 Welcome, welcome. Good morning from New York. Welcome to this event, the circular innovation for the economic reset in the context of the Sustainable Development Impact Summit. My name is Joy Categecois, and I'm from Uganda. I'm an international trade and investment lawyer, and if I were to describe myself, I think I'd say I'm that African woman that's passionate about the role of trade in development of the world. I truly believe in this promise and I've spent about 17 years of my career trying to find solutions for trade led growth in the Africa region. So trade got me initially to dig deep into doctoral studies in trade law to see where the solutions could lie. And then for some time I spent at the World Trade Organization interrogating these questions of how you can find solutions for trade through development. More recently, I established the Unktad Regional Office for Africa in Addis Ababa, where I spent close to five years working with teams at the African Union, shaping what we now call the historic African continent of free trade area. So as you can see, I'm passionate about trade. I'm also passionate about what the circular economy can do to trigger the next generation of growth. And I'm very pleased that today we can dig deep into some of these issues. So before we get into some of that detail, I'd like to invite the forum to please take us through a quick run of the housekeeping rules. Thank you. Thank you, Joey. I'm sure that this slide here needs no introduction to all of us who are now champions of zoom. But we just wanted to give you a quick reminder that you can control your own view will be spotlighting for those of us who are joining on the live public webcast through this first plenary session. Thank you all to turn on your video and engage with us in the chat. We do have a Slido, which is an opportunity for those who are joining through the public panel to also participate in the conversation. So for those of you who are here with us in the zoom maximize it this is where we will be for the next 90 minutes. And for those joining the webcast. This is a great way to engage with us. Finally, we do have breakout groups that will happen in the central 38 minutes of the session. And in order to select your breakout room please rename yourself to the group you're most interested in joining and we'll do our best to meet your preference and send you on to that group to participate in that conversation. We'll show this again at that point for instructions in case you miss it now and back over to you. Thank you very much Helen for the housekeeping rules and now we get into a bit of the details of what this session is about. So today we tackle this question of the circular economy and here we have four main objectives. One is to see how governments are encouraging the circular transition as part of COVID economic recovery and resilience. How are we using that opportunity to ensure that we bring circularity into the strategies. How can we use this opportunity to unlock secular innovation locally and around the world. We would also like to highlight the need and potential for the circular economy to help a wide range of industries combat climate change. And we'd like to share opportunities to contribute to circular economy efforts at the World Trade at the World Economic Forum. And so at this stage it is my pleasure to introduce Antonio Gowal, who's the deputy director platform for global public goods at the World Economic Forum and Antonio will give us some opening remarks. Antonio, over to you. Great. Thank you, Joy. And it's such a pleasure to see everybody here. I think for me, the sort of operative word in this session is innovation. Right. And when I think about innovation, I think about the things that get me really inspired. And so I wanted to kick the session off with a few examples of recent inspirations, because I think we can only use a bit of inspiration these days. So back in March, a friend of mine who's been working around the world to help set up fab labs, launched a crowdfunding campaign to set up a 3D printed mass production line for the local hospital. Since COVID-19 was really ramping up in the US at that time. Now that's an example of a individual with knowledge and tools who took action to solve an immediate challenge of form of innovation. Just yesterday, through our Schwab Foundation, Social Entrepreneurship Awards, I learned of a company out of Brazil called Boomerah. And they're using advanced technology to connect the entire production chain to transform difficult to manage waste into raw materials. The most inspiring thing is that they're doing this by working also with waste pickers to empower these critical players in the circular economy. And for me, this sort of partnership is exactly what we need to build a shared prosperous future and recovery. And another inspiration is that earlier this week, which I'm sure many of us read about, I was really excited to learn that Walmart, the world's largest retailer committed to becoming a regenerative company. And we need innovations by 2040 with no offsets, zero waste and more. And so I think we need all of these types of innovation everywhere around the world to help advance the circular economy. We need individuals who are solving problems in the here and now. We need scale up businesses who are engaging communities while shaping commercial solutions. But we also need the major market movers who can actually set ambitious commitments for innovation to help rally solutions behind them. The circular economy as