 Thank you for joining us for this sustainable development impact session on fast-tracking circular solutions for the NetZero Industries. My name is Stinky von Velthover. I am working at WRI, the World Resources Institute, and I'm vice president and regional director for Europe. As we approach the milestone, COP26 climate conference in Glasgow is November. We know that it's become increasingly urgent for us to take action to accelerate the industry transition towards NetZero by 2050, and we will not be able to do that without a circular economy. It is the missing piece of the puzzle that has gone unnoticed for too long, but we are working here today, because after the power sector, industry is the second largest source of CO2 emissions, accounting for 27% of all CO2 emissions worldwide. And four materials, steel, cement, aluminium and chemicals are responsible for 60% of current industry emissions. So to reach the Paris Agreement climate goals and shift away from our current take, make waste model, industry leaders must embrace circular strategies that can help them to reduce emissions along the material life cycles. And it's not just recycling, it also includes increasing product utilization, replacing materials or products with more circular alternatives, reducing the amount of material needed and indeed also recycling materials for new products. The transition to circular economy cannot be achieved by individual actors alone. It requires system change, and for system level change to happen, we need radical solutions across value chains to develop and realise innovative circular solutions at scale. We also really need collaboration. So this session will aim to inform and drive engagement in the links between the circular economy and the net zero industry transition, and to catalyze increased collaboration around circular economy solutions for those key industry sectors. And with that said, I'd now like to extend a very warm welcome to our panel speakers of today. First of all, Jan Janisch, Chief Executive Officer Holz in Switzerland, thank you so much for joining us. While done, Chief Executive Officer Holly Materia, United Kingdom, a very warm welcome to you and Jean-Paul Adam, Director of Technology Climate Change and Natural Resource Management at UNICA. Thank you so much for being with us today. We will have our panel speaking first and then of course we will also have a second session where all of you participating will have the opportunity to discuss amongst ourselves in the breakout groups. But first, our first panel speaker. Thank you so much for joining us, Jan Janisch, Chief Executive Officer Holz in Switzerland. The built environment has traditionally been challenging to decarbonize because it's very complex, complex stakeholder landscape, fragmented supply chains, long life cycles. Yet the circular scenario for this industry could really reduce global carbon emissions dramatically. And Holzham is a global leader in building materials and solutions. So I wanted to ask you what is your vision for the building sector to transition to net zero? Jan, could I please give you the floor and could I ask all panellists to please make sure that we try to keep within the three minutes story so that we can listen to everybody for about the same amount of time with all these interesting speakers here today. Jan, over to you. Yes, absolutely. And Holzham wants to play an essential role in developing or making construction sustainable from housing to infrastructure. That means bridges, schools, windmills, hospital, rails, rail and everything we need for the future. With today's population and urbanization trends, our greatest challenge and opportunity is to build a net zero future that works for people and the planet. And we at Holzham are committed to leading the way to a net zero construction world. We have identified four critical levers to accelerate our transition to net zero. It starts with low-carbon materials in operation. That's why we are at the forefront of green building solutions with the world's first global ranges of green concrete, we call eco-packed, and the world's first range of green cement eco-planet. With our green building solutions today, we are making low-carbon construction possible already today from Mumbai to New York around the world. Our second lever is we are enabling smart design to build more with less, deploying new technologies from digital to 3D printing. For example, we have built the first 3D concrete printed houses which reduce up to 70% of materials with no compromise on performance. 3D printing also opens an infinite range of possibilities to build more with less from complex infrastructure projects like bridges all the way to affordable housing. We actually build the world's first 3D printed school in Malawi at record speed with its walls up in just under 18 hours. With such solutions, we can play an essential role to bridge our world's infrastructure gap when you consider that still 1.6 billion people lack access to adequate housing and sanitation today. Our third lever we identified is to drive the circular economy across everything we do. Already today, we are a leader in this area recycling 50 million tons per year of materials across our business and we have set a target to double that to 100 million tons by 2030. Our fourth lever on our way to net zero is based on developing next generation technologies including carbon capture, utilization and storage of carbon to accelerate the transition to net zero. Currently, we are part of 20 pilot projects around the world, recycling our CO2 in many ways from using it for crop