Ep 167: What happened at INC-5? With Ellen MacArthur and Christiana Figueres

Pippa Shawley 00:01

Hello and welcome to the Circular Economy Show. In this special episode, we're sharing an excerpt from Outrage and Optimism the global climate podcast in which Christiana Figueres, Tom Rivett-Carnac and Paul Dickinson face the climate crisis head on. Our founder Ellen MacArthur spoke to Christiana who oversaw the delivery of the historic Paris Agreement on Climate Change, about the outcomes of the i n c5 negotiations which took place last week in South Korea. This was the fifth time that governments met to discuss a global plastics treaty. However, a final agreement has not been reached. A draft text released on Sunday revealed continued division between the majority of countries calling for binding global rules across the full plastics life cycle and a smaller number of countries opposing such measures. The decision has been made to extend negotiations to INC 5.2 now over to Ellen and Christiana to hear their reactions to this outcome.

Christiana Figueres 01:04

Ellen, thank you so much for joining us here on outreach and optimism. We the two of us, were together in climate week in New York just a few weeks ago. And Ellen, you and I were interviewed by the BBC in front of the UN building. And honestly, both of us were quite hopeful about INC-5. It was going pretty well at that time. It was our impression. And now we hear the sad news that INC-5 has not reached any agreement, and they're going to go for a second round sometime next year. What is your take on the results or the lack of a result?

Ellen MacArthur 01:51

I think having been through this process, you can obviously see the sadness in a result not being arrived at. However, almost the worst case scenario would have been that we'd arrived at an agreement, and it would have been so weak that the process was pointless. And I think what we felt during the negotiations was this tension between a huge number of very ambitious countries really pushing for, significant change. There were businesses obviously not in the room because they're not able to negotiate, but with a very strong voice through the business Coalition for Global Plastics Treaty, saying: 'we need this regulation. We need the stability of this regulation globally for investment'. And then you have conflicting voices saying: 'We don't want caps. We are really against signing up'. And this whole process is so complicated, because you have to have that consensus. You have to have all those countries agreed. And I think the challenge well in this is something you will understand so well. Christiana is getting everyone to agree is very, very tricky. So we have this massive pull for change, but we also have these countries who who really don't want that change, and, and, and that's what we felt coming out of this. That's why we're going into the next round.

Christiana Figueres 03:14

Yeah, you know what? What I find very, I don't know, incomprehensible perhaps, is that this plastics treaty as as, as, as written when it was adopted in 2022 says that the purpose is to promote sustainable production. I mean, can you explain to me, what the heck is sustainable production of plastics? And then, of course, it goes on to say and consumption of plastics and product design and sound waste management, and including through research, efficiency and circular economy approaches, okay, all of that is good, but Ellen is sustainable production of plastics possible because that was where this whole thing fell apart, and I'm not sure that sustainable production is possible. Is it from a circular economy point of view? Can you actually produce plastics that can be recycled much more than they are now at the poultry level of what 9% are currently being recycled. Is it possible? Can our private sector develop the technologies to do something like that?

Ellen MacArthur 04:40

I think that there's a conflict between the conversation around the recycling of plastics, which we know is entirely possible, you know, not 100% forever. We know that, you know, we have entropy, but you have the recycling of the plastics, but we also have the upstream conversation. And I think that that tension in the in the conversation around, INC-5 was that we didn't want a treaty that just looked at recycling, because one of the biggest challenges, and the reason we have such massive volumes of plastic pollution, is that much of the plastic that goes into the plastics value chain is not recyclable, nor was it ever designed to be recycled. And I think this is where the conversation was most challenging, and this is where the conversation needs to be expanded, in that, you know, we need what goes into that plastic value chain to have value once it has been in inverted commas, used or has done its job, either because it's reused or it's cleaned, as happens in Brazil with with now reusable plastic bottles, or the material itself is designed to fit back into the system. So when we talk about production, and actually just looking at the cohort of the global commitment that we put together seven years ago, they have significantly outperformed the market when it comes to virgin using the use of virgin plastics, they're able to cycle a much higher volume of their materials because they put that into practice, and they've committed to that, but part of the material that they use in their products is not designed to be recyclable, and this is the more challenging part in that the small format sachets, the thin films, they are not made to be recyclable. So they can't be an inverted commas sustainable, because they actually can't be recycled. They're never designed to be recycled. So you have this, this tension between virgin pumping into the market, but also, when the virgin's pumped into the market, it needs to be pumped into a product that can be recovered. And that's the challenge.