we know it is an innovation agenda. It provides a completely different way for us to look at and design our system so that it can be regenerative, allowing for abundance, but also with zero waste and positive impact on the environment and people at the same time. But at the same time, as we know we have a long way to go and that's what our friends at circular economy tell us that we're only 8.6% circular 8.6% that's not very far. So we basically really need to kind of put our innovative thinking and collaboration together to help scale this agenda faster and that's really what the session is about and that's why innovation is at the center. So basically we're challenging in these discussions today to really think along three dimensions of this opportunity, which Joy already illustrated in briefs so one is that we really want to help integrate circular economy thinking into innovation hubs around the world. In other words, how do we create a network of circular innovation ecosystem to help us with this today you'll hear a little bit about the launch of the scale 360 playbook and how we're working with a handful of partners on the line to make progress in that direction. The second, we also heard about climate change now experts tell us and I'm sure the minister will talk more about this, that about half of carbon emissions come from the extraction and processing of natural resources. Now if we want to meet our climate objectives, we need completely new business models completely circular solutions as part of industry efforts to achieve a net zero mission transition. This isn't happening enough yet. So this is where we need your help. And lastly, equally, we know that circular economy progress can only happen if it happens everywhere. It's really great to have such a diverse set of participants on this call. And what we'll talk a little bit about there is how circular economy agenda is moving forward in key markets around the world and how as a community we can all help maintain and ramp up that progress as we move towards a resilient recovery as well. So I think we have a lot of work to get done over the next hour or so. Thank you for joining welcome and back over to you Joy. Thank you very much. Thank you, Antonia for that framing context of what we're going to do in the following in the following minutes ahead of us. Indeed, you have articulated what is before us the potential I think it's 4.5 trillion in terms of the potential of the economy in the circular economy. Last year alone, I think it was what 90 billion tons used in material, only 8.6 of which has been cycled back into the economy. Think about the prospects if we did it right. And so now let's jump right into the innovation imperative. How can we drive the innovation which is needed to gain the full benefit of the circular economy? How can we move about that 8.6% particularly when it comes to reducing the emissions embedded in materials while stimulating economies in a post COVID recovery? And in order to do this, we're going to have a mix of discussions and polls. And I think to kick us off, let us have the first poll. Let's shoot for the past poll where we ask ourselves this question. How would you rate your organization's circular efforts? You have options there. How would you rate your organization's circular efforts? Colleagues will give you some time to respond. And then we will come back to see what the answers are. I think the results should be coming in pretty soon. Right. The results are in what we see here. How would you rate your organization's circular efforts? The majority tell us on track we're ahead of the curve, but we need to do much more. That is positive. That is prospective, encouraging, but we're not quite there yet. And the second question was, do you think circular economy efforts have been hampered as a result of the pandemic? And many of you think somewhat, but only in the short term and less than expected. And so I think it's a good time here to perhaps get a bit of a perspective also from our panelists to get a quick review, a quick response as to what you think about these results. And in order to do this, I would like to invite one of our panelists. Perhaps we could start with you, Audrey. We could start with you, Audrey. Okay. Science tells us that we need to advance the circular economy transition and the economic analysis also tells us that we can provide significant jobs and financial benefits. So what is the top action that we need to advance today to ensure that the circular economy and circular innovation remains top on the priority of business and political agenda? Audrey, please. Thank you, Joy. You know, I really believe that one of the most important things we can do is really making sure that every single person realizes that they have the ability to be part of that change. Right. I think often, you know, it's too easy to say, oh, you know, someone else needs to do that, or I can't do that because I'm just a fill on the blank. And I really feel like with the circular economy, and Morgan Stanley, we focus a lot on plastic waste reduction, I feel like every single seat around the board room table, every single job across the corporation can have an influence. Whether you're the chemist designing products or the designer designing products or even someone in finance or in marketing. I think every single one of us has a piece of that innovation life cycle and helping create understanding how people use things and how people think about use and reuse. And so I really think that it's not about any