growth in greenhouses to a source of alternative fuel for aviation. I believe as our world transitions to net zero, no one can get there alone. We need to put all the know-how together and this is why we are partnering with like-minded organizations to make a bigger difference together. For instance, the more governments drive green procurement and put regulatory incentives in place, the more we can accelerate the transition, the faster we can get there. Thank you so much, Janne, a really exciting experience that you have there. I would have a ton of questions for you, but thank you so much for highlighting already the importance of green procurement and I'm sure that Niall Dunn at Polymateria could also touch on this question because I think it's going to be really important for many sectors that there is both good collaboration but also green procurement can help opening up opportunities for innovative businesses. I think afterwards we'll have some room for a few questions, but I'd like to go to Niall Dunn now first. Thank you, Niall, also for being here today. Polymateria provides an innovative biodegradable solution for conventional plastic packaging, a question, of course, in the forefront of many people and also many citizens around the world. Could you elaborate a little bit on the need for partnerships to galvanize collaboration around circular solutions? Like I said, nobody can do this alone. It's about supply chains, so these partnerships must be really crucial. What is your experience as a technology pioneer and also a social changemaker with Polymateria? Yeah, thank you so much. And great to hear of the work that Halsam and some of the established businesses are getting on with, but what Polymateria are about is really creating from the ground up the businesses of tomorrow. We're built around a mission that's about trying to solve the world's problems as opposed to creating the world's problems. And that's a great place to start building partnerships. And you see examples of how mission driven businesses, when they are successful, are able to kind of really tap into powerful coalitions and networks, whether it's the likes of Tesla and their kind of mission to mobilize and take on the internal combustion engine and unlocking a lot of innovation from players who would maybe traditionally not have been suppliers of the automotive industry to create, frankly, better innovation. And Polymateria has looked to replicate a lot of that in terms of how we've approached solving for fugitive plastic. So that's the plastic that is winding up in the natural environment every year. And unfortunately, under a business as usual scenario, we wind up with four billion tons in nature by the year 2050. So very consistent with what we said there in the opening remarks, we have to figure out how to punch above our weight. So one of the things we did as a business was open source our IP to show how we can evidence biodegradation without creating microplastic, without harming nature and also in real world conditions. But of course, it's not enough that that's just our view. We have to tap into networks and partnerships of expertise around all of those kind of key disciplines, whether that's academic institutions like Imperial College, leaders of the kind of the recycling movement like RAP here in the UK, or some of the industry partners themselves, some of the largest names in the business like Indorama Ventures, who would be our biggest global partner, or Aviant, who are our partners in India. So all of these stakeholders have been essential to really challenging and probing our science and our technology to ultimately create a better standard, a better standard to guide innovation. And what that allows us to do is bring that into discussions with policymakers around how you can legislate better on this particular issue, but also with industry and to your point around supply chains and procurement, because there is so much confusion around innovation in this space to have world leading standards developed through that challenging process and peer review that will allow industry ultimately to make better decisions around what is effective, what works and what doesn't work, but then ultimately to represent that to consumers, to their brands in a way that gives consumers confidence that the claims they are making are true and they are able to substantiate them. So hopefully that's a good response to your question. Definitely. And I think you when we talk about plastic, I think the grand swell of interest and engagement to drive change in the plastic world is one which is both a blessing, but also a challenge because indeed the risk of consumers being able to ensure whether the claims are substantiated could also deteriorate their confidence in the solutions that are there. So it is absolutely crucial that these standards come about. So how do you do that? How do you create with this large group, which is a large movement, this development towards a standard? Well, work with the most reputable standards institution. So in our case, we worked with the British standards institution, but we also reached across to ASTM in America and CEN in Europe. We hosted a session two years ago in Brussels to to share the fact that we saw this big gap in the standards landscape, that there was nothing really credible. There was standards around things like composting and there were test methods that existed, but not enough to answer your point, which is quite right, around having rigorous pass fail criteria that would on the key things you should show like you don't create microplastic, you don't