Christiana Figueres 06:35

Exactly. Yeah, and Ellen, is that possible? Can we actually develop alternatives to these little sachets that are so abundant everywhere. Can we, for example, develop seaweed alternatives? Can we do other things so that we would be able to to have a much more a higher degree of recyclability, or, in fact, not even put for certain products, not even put plastics around them.

Ellen MacArthur 07:07

Now I think that's it's it is absolutely possible to do that. And one of the challenges that we have seen through our work over many years with the global commitment, is that these companies who are willing, and we see them in the business Coalition for a global plastics treaty, these are CEOs who travel the world with a voice saying, we need regulation. So these are people who are really committed to this.

Christiana Figueres 07:33

Can you give us...? Sorry. Sorry. Ellen, I think it would be really interesting to know the size of those companies. Are these, like three little companies, or are these actually important companies in the global economy?

Ellen MacArthur 07:46

So the Global Commitment Signatories account for 20% of plastic packaging production globally. So they're the big guys, and many smaller and recycling companies and venture capitalists as many companies have signed the global commitment. We're talking about. You know, the Cokes, the Pepsi's, Unilevers, the Nestles, the Mars' of the world who've stepped into that global commitment, and they have committed to changing their business practices. Now, part of the business practice change is switching to different materials and reducing their need for virgin plastics, and we've seen that that global commitment group of signatories has massively outperformed the rest of the market, but part of the changes they want to make are to shift out of problematic packaging. And we've you know this, this problematic packaging is a word which came up many, many times within the negotiations at INC-5, chemicals of concern, another range of words that come up time and time and time again, and also businesses calling for EPR extended producer responsibility to help to pay for the processing of these new materials. So we have business saying, This is what we want, because they know that on their own, and these are the biggest players in the world. They can't do it. They need to not only move as a group, but for that second step, which is not just changing materials in their big format packaging. For that second step, they need government regulation. We need a level playing field for businesses to compete on. And it's this is pre competitive. These businesses need to be able to invest in those new materials and in these new delivery methods for getting products to people. And that's where regulation and as a result of this treaty process is really, really crucial.

Christiana Figueres 09:23

That is so helpful to understand that Ellen now, do you need a global treaty for that, or could you do it with national regulation?

Ellen MacArthur 09:36

I think from an investment perspective, the opinion of the business coalition has been that if you have harmonized regulation internationally, it makes life an awful lot easier and more predictable to invest in new materials, new delivery methods. It brings stability. Global rules enable people to play on a level playing field. It also brings the cohort of businesses who aren't in the global commitment because. That's still a large percentage of global plastic packaging into the same playing field. So everyone has the same rules. That's very useful when it comes to change. So when it comes to the small format, the more complicated packaging, yes, a global treaty, I think, has been, has been decided as being something which is important. However, it's not to say that local, national regulation isn't important, obviously that will have an effect. But when you look at the speed of change that we need to achieve, because plastic pollution is not going away, the numbers are still going up despite all these negotiations, we need to move quickly, and I think global regulation will without question if it's tight enough, will accelerate this much, much more quickly.

Christiana Figueres 10:48

Ellen, if you if the pen were given to these companies that you work with, what would they write as being the key? How could you pare down a very ambitious plastics treaty that was not adopted? How could you pare it down to do the key, to provide the key guardrails that the private sector needs in order to address this issue, what would be, you know, the basics that are absolutely sine qua non have to be there.

