ISSUE 02: Plastic Footprint
On bold sustainability claims, pioneering the plastic offsetting game and getting creative with waste as a resource.
♳ CONTEMPLATIONS
GOOD FOR THE PLANET… BUT IS IT GREENWASHED & WRAPPED IN SINGLE-USE PLASTIC?
Sustainability has risen up the agenda. 79% of consumers are changing their purchase preferences based on social responsibility, inclusiveness or environmental impact. Sustainability is the hottest conversation that brands of every size, industry and sector are paying lip service to. With Nielsen saying the US sustainability market will reach $150bn in sales this year, sustainability claims and buzzwords are here to stay.
But who decides what is and isn’t the truth? And how do businesses that are actually making an impact communicate with integrity amidst the noise? These are murky waters to navigate. Corporations continue to greenwash. Brands continue to get creative to grab headlines. Consumers continue to be overwhelmed by choice and misinformation, engulfed by calls to action to save the planet.
In Circularity Club’s first issue, we talked about the myth of recycling, and how it was invented in the 1950s by plastic manufacturers as a calculated move to create and assuage consumer guilt. When it comes to our modern plastic footprint, not too much has changed.
Society’s single-use obsession is driven by a handful of corporations. Plastic production is on the rise. Even for the most engaged consumers, everyday efforts to reduce-refuse-reuse-recycle can feel like waging a war on late capitalism. Utterly futile.
And yet, to be a ‘conscious consumer’ is a thing of privilege. Disadvantaged communities around the world who don’t have the luxury of choice are the ones being burned by the world’s plastic waste crisis. (👋 Oh hey, Boris)
Let’s be real. Systemic change is necessary at both corporate and government levels to combat critical climate challenges. The EU is setting the tone on the carbon emissions and throwaway plastics front. Circularity goals have risen to the top of executives’ agendas, but the path to realising a waste-free world isn’t clear.
Brands need to figure out how to play by new rules. They need to directly invest and get involved in restoration and regeneration efforts. Innovation and investment are needed to shift from take-make-waste to circular solutions.
So, what’s the business opportunity? Rather than driving the call to action towards consumers, the transformational opportunity seems to lie in re-directing it inwards.
Call me an optimist, but I foresee a future where social purpose is a driving force for every type of business. This means putting social and environmental challenges at the core of business strategy – not just with marketing and PR teams. This means shifting motivation towards long-term value co-creation – no longer just to create buzz to drive clicks and CSR. This means rethinking how impact is measured at work, across supply chains and within communities.
In this future, radical transparency and trust are the norms. Everything you do as a business tells a story. Those who do things in ways that are better for people, the planet and profit win. What are you waiting for?
♴ IN CONVERSATION
MOVE OVER CARBON OFFSETTING – ENTER PLASTIC CREDITS
What can consumer brands do to become part of the solution, not the pollution? If anyone understands this as a business objective, it’s social entrepreneur Tristan Lecomte.
First, a pioneer in the fair trade industry. Next, in carbon offsetting and rainforest regeneration. Now, his work is pioneering the plastic credits game. Tristan’s life’s work is engaging companies to invest in regenerative projects that drive impact, connecting the dots from luxury brand C-suites to farmers and fishermen.
Second Life, his one-year-old social enterprise, is among the world's first to crack a methodology for plastic waste credits. I recently joined Tristan and the Second Life team on an island-hopping field trip, learning about the work they’re doing to support grassroots circular solutions for ocean-bound plastic waste collection across remote coastal and island communities in Thailand. Not to be missed - read the full story.
Lisa: Hey there, Tristan. Can you tell us how Second Life works with brands to help tackle the global plastic crisis?
Tristan: With Second Life, our tool is the Plastic Credit. We receive funds from companies who want to take responsibility for their plastic footprint and put this towards developing circular ocean plastics supply chains.
For example, we’re working with French skincare and cosmetics brand Caudalie. They’ve figured out that their products produce up to 600 tonnes of plastic a year and would like to take responsibility for that.
Caudalie gives us money that goes toward our plastic waste reduction program, helping to recover and recycle ocean-bound plastic waste. In exchange, they’re able to claim plastic credits, similar to carbon offset credits, at the hand of an entirely new verification standard called Verra.