harm nature and that what you do in a lab reflects real world conditions. This all seems obvious, but there was no rigorous controls around that. So we agreed that BSI, British standards institution, would lead the process, but work very closely with ASTM in America and CEN to effectively expedite the process towards that standard that we launched in September last year and that was covered in National Geographic at the time, but ultimately would fast track the process of becoming an ISO standard, which will allow not just the markets that we work in, but all global stakeholders to benefit from having better standards on the back of the science that we have contributed to frankly something that's a bigger debate, bigger than us and bigger than all of us. Yeah, thank you so much and Janne, if I could just briefly come back to you, also these standards, it is so crucial in plastic, but it must be the same in the built environment where standards are even I think more important because people want to make sure that the house they built will still be there as long as the house which is built in a conventional way. So what role do standards play in this built environment and how do you feel that these circular solutions can also really help to, can be let's say supported by the development of standards and what are the things you run into? Oh, that's we need to develop that in parallel. I think as of today, we all know that the circular economy that will play a key role to make net zero work. And in order to scale up the circular economy that requires that we go beyond the boundaries of today, working in partnerships as we just heard from my co-speaker, but also the public authorities, they need to let us shape new ways of working. I have one example for you. We have in Switzerland, we launched two years ago, the world's first green cement already using 20 percent of recycled construction demolition waste inside. That's an amazing product. We literally take old buildings and which normally maybe go on a depot or something and we take the old concrete and we can recycle it in a very simple way, 100 percent of it. And we put it back as a new resource and it already makes up 20 percent of that cement product. This was only possible with the support of the authorities who adapted the building norms accordingly. And then we could could make it happen. As today, the European Union will probably take another two, three or four years to also adapt their building norms that we can introduce the same type of recycled product also in the European Union. So this is a big, I think a big challenge for us to make sure that the building norms will develop according with what is possible today. We probably we can already go up to 50 percent recycling in our products today, but they need to be embraced in the building norms. I think this is a really fascinating question. I think it would also be an interesting bridge to to our next speaker. But do we have enough building debris to go up to 50 percent? And this may be different in in Europe, for example, than in Africa, where there is net growth. And so what solutions do you think that in Europe we should be able to go up to 50 percent? And how do you feel that this is that this would how could display a rule outside of where sometimes there is net growth so you may not have enough, let's say, material to recycle. And then what would be the most, let's say, CO2 efficient ways of supporting the growth? And then we will hear from, for example, Adam about the Africa region, where the situation, of course, is is is different. Growth is needed still in Africa and how do you also make that low carbon? Honestly, I think this need need to be done. This need to be done. Imagine we can literally use every old building, every old infrastructure. We can basically make it the new product, especially when it comes to concrete, when it comes to bricks, we can reuse 100 percent in quite a very easy process. And that's a free of charge material for us. So very exciting. We are scaling up now our supply chain in Switzerland. Then we go already for the European Union. I think we can use around six percent is allowed today to use recycling and cement. It's more if you go into concrete. So very, very exciting. And we really get ready and we push the governing bodies to to embrace this new development. I think once it's done in Europe, it will go to the US and also all parts of the world, because it's simply the right thing to do. Absolutely. And Europe is an interesting living lab for these kind of solutions. And it's fantastic to hear from you that the technology is there. The materials are basically there. Just adapting the building norms and public procurements can really make this big change in this so crucial sector that has such a large impact on our CO2 emissions. Thank you so much for this insight. Yes, please allow me to add that the green procurement is so important for us. And we see it's so much driven already from the cities. Yeah, from cities from Berlin to London to Singapore to Zurich. Most of the cities, they have now very guidelines or instructions to procure green. That's a huge driver for us. So we have the building norms on one side and we have the green procurement. And that has to go really hand in hand at the moment. Green procurement for us is more important than the building norms because they lack a little bit behind. OK, thanks. Thanks so much for that insight. And I think the two indeed go hand in hand because, of course, as a policymaker, you want to know what to ask. And then a building norm can also really help a standard is