Ellen MacArthur 11:30

Well, I would say, if we look at the business Coalition for Global plastics treaty, and the opinion of that cohort of businesses which account for the big players who have a lot to play for. And this the three things would be the phasing out of problematic products, the phasing out of chemicals of concern, and the calling of EPR, which is effectively a tax they're calling for tax on plastic to enable the infrastructure to be invested in locally for the products that they produce to be recycled. So those are the three things, problematic, products, chemicals of concern, both phased out, plus the call for EPR, that's what the big guys are calling for.

Christiana Figueres 12:09

That is so helpful to have those three narrowed down. Do you see a possibility that when they resume, that they would be able to focus on those three, or is there so much else riding here that that they're actually perhaps even going to be distracted from the three points that are critical?

Ellen MacArthur 12:27

I think from a business perspective, those three points are critical. I think the as we've discussed, the tension is between we need to recycle the materials, and what does a production cap look like on Virgin plastic, or however that is articulated. And there is always this. You could simplify the treaty by saying, this is about the end of pipe. This is about the recycling, but you have to address what goes into the system. And we keep coming back to that, you know, you have to look at the, you know, the front end, which is why these, these, or two of these three points are so important, chemicals concern, phasing them out, and problematic products. It's saying we want to design the plastic packaging system differently. And of course, the global plastics treaty is not just about packaging, which is one further step which complicates the negotiation process. It's very, very complex.

Christiana Figueres 13:18

And for listeners who don't know what virgin plastic is. What is it?

Ellen MacArthur 13:23

Virgin plastic is taking oil out of the ground and turning that straight into plastic, whereas recycled plastic is taking plastic and turning that plastic back into new plastic. So effectively recycling so that would be recycled plastic, it would not be virgin. Virgin is oil straight to plastic. And one of the tensions here is that you know oil as we know, as we move forward and we look at the COP negotiations and climate, we have more EVs in the future, we will be burning less oil. One of the tensions here is that from the oil producing nations, turning oil into plastics is very profitable, sure.

Christiana Figueres 13:57

Yeah, and it's, it's the only rising demand that they can foresee for their for their products and and I think this link between plastics and climate change Ellen is so fascinating because, yes, plastics represent 3.4% of the world's total greenhouse gas emissions. And let's just remember that the entire international aviation and maritime transport industry together represent about 5% of the world's total emissions. So 3.4% just coming from one source is pretty heavy. Now, what I think is so helpful, and excuse me for using that word, Ellen, from your perspective, but what is so helpful from the climate discussion point of view about plastics, is that plastics are so ubiquitously visible, because one of the challenges in climate is you can't see CO2. You just can't see that molecule anywhere. And so the fact that plastics are so. Visible that they're so ubiquitous. No one likes to see plastics in the rivers, in the ocean, in in dumps. No one likes to see this. The everybody is honestly upset about this, about the plastic pile up that we have. And so I just think it's really helpful to cause this. I almost want to call it disgust, because when we see plastics everywhere, we are disgusted by ourselves what we have done, and that is helpful, that visual evidence of what we have done is actually quite helpful in a conversation that is otherwise completely invisible.

Ellen MacArthur 15:51

I think that's true, and I think that's one of the reasons that plastics has gone plastic pollution has gone from not being a topic to being in negotiation for a global treaty in seven years. I mean, that is extraordinarily fast. And absolutely as an individual, we see it. We see it in countries all over the world, much, much worse than you know, we see here in Europe, for example, and the businesses see it, you know. And I think one thing that we have really learned on this journey is that nobody that we work with has intentionally said we want to create all this plastic pollution. We have an amazing material that can cover something and keep it fresh and keep it dry, can be sold for a tiny fragment of the cost of other materials, because plastic is cheap, and it works well. So it's used to transport a product to someone, and it works for that reason, very, very, very well, but it creates, it creates massive issues. And I think it's something people understand. It's tangible. We hold it. We feel it. Even in in Europe, we wrestle with, you know, is this recyclable? Is this not recyclable? We know most of the plastic, even in Europe that arrives in our homes, is not recyclable, nor was it ever designed to be recycled. And this is about stepping up and designing a system that works. And I think that that bigger conversation around a system which works is where all of this needs to be taken, not just plastics, but rare earth, metals, CO2, we need to build a system which is restorative, regenerative one, which we would call the circular economy. And all these negotiations really take a similar vein as to we need to build a system that works. And my question to you, Christiana, just on that point, is, having seen what's happened with plastics and the plastics treaty conversations and understanding what's come out of Korea, what do you think will happen next? Not necessarily what has to happen next, but how do you think things will unfold from here, because you have so much experience in this space.