♵ FACT- CHECK
NEWSFLASH: A HANDFUL OF BUSINESSES & BANKS ARE BEHIND THE SINGLE-USE PLASTIC CRISIS
The Plastic Waste Maker’s Index, a report by Minderoo Foundation, recently revealed the inconvenient truths behind the world’s plastic industry. Why does this matter? Over to Al Gore himself who gives the opening address:
“Since most plastic is made from oil and gas – especially fracked gas – the production and consumption of plastic are becoming a significant driver of the climate crisis, already producing greenhouse gas emissions on the same scale as a large country and causing the emission of other harmful toxins from plastics facilities into nearby communities – disproportionately harming people of colour and those in low-income neighbourhoods. Moreover, the plastic waste that results – particularly from single-use plastics – is piling up in landfills, along roadsides, and in rivers that carry vast amounts into the ocean…” - Al Gore, Plastic Waste Makers Index, Minderoo Foundation
KEY TAKEAWAYS
The global economy is throwaway-obsessed. Single-use plastics account for over a third of plastics produced every year, with 98% manufactured from fossil fuels.
It’s toxic. We’re choking on it. More than 130 million metric tonnes of it was thrown away in 2019. It ends up in the ocean, where it breaks down into microplastics that impact wildlife and the ocean’s ability to store carbon.
Just 20 companies produce over 50% of single-use plastic. The top 100 companies account for 90%. They’re enabled by global investors and banks.
This perpetuates take-make-waste dynamics. The economies of scale for fossil-fuel-based production are undermining the transition to a 'circular’ plastic economy.
Check out this flowchart that unearths a paper trail of evidence from polymers to plastic factories to countries of consumption and waste.
♶ CULTURE CLICKS
🪑 Techno meets upcycling with Peggy Gou’s vinyl-storing piece of furniture. The chair is made in collaboration with Bali-based design studio Space Available. It’s made from 20kg of plastic waste recovered from rivers and landfills in Java, Indonesia. 👉 Naturally, everything about the Peggy Chair is cool
🎧 David Katz, founder of Plastic Bank, inspires you to be part of the solution. In this podcast, he talks to Fearne Cotton about how he built an enterprise that turns waste into wealth for communities in poverty. 👉 Listen to Happy Place on Spotify
📚 Want to take a crash course on the history of Microplastics? Or on Deconstructing Greenwashing Myths? Or learn about Waste-Led Design? 👉 Open-education platform Slow Factory has you covered
♷ TOOLKIT
AN OPEN-SOURCE RULEBOOK FOR SUSTAINABILITY COMMUNICATIONS
B Corp, Fair Trade, 1% for the Planet, Climate Neutral, Net Positive, Fully Compostable, Partly Recycled… confusing for shoppers, but also a burden for brands.
Provenance, the London-based software service tackling supply chain transparency with blockchain, released a framework to help brands communicate on sustainability with integrity and avoid greenwashing. The framework covers 50+ shopper-facing claims spanning 5 focus areas: climate, communities, nature, waste, and workers.
Born from founder Jessi Baker’s PhD in blockchain, and her own personal frustration with lack of transparency in commerce, Provenance’s mission to turn positive social and environmental impact into brand value. 👉 Read Jessi’s words on why this matters.
♸ CONSUMER CHAT
LEGO debuts bricks made of recycled plastic (and Barbie sort of gets a recycling makeover).
Five competing Sephora skincare brands made a pledge towards zero waste beauty.
Thingtesting breaks down 17 different refillable cleaning product brands.
Lumi’s Slash Packaging is a directory or brands using packaging sustainably. For example, For Days ship closed-loop clothing in closed-loop packaging.
Moreloop, a Thai fashion waste circular economy startup, won the SEED award.
The race to eliminate single-use takeaway waste is on. Here are 8 circular packaging companies to watch.
AKUA, Pulp Pantry & Agua Bonita: three US food startups ‘saving the planet’.
PANGAIA’s digital passports drive transparency and circularity in fashion.
Biotech startup LanzaTech and lululemon created the world’s first yarn and made from captured carbon emissions.
In case you missed it, Etsy acquired DePop, the British secondhand fashion resale app, for $1.6bn.
♹ COMMUNITY
RECAP: CIRCULARITY CLUB’S FIRST-EVER EVENT
Circularity Club hosted a power-hour panel conversation to discuss how waste can be a resource, together with co-working space The Hive Bangkok. Our guests were social entrepreneur Tristan Lecomte (as seen in our In Conversation feature), Vivi Siriaram of the IUCN and Dominic Chakrabongse of Precious Plastics Bangkok and the Environmental Justice Foundation.
Thanks to those of you who joined us live! Your feedback is valued 🙌 Couldn’t make it? Catch up with the Facebook live recording 👇