one of us, it's about every single one of us doing it together. So I would just encourage everyone regardless of your job description and regardless of what industry or sector you're in to realize that you are part of the solution. So we're all part of the solution. Thank you very much, Audrey, for that. Minister Saint-Stein-Jé van van Hoven, what is your view, the top action we need to advance? I, first of all, I want to concur with everything that has been said before, especially also what Audrey said about we all have to act and we all can act. So what can I do as a government? What if something a government absolutely needs to do? That's to start preparing the market. We need to open the market and we can stimulate the market by, for example, going for a mandatory part of recycled contents in every plastic bottle. Once we set that standard, there's going to be a market for producing that recycled material and there's going to be a market for all those partners in the chain, driving that circular economy faster. So we should start getting those standards off the ground as soon as possible. Thank you. Thank you, Minister Saint-Jé. I think you've emphasized this point of we can. Audrey said we should. You've said we can. An interesting idea is also about the regulations that could take us there. Arjen, founder, CEO, tender, what are your views? Well, I think when I look at the poll results, it says that most people think you're on track. But I feel that's also by design because a lot of people attending this conference think about the circular economy and they're aware of it. I don't think most people are aware of it. And I think we can do a lot better job in educating or re-educating the entire population. I think if you look back hundreds, 200, 300 years ago, we were a lot more in touch with the environment and the planet. And maybe over the last 100 years, we're not so much in touch anymore with the planet. So I think to create more awareness and intrinsic motivation amongst the population is super important. And we can do that using most likely the government. I think the government plays a really important role in that. And second, it's a very blunt parallel, but I'm going to draw a parallel to, let's say, designing a mobile application, right? You want users to be intrinsically engaged with the application. But then when they do good behaviors, you also want to reward them for it and incentivize them for good actions. And I think that's also an important part of getting everyone on board with the idea of a circular economy. Thank you. Thank you, Arjun. This idea of awareness, if we go outside of this room, perhaps not everybody is on board, understands what we're doing, you know, is aware, so to speak. So an awareness building agenda, critical. And as you said, government can play a role, but there should be an incentive for those who then take heed. I think it's time for us to now go to our second poll, where we will hear also in terms of what the audience thinks. So let's look at our second poll question. As we look forward, what is the most important action to ramp up circular innovation? I think the results should be coming in pretty soon. Right, the polls are in. So as we look forward, what is the most important action to ramp up circular innovation? We have 45% saying government stimulus and investment, 37 saying multinational business commitments, targets and investment, and 18% saying entrepreneur approaches a new entrance. It's an interesting one. The 18% is an interesting one. Arjun, what do you think of that? The fact that it's only 18% for entrepreneurship. Yes, yes, yes. Well, I think it's a shame, right? I think end of the day, if you want to attract entrepreneurs and startups to a specific idea, there has to be a financial sense. That's the hard truth. And if there's no financial sense or there's no economic upside, entrepreneurs or startups are not going to really focus in that section or that area. And in order for that area to be economically viable, you need the support of the government and you need the support of multinationals that allows you to partner with them and do things at large scale. So everybody can kind of reap the economic upside as well as the social benefits. Thank you. Thank you, Arjun. And I think that's an interesting point about the need for the ecosystem, the interweaving, government, MNCs, entrepreneurs. It has to make sense at that level as well for investment to move in even more. It's time for us now to get into the dialogue session. And here I'd like for us to think a little bit about and hear more from our panelists. So now decisions made right now by both companies and governments about where they will invest are critical to making or breaking the circular economy progress. And we've seen some positive trends, more public equity funds investing in the circular economy, emerging bonds, circular startups raising more capital, in particular for plastics alternatives. So, Audrey, I'd like to come to you and ask the question, how can we ensure that we scale this progress and ensure that banks and financial institutions remain committed to growing the circular economy? And how do we do this at a time when commodity prices are dropping and are forecasting even lower over the next year? Oh, thank you so much, Joy. Look, I think that this is potentially a very straightforward answer for banks and financial institutions in that we definitely see the signs that interest from investors from corporates in this is growing and is an area for growth. And