Christiana Figueres 17:45

Well, I wish I had a crystal ball. If I did. You know we would, we would all be be much wiser if we all had crystal balls. But do you have hope? Yes, I do have hope, but I also have a frustration Alan. I have a frustration that I don't think those actors that are predictably opposed to encompassing plastics treaty, as you have described it. I don't think that those actors are being brought into a constructive conversation early enough. I think what has happened here, and I say this honestly out of total ignorance, because I am not in the conversation. I'm not in the negotiation, and so I could be absolutely wrong, but from what I see, my gut feeling is that there was not enough effort to do the groundwork to go and talk to those who we know are going to be opposing these kinds of treaties, and get them on board, not the way that the high ambition coalition countries want, but at least to not stand in the way, and to begin to examine what is in it for them, because that was really the opening to everyone adopting the Paris agreement, that every single country could see that there was a benefit to them, because otherwise they don't agree that's you and I don't agree to things that we don't think are going to benefit us. Ellen and countries are no different, because they're actually represented by human beings. So the conversation there is, look, we have to move in this direction now. How could you envision benefiting from this transition, from this transformation, and honestly, they all can. It's a question of focusing them on that and not focusing. Focusing on the confrontation between those who want to and those who don't, that's not helpful, and you certainly do not get to an international, multilateral negotiation with those confrontations just raw on the table. You can't you cannot work with raw confrontations. You have to work ahead of time. So I hope that between now and whenever they're going to be reconvened by UNEP, which is the UN body that convenes these negotiations, I hope that there is that there is more, yeah, more and more underground work to to get these countries to figure out, what could they get out of it, and be able to move ahead in that, in that respect, that's really interesting. And Ellen, I would love to know from you what is what is frustrating you now, I've already told you where my frustration is. What is frustrating you and because, as we call it here on the podcast, it's you know, what are you still outraged about? And also, what are you hopeful or optimistic about?

Ellen MacArthur 21:15

I guess my biggest frustration is seeing these conversations around solutions in little boxes. You know, we have a conversation about plastics, we have a conversation about climate, we have a conversation about rare earth metals, or, you know, we have biodiversity. You know, we have all of these conversations, and they're not exclusively but they're often in boxes. And that big picture, which I feel I see, is so rarely discussed, which is the point or the you know, what does success for our global economy look like? And when we get there, what does it look like? How does it operate? And, you know, we've had that conversation around, you know, plastics and the global plastics treaty. You know, what does a successful plastic system look like globally there? You know, these are the questions we were asking six years ago when the global commitment was created. You know, what does it look like when it works? And I feel that this conversation needs to get to a point where we say, you know, unless the very operation of the global economy solves the world's biggest problems. We are never going to get there. It can't be an add on or a bolt on or sticking something on on, you know, we have to farm regeneratively. You know. We have to make products in a manner which enables us to get the materials back out and feed them into the system, be it metal, plastic, glass, whatever. You know, we have to have an economy that really can run in the long term and and I think keeping those conversations or finding those conversations so often in boxes, really hampers progress that can otherwise be made when we really get our heads around the point that, you know, this is how the economy has to be, and some people are more advanced in that conversation. Some people haven't even begun to have that conversation. But we need to really get real and understand what success looks like for our global economy and what it will be like when it gets there.