needed to know what to ask in your public procurement. I think Nile will probably concur that these these these norms are really crucial and that the point of public procurement which you brought up is is really crucial. Moving to to Jean-Paul Adam, we are in a decisive decade for climate. And as you continue to build a green recovery for Africa really beyond the energy transition, what role can circular economies play in accelerating the shift from unsustainable models of production and consumption to models that promote resource efficiency and reuse to reduce reliance on extraction in key industries? Because the challenge for Africa is, of course, a very different one in many aspects from the challenge in in Europe or in in the US or in Asia. And at the same time, we all need to find ways to decarbonise. So please give us your give us your view. But first of all, thank you very much for considering the the African perspective, which is obviously grounded in a in a very different reality. That's not to say that a circular economy is not important for for Africa, and we would argue that it is perhaps even more important at present because the because of the current limitations of the current economic model. We have seen that the Africa has essentially over the last 20 years been able to to develop itself primarily by focusing on extractive resources for export with minimal value addition. And this has allowed very high levels of growth, often driven by external investment, but it has had other impacts. And in particular, if we look at the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the disruptive impact has been very, very significant. There's been big disruption in global markets, for example, for key African products. And while some of those markets are bouncing back, the lack of efficiency of African markets is a big issue. So we look at the circular economy from the perspective of improving the overall efficiency of African production methodologies and linking that as well with an improved return on investment. And this is where the circular economy can can really deliver better results than the existing models that that we have, where we can see that from the extractive sector, while it represents more than 11 percent of African exports, it employs less than 1 percent of the total population. So moving towards a circular economy solutions can help us improve the the employment and the amount of jobs that are created, particularly for a young population that's that's growing. This is situated as well in a circumstance where Africa has a huge waste problem. Over 70 percent of the existing waste is openly dumped with limited solutions that are that are available to African countries, in particular in in rapidly urbanizing environments. So the some of the solutions that we're looking at are through, for example, the African Continental Free Trade Area, where there are opportunities through the adoption of regional standards to be able to improve the the use, for example, of plastics, where there is very significant action being taken at national level in a number of African countries around, for example, use of plastic bags. But this is developing as well into potential industries and economic activities linked to MSMEs that can allow the the creation of new economic opportunities. Some other areas where there have been opportunities includes, for example, the textile industry. Africa is already a large market for secondhand clothing. But there are strategies that are proposed by the African Circular Economy Alliance to address these problems, including developing recycling textile industries that convert textile waste in clothing for export. Also, transformation of the conventional textile industries to green industries that use less water, for example, that use safe and sustainable inputs and recycling textile cotton and waste and cloths into yarns that can be upscaled and therefore reducing the use of virgin resources. There's also opportunities for the circular economy in the in the development of the African mining sector. We have seen particularly around the use of water. There has been improvements in in the use of water treatment plants to recover about 81 percent of wastewater generated by Anglo Gold Ashanti in Ghana. And in Tanzania, we've also seen that the shanta gold industry has started using solar energy plants to to power its operations and therefore saving very significant amount of of fuel. But I would say that this is these are very nascent initiatives and ones which we need to look at the institutional framework to support that principally through the African Continental Free Trade Area, but at the Economic Commission of Africa, we're also supporting individual countries to establish green procurement policies, which can then create this more predictable demand for these products across the continent. But the final point that I'll just say that in Africa, the main goal is not a reduction of emissions, although reduction of emissions are, of course, important. The main goal is to ensure that we have sustainable industries that are created for the long term and that these are linked to job opportunities that are meaningful for African populations. And we've seen through a recent study that we've done that investing in these sectors brings a much better return than if we remain focused on the extractive sector. We've seen through a study that we've done that in South Africa, for example, we can get a four hundred and twenty percent higher return on investment by investing in these kind of circular economy sectors and green sectors as