so I think it should be a no-brainer for all of my partners across the industry to see this as a really important, not only imperative but also opportunity to invest in it. Now, you know, Morgan Stanley, we actually focused on plastic waste reduction as a special focus for circularity for us about a year and a half ago. We announced our pledge to facilitate the prevention, reduction and removal of 50 million metric tons of plastic waste from rivers and oceans and landfills by 2030. And you know, we did this. When we first did it, I think there were some thoughts, why is the financial institution focusing on plastic waste? You're not a chemical company, you're not as a consumer company, you know, and at that time, really, there had not been any other major financial companies focusing on plastic waste. And we just felt like plastic waste is emblematic of the circular economy and that it is just, it's pervasive. And we're not going to be able to make a difference on it by just one company or one sector or even one national government acting on it. So it has to be the whole system. And since finance ends up actually working with all those sectors, we thought we could actually make a difference here. And what I would say is the journey that we've been on the last year and a half, I believe should give a ton of incentives to other financial institutions to focus on this. I'll give you just a few quick touch points. Right when we launched the plastic waste resolution in April of 2019, we, you know, there wasn't really precedent for a lot of financial instruments out there for investors to invest in it. So we did a proof of concept bond with the World Bank. It was a $10 million blue bond focused on marine, you know, marine health, reducing plastic waste, and it went really well. And we were able on the basis of that sort of proof of concept, six months later, we're able to work with Pepsi and do a billion dollar bond where a big force that proceeds was focused on reducing the virgin plastic in their beverage chain. What was interesting about it, not, not just that it succeeded, but it was very healthily over subscribed, which actually is a powering big benefits for, you know, for the issue or if you have a lot more investors, a lot more demand, it actually makes it a more attractive financial transaction for the company. And then fast forward another couple months, we just helped alphabets do a $5.75 billion green bond, the largest green bond ever for a corporate and a big portion of that was going through circular economy and design. That was just in August. And so we're seeing that there's really increasingly more and more interest to have this be a part of a corporate brand and part of a corporate value chain. And then, you know, I'll just give you to one other quick example where we've also at the Morgan Stanley Institute for Sustainable Investing, we've over the past seven years been tracking investor interest. And when we recently pulled investors, we and we asked them what seems around sustainability you interested in. We found actually that the top three things and they were all really right neck and neck or climate change, plastic waste reduction and circular economy. Right. So there's very much this consciousness and desire, especially younger investors, but not only. And again, just to give you an example of how that translates into finance being able to be a real part of the equation. We said, look, with all this interest, we've got to find more accessible products for clients. And so we designed portfolios with a $10,000 minimum investment that would enable any investor to target ocean conservation as part of their investment thesis. Within just a couple of months, these portfolios accumulate $100 million. They're now $200 million. And again, in these $10,000 minimum investment increments, it's actually proved to be one of the fastest new product launches. We've had on our wealth management platform in the past several years. So really, I would just say, you know, we think that this is very much something where the performance is there, the desire is there. And it really can be to your point, you know, I think too often people think environment circular that must be anti growth, anti profit, and it's absolutely not the case. Now I'll close it just to be one last data point, which is when we look at the performance of sustainable strategies, we've actually found that not only do they outperform in the incredible bull marks of 2019, they've also had lower downside in the volatile part of 2020. So both for increased opportunity and a reduced risk. Thank you, Audrey. Lots of tools you've developed to get this economy going. Blue bonds, green bonds, interesting partnerships with IFI as you mentioned the World Bank, the potential for leverage and multiplying. And of course, the emphasis that it also makes profit sense to make this. Absolutely. Thank you very much for that. We now move to Minister Stenje van Beethoven, Minister for the environment from the Netherlands. So governments have an important role to play in financing the circular recovery and maintaining policy commitments to this agenda. And Minister, we know you have pushed the importance of this, especially in the context of the EU recovery efforts. So how are you working to keep the circular economy at the top of the agenda? What do you see? And why do you see this as so critical? Especially to tackle the climate change objective and what would be a message to other leaders? I'm very happy. Thanks so much. I'm really very happy