Christiana Figueres 23:03

So, so well put, so well put, yep, the interconnections, the interlinkages, absolutely.

Ellen MacArthur 23:12

And the realisation that it all has to work.

Christiana Figueres 23:12

Yeah...

Ellen MacArthur 23:13

We have to make this work!

Christiana Figueres 23:17

And support each... all these pieces have to support each other, absolutely.

Ellen MacArthur 23:21

And so my frustration is the lack of the what I see is the biggest conversation, and this is, this is not just in rooms that are discussing, you know, COP or the Global Plastics Treaty. This is in every boardroom, you know. This is every government. This is not, you know, a small exclusive group of people who have to solve this. We really have to get our heads around. This is, you know, we this is the very operation of the global economy, and everybody plays a role. My optimism comes from the pure fact that I see this circular economy as a massive opportunity. I see, you know, a young person going through education seeing circular design as a part of the future and building something, or designing something which is restorative and regenerative and regenerative and feeds into a system, and the business models and the finance that sit with it. I see that as so exciting. Rather than, you know, trying to design something that might save 5% and gain us a few months or years and, you know, it's, it's, it turns everything on its head. I see, you know, just the the massive opportunity, you know, economic opportunities where we have always stemmed from at the foundation, you know, what is the economic opportunity for plastics? What is the economic opportunity for medium, complex goods in Europe? What is the economic opportunity for FMCG globally? You know, 704 billion US dollars. I think it was, you know, this is big. This is big, transformational stuff, which really has value to the economy and builds a restorative, regenerative economy. And for me, there's a massive opportunity to get there. We're not there yet. We have many bridges to cross, and, you know, hurdles to get over, but my goodness me, that's a place to aim for, and it's really worth something.

Christiana Figueres 24:52

So true that that move from the extractive economy to the circular economy and regenerative economy, i. It's a mindset shift, right? We have to change our mindset and then apply that mindset to every single challenge that we have, but it starts right up here, right? How do we how do we get out of our paradigms that have told us for so many years that the way to do this is extract, use and then throw away, absolutely, yeah, how do, how do we totally change that?

Ellen MacArthur 25:25

It's what for me, it's, you know, that the understanding of that is just common sense. You know, if you have a finite supply of materials, and you use them in a production line, like, you know, linear economy, and then they fall off the air, you are, at some point you're going to run out, you know, because you're not designing those materials or those products to recover the materials to feedback in it's just, it's a linear economy, and we can make it more efficient. Still doesn't solve the problem. You have to turn it into that circular economy whereby things can can flow forever. So, so for me, that that basic principle is really simple, but then we need to apply it. And I think it understanding where it fits within the broader and it comes back to that broader conversation, the broader sense of progress for us. You know, when we look at the climate crisis, for example, you know, 55% of the targets we need to reach are about the energy transition, but 45% is about how we make and use things, including food. You know, that's the circular economy. This is how we make things. It's how we design things. It's how we grow things. It's this. It's this. And Circular Economy plays a massive role in the energy transition in its own right. So, you know, how do we harness all this together to get to where we need to get to and and for me, understanding what success looks like is the most important point. You know, what does it look like for a global economy that's circular? How do we change financing, products, business models, design of products. You know, getting, getting things to people that we need. You know, we need to change the whole economy so that it works, quite simply.

Christiana Figueres 26:52

Change the whole economy so that it works. I love that. That is the summary. Thank you. Thank you. Ellen. Ellen, thank you so much. Thank you for for coming on when I am sure that you are sitting with with a huge heap of frustration about what has happened. But I so much appreciate that you come to this with freshness of thought and and never ending impetus to continue your work. So thank you so much.

Ellen MacArthur 27:25

Thank you, Christiana, can I ask you one last question?

Christiana Figueres 27:28

Yeah.

Ellen MacArthur 27:29

In your opinion, when we look at broadening out the conversation and the need for the conversation to encompass the economy, how do you think we do that better than we do that today?