opposed to remaining focused on a fossil fuel based sectors. I think that the last point is very, very strong because basically waste is a waste because waste is a cost. So everything that we can do to reduce waste and to increase efficiency, there is a real clear economic rationale. And if you say there is a four hundred and twenty percent increase in the economic model and the return on investment that you could achieve. I think that is a very, very valid reason for working more towards circular strategies. And I also very much appreciate what you said about how do we create really sustainable in a sense of also long term jobs on the African continent, which is, of course, one of the large challenges that the Africa faces with the growing population and our needs across the world to cater for equity and ensure good conditions for all. And then the current limitations of the current model, I think really collide there with the need to change to different models. So I really appreciate what you said about, let's look beyond just the extraction. Now, how do we add value and how do you create job opportunities for people in all ranks of society also in the coming decades? So thank you so much for your points there. Just very brief because Africa, we have about two minutes left, but African cities are growing at an average annual rate of four percent. That is really a very specific challenge. So what can you say about some innovative circular economy projects in the context of urban infrastructure and ecosystems to address that really specific point of that urbanization and the need for more efficiency and circularity also in those areas? Would you have a short comment, please? Yes. I think the African cities are the front line in terms of the opportunity for a circular economy, but also the risks associated with business as usual. We face real challenges around the management of wastewater, around the management of waste generally, and even issues such as air pollution that are currently impacting increasingly African cities. So there are a number of strategies that need to be in place. I think one of the first opportunities is around mobility and transportation. And a number of African countries have already taken certain steps to, for example, incentivize the move towards electric vehicles. We have seen that Africa is currently, unfortunately, the number one dumping ground for secondhand vehicles that are exported from Europe. And this has a huge cost in terms of not only the environment, but also in terms of people's health and livelihoods. And the challenge in, I think, a lot of the developing world is that when you're trying to help a young or emerging entrepreneur, they often want to get their first step on the ladder. And in terms of vehicles, that may mean buying a very old vehicle for $500 or $1,000, as opposed to investing a bit more money for a better and more efficient vehicle. So we need to change that narrative. Part of that is going to be linked to more investment in urban transportation systems. We're seeing that, for example, in Ethiopia. We're seeing it in Kenya, where the government is taking significant efforts to invest in mass rapid transit options, including bus systems, which are linked to electrification of the bus systems. We are also seeing linkages in countries such as South Africa through their own opportunity for production and manufacturing of electric vehicles, where they're putting a lot of focus on that, recognizing, for example, that Europe has already made a commitment to go towards electric vehicles and the production of electric vehicles in countries like South Africa can bring huge gains in terms of jobs and opportunities. And there's an opportunity to link that through the value chain in Africa. So, for example, a lot of the minerals that are needed for batteries that are used in electric vehicles are found within Africa. And there's a huge opportunity to look at that, the linkages throughout the resource chain to improve that circularity of the economy. There are many more examples, but I'm conscious that we're a bit tight in time. So I'll stick to that example on mobility and transportation to start. Well, thank you very much. And I think it's an excellent example that also links back into the discussion that we just had with the other panelists about the need for procurement policies but also standards. And, for example, extended producer responsibility could also play a role but also standards on the government level, both in Europe and in Africa, on the exportation and imports of, for example, Euro 3 cars, which are the most polluting. We could already make the switch all of us to Euro 4 that would make a huge difference in air quality. So here, too, I think technological developments and standards will have a large role to play. I have to be mindful of time, so I want to thank very much all our panelists for sharing their insights. And I saw some questions in the chat, so please continue to respond to each other. We will now, of course, continue this conversation in an informal setting with Chatham House rules to dive a bit deeper into the session topic. So I want to thank you all for being here. We will now go to breakout groups in, I think, about 10 seconds. We will all be placed in breakout groups. Thank you so much for carrying on the discussion there. And I hope to see you back for a report on the breakout groups afterwards, back in this plenary session. So thank you very much to the panelists and looking forward to continuing the discussion and hoping to see you later again in this plenary session. Thank you so much.