and very excited to be here with all of you. And when we all have the fantastic ideas that are being brought to the table already now. Why is this so important for two reasons? If you look at the CO2 emissions, about half of all our CO2 emissions worldwide are related to the production of goods and food. Half. So if we are all abolishing our coal-fired power plants, we haven't solved even half of the problem. So we need to look beyond the energy to the circular economy because there's lots of CO2 reduction to be gained. And there's economic growth to be gained too. Because waste is a human invention. I very much like what Aman said. We've gone out of touch with nature. Nature doesn't know waste. Waste is a human invention. Waste is a cost. If we can eliminate waste, we eliminate costs. And we can go to a more efficient economy with less external costs. So what can we do as a government? We can do a number of things. We have a convening power, we have a standard setting power, and we have purchasing power. First of all, that convening power. I met so many entrepreneurs that said, I would love to do this, but after the but, there was always, I need something else. I need a partner. So what we started to do was bringing together all of those people that are willing to move in a direction, but I cannot do it alone. Sometimes they need new partners in a chain. For example, new financing models, like Audrey just said. So we're bringing together in the Netherlands, those different people with the demands to move in a circular economy together in what we call an acceleration house to enable the front runners and the players in the sector that are committed to changing the current system and helping them. And thereby we also get a vision of where are the impediments? Where is the regulation hampering them? Where do they need support and innovation? So we're trying to get a really targeted approach to moving on. One example of where we brought everybody together was plastics. No single company can say, okay, I'm going to change my business model completely. If a lot of plastic companies together say, we're going to raise our ambition, they can do this without hampering their own economic system. And so we brought together all partners that are needed in the chain in a Dutch plastic pack. And then we took a European, both France and Denmark, and we made the European plastic pack, going for less plastic, going for more recycled plastic, and all of this on a voluntary basis. And we can do that because everybody does it too. So joining forces makes us move faster and further. Then another initiative which we have worked on is the material passport. If you want to start trading also in secondary resources, you need to know what the products are made of. If you have material passports, if you have standardization, if you have quality of data, it's easier to start also trading with those secondary materials around the world and just enabling them to flow into the regular business processes. So a harmonized material passport capturing that information will enable for a clean and sound and efficient circular economy. And it also avoids materials from being downgraded to a lower step on the R ladder, because of course the circular economy is much more than recycling. For example, among us in leasing out materials, heavy materials, heavy equipment, that is also part of the circular economy. We do not all need to own our own car that stands in front of our house for 23 hours a day. If we can share more cars, then we need less material for all those people that have a need for transport, more than for a certain car. So trying to find the essence of what we need will also enable us to give everybody what they need, around the world, with a world population that is growing. And then we will need to cater for around the world with 10 billion people. We're going to need three planets. If we start doing it the same way, if we start becoming more efficient, more circular, we can provide for everybody. Another role that other two other sectors that we're working on is ICT hardware and building and textiles, of course, keen to share every experience and two final comments, setting standards, introducing mandatory minimum recycled contents for certain products, can just put a standard, can put a goal into the market and then can challenge all of those innovative companies to get to that goal, to get to that standard at the lower cost. And of course, finally, our own purchasing power. We are all big purchasers as governments. So under my responsibility, we have decided for infrastructure, circular procurement to become the norm. Our workplaces are purchased circularly, just like you work uniforms. So as governments, as actors in that market, we also have a user role to play, which also goes for every one of you, because you're all purchases in the market too. And so we all have a purchasing budget. Let's start making that working for the circular economy. Thank you so much. Thank you very much, Minister Stenje. I think the passion is clear using your role really in this ministry to spread the word and to take action on specific things that can be done, convening power, critical, supportive regulation, joining forces, creating standards, using our purchasing power. It's time now to look at Arjan. Arjan Mohan, you're the founder and CEO of Tendered. And as we've heard throughout the SDIS, technology innovation is crucial for advancing progress on the SDGs. And as an entrepreneur and innovator, you have fast-hand experiences