the thing. Yes. So briefly yes I am actually looking forward to coming to Dublin I am coming I have been invited later this year so I'm looking forward to that we had a similar hotspot. A couple of years ago pre COVID in Glasgow, and they're really successful in the, you know, create a lot of excitement and dialogue and discussion so absolutely and that's the thing I mean I probably didn't label that point too much but you know the thing about the circle economy for me is a people thing. I think all of the businesses were worth it's it's about interconnected to never take it through supply chains across sectors. It is about how people operate and connect with each other and engage. It's right into the community and that's been a huge aspect, I think of our work in Scotland and it's not just about businesses with working with communities, partners on the ground and at national level. We support is a certain number of sector organizations, local level reuse and repair and other types of opportunities, you know sharing libraries to libraries, all of those things are as much part of the circle economy as the kind of big, you know, system thinking around material flows and you know even some of that offshore wind stuff. It is about an integration of all of that and that's I keep saying that the thing about the circle economy is a distributive economy is not a, you know, big thing in the middle of Scotland is about how do we distribute how do we use assets and resources in a much more distributive way for value at a local level that's that's the essence of it's a regenerative economy as well. We shouldn't lose sight of that so sometimes you know a lot of the language a lot of the rhetoric is all about the big scale, all of this, you know, it's, you know, an economy and you know I use that myself sometimes but we should not, you know, lose the fact that it is actually about individuals, people working with it so engaging with people about it so circle economy might not be the language you use in the pub, I get that you know but reuse repair, you know, repurposing you know social value all of those things are the hard things, certainly have our work in Scotland and I think again, you know, particularly the cities and regions what we've done that's where chief execs, they're looking beyond their bins in their boxes and thinking yeah this is something I can really build into the kind of social well being of the wider communities and that's definitely getting traction there. Thank you very much indeed Ian Gulland I think that's a very good note to to end on. I mean we've we've recognized the radical nature of what we're talking about in structural terms, really far reaching questions redesigning economies and so on, but from two older heads like myself, these ideas aren't so foreign. I mean, we were reared in a way where waste was wrong, waste was bad, and, you know, so let's let's rediscover some of these things. Let's learn from people who are still doing this in some parts of the world now, and let's maybe abandon some of the bad habits that we acquired during an age of consumerism and so on. Thank you very much indeed for being with us today. Bye bye. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much everyone. Thank you.