Christiana Figueres 27:42

Wow, this is going to be a simplistic answer to a very profound question. I don't think that it is. Maybe I want to use the word efficient, or maybe possible. I don't know which one fits to change our mindset. If this is all simply and I use the word simply cautiously, simply conceived in the abstract, I think that is our problem when, when we go at this from the abstract, from the meta level, from big, huge systems, changes that need to occur. I'm not saying that they don't occur. It's just very difficult for us to get our mind and our agency around that. So for me, it's about starting with let me understand how I am contributing to this. How am I it's about personalizing this, how in my life, in my experience, what kind of an economy Am I fostering? What kind of an economy Am I curating what kind of an economy am I feeding into? What kind of an economy Am I still holding up and and started from a very personal level, because that which I am not willing to understand at a personal level and change at a personal level, it's very difficult to change at a systemic level. So for me, those two things are really, really intricately linked. And all too often, we just jump to the systemic and want the changes there without stopping a moment and going like, Okay, how does this actually translate for me as a person.

Ellen MacArthur 29:42

And I think that's a really interesting point, because that's exactly the journey we went on with plastics. You know, we sat together with a group of CEOs, saying, What does a circular plastic packaging economy look like? And the the, the kind of almost the the gut reaction was, we need to pilot, you know, we got to do this. We got to this. And what we realized was that these companies had been trying for years to solve some of these problems that they knew existed, but they can't do it on their own. So you had to pause, stop and work out individually for each company and agree individually for each company that together, we will work on a plan for plastic packaging and agree together on a group of commitments which has then led to plastics treaty. But you can't, you can't say we need a circle of plastic packaging. You know, that sounds so easy to say that, but you have to look at what that looks like and translate that, that nice systemic idea, into something which is actually tangible and doable. And then, how do I do this? And what can I not? What can I do on my own? And what do we have to do together? And when, there you go, yeah. And when we looked at plastic packaging, we said, this is going to be a, you know, in a way, a blueprint for how to create true global, systemic change, translating that, I can't remember the word you used, but that kind of that idea, into something which is actually tangible on the ground. Yeah, it's a big process.

Christiana Figueres 30:59

Yeah, it is but, but it also makes it more doable, isn't it? Ellen that that's the irony of it, right? It makes it more doable because we have more control and more agency around that which is within our sphere of influence.

Ellen MacArthur 31:15

And I think also on the plastic subject to have so many companies saying we want rules, sending that message into the governments who normally make rules and are told, actually, we don't want rules. That's so often the message in these negotiations. These are companies saying, No, we need this. We want this. You know, we need this level playing field. It in a way that systemic change has to happen in dialog between the private sector and the public sector. And we've seen that very strongly, even though we've not had the outcome that perhaps we would have wished for a year ago, we have seen a very strong dialog in that space which has been really, really positive.

Christiana Figueres 31:51

A very important lever. We know that from the climate discussion, that when the private sector, or the finance sector, raises its voice, it really is is is very effective. It really is listened to. So congratulations on you for that, and don't give up, Ellen, we are going to do this!

Ellen MacArthur 32:08

And Christiana, can I please also say a huge thank you to you for speaking to us and discussing this really important topic, which is linked to so many really important topics that we'll care so much about.

Christiana Figueres 32:17

So many.

Ellen MacArthur 32:18

Thank you. Yeah, no. Thank you. Thank you very much. Ellen, good to see you. See you soon again.

Pippa Shawley 32:23

So we've heard that while it's frustrating that no final agreement has been reached, this is better than settling for a treaty with universal support but little impact. Businesses in the global commitment are willing to transition from problematic packaging, but they need regulation to level the playing field, and we've also heard that this moment is bigger than plastic pollution. In a time of great division, governments ought to seize this opportunity to show that the world can meet global challenges with global solutions. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Circular Economy Show in collaboration with Outrage and Optimism. Head to our show notes to find out more about the negotiations, a circular economy for plastic and the Outrage and Optimism podcast. See you next time you.