of seeing the challenges disrupting linear economic practices and capitalizing on the circular opportunity. And so my question, Arjan, is what are you finding? And how can we most effectively help scale technology innovation and entrepreneurship for the circular economy, which is so critical? Arjan. Thank you for the question. So I completely agree with the ministers Stenje and Ms. Audrey, but I'm going to look at the problem bottom up, right, as an entrepreneur working on the ground. And if you want to attract more entrepreneurs and startups to focus on innovating on the circular economy, it has to make financial sense. And it's unfortunate, but if you look at the sectors with the most dense innovation, usually it correlates with the highest investment dollars. And you can't force investors to invest in things you want them to invest in because that's not sustainable in itself, right? There has to be an intrinsic motivation by investors to invest, but it also has to make financial sense. So they keep investing in that sector until they find companies that are successful. You know, just two weeks ago, I was talking to one of my investors in California, and it was during the wildfires. And I asked him, hey, man, why don't BCs invest more in clean tech? And he told me there's not a lot of money in it. And penguins don't say thank you, right? And that gave me a lot of pause. And I was thinking, all right, so it's not just about feeling good. It has to give you an ROI. And how do you get investors and startups to focus on a new sector without doing something unnatural? And I feel the easiest solution would be to bring in big industries and old industries into the picture, right? Big industries and old industries already have a huge footprint. They have a huge impact. And they also tend to be the worst performing in terms of the circular economy. I'm talking about manufacturing, oil and gas, mining, construction. So I think the government has a really strong role to play. I think setting standards, monitoring it, motivating companies to follow specific standards is super important. And once you set those standards that they have to follow. And by the way, these could be standards when it comes to material consumption, process optimization, waste reduction, etc. And when they have all these different problems, the best place to go for solutions is the startup ecosystem, right? The startup ecosystem, you have a lot of entrepreneurs taking a very naive but ambitious approach to a lot of these huge problems. And if you can get that partnership going, you suddenly make it profitable and make it sustainable for entrepreneurs to focus in this area. Businesses benefit and the government also achieves their requirements. And it allows you to really move the needle when it comes to circular innovation because you're dealing in a large scale. And that's super important if you want to have an impact. So I think this is one of the areas, you know, governments in getting involved, getting businesses to partner with startups is one of the key drivers of accelerating circular innovation. Thank you very much, Arjun. The return on investment must make sense. That's critical. And then the partnerships with the big and the old interesting and then pulling this idea that ministers, then you had also said about standards and she gave us some interesting tools about how that could be approached. Overall stressing that government is key. You know, at this point, I'd like to perhaps see if our digital scribe has anything to say at this point. Otherwise, for me, I think I would like to perhaps give a big sort of five point summary of the key issues I am picking out of this conversation. But before that, let's see what the digital scribe has. Yeah, opportunity, top action, track, innovation, the details are there. Let me give us five key points that I see coming out of the conversation in this live stream. One is the circular economy is key. We need it for our survival. We need it. It makes sense for business. However, number two, the return on investment is critical. It must make financial sense. How do we engage to make it have financial sense to move the needle, as Arjun said. The third is that they are key tools that we must be innovative about creating so that we get the financing out there. Morgan Stanley, Audrey gave us some very good ideas about these bonds that have been experimented and they found that it actually makes business sense, financial sense. There's a prospect for leveraging partnerships, including with IFIs. The third point I'd like to say is convene, convene, use the space in which you are to make a difference. Each of us can make a difference. Convene in whichever sport that you have. Tackling issues like regulation will be key and I think that's my fourth point. Regulation is key and government, of course, manages regulation, but it must be smart regulation. It must be regulation that does not penalize innovation. It must be regulation that takes it a step farther. The fifth point I believe is this question around partnerships and industry. You need to bring the big and the old to partner with the smaller enterprises so that we can create a rush around moving the needle to get further up into what we need to do to boost the opportunities in the circular economy, especially in the context of the reset. And so I think with that, we've come to the end of our live stream and we will now be guided on how to rename our breakout sessions. Thank you very much for those that have joined us in the live stream.