1 00:00:01,218 --> 00:00:05,738 I will never ever forget the feeling I felt as I saw the sea 2 00:00:05,738 --> 00:00:07,923 and set foot on the boat for the first time. 3 00:00:07,923 --> 00:00:09,829 And to that four-year-old kid, 4 00:00:09,829 --> 00:00:12,781 it was the greatest sense of freedom that I could ever imagine. 5 00:00:13,774 --> 00:00:15,698 I just felt, you know, from that age, 6 00:00:15,698 --> 00:00:19,257 I would absolutely love one day, somehow, to sail around the world. 7 00:00:21,146 --> 00:00:23,340 [In February 2005, Ellen set a new world record 8 00:00:23,340 --> 00:00:26,143 for fastest solo circumnavigation of the globe.] 9 00:00:27,524 --> 00:00:29,196 When you set off on those journeys, 10 00:00:29,196 --> 00:00:32,615 you know, you take with you everything you need for your survival. 11 00:00:32,925 --> 00:00:34,680 What you have is all you have. 12 00:00:34,680 --> 00:00:36,666 You have to manage what you have 13 00:00:36,666 --> 00:00:39,339 down to the last drop of diesel, the last packet of food. 14 00:00:39,339 --> 00:00:41,677 It's absolutely essential, else you won't make it. 15 00:00:41,757 --> 00:00:44,704 And I suddenly realized, "But why is our world any different?" 16 00:00:44,704 --> 00:00:46,732 You know, we have finite resources, 17 00:00:46,732 --> 00:00:49,447 available to us once in the history of humanity. 18 00:00:49,785 --> 00:00:52,565 You know, metals, plastics, fertilizers. 19 00:00:52,565 --> 00:00:55,852 We're digging all this stuff out of the ground, and we're using it up. 20 00:00:56,347 --> 00:00:58,366 How can that work in the long-term? 21 00:00:59,154 --> 00:01:02,296 Surely there was a different way we could use resources globally 22 00:01:02,296 --> 00:01:04,138 that used them and not used them up. 23 00:01:04,138 --> 00:01:05,945 That was the question I had in my head 24 00:01:05,945 --> 00:01:07,992 and it took me a long time to get to a place 25 00:01:07,992 --> 00:01:10,899 where I realized there is a different way the economy can run, 26 00:01:10,899 --> 00:01:13,632 there is a different way we can use stuff, use materials. 27 00:01:13,867 --> 00:01:15,795 And that would be the circular economy. 28 00:01:19,539 --> 00:01:23,068 The way the economy functions predominately today is very extractive. 29 00:01:23,068 --> 00:01:24,069 It's linear. 30 00:01:24,069 --> 00:01:27,116 We take something out of the ground, we make something out of it, 31 00:01:27,116 --> 00:01:29,971 and at the end of the life of that product, we throw it away. 32 00:01:30,240 --> 00:01:31,746 No matter how efficient you are 33 00:01:31,746 --> 00:01:33,927 with the materials you feed into that system, 34 00:01:33,927 --> 00:01:35,332 even if you make that product 35 00:01:35,332 --> 00:01:38,232 using a little bit less energy and a little bit less material, 36 00:01:38,232 --> 00:01:40,188 you're still going to run out in the end. 37 00:01:40,460 --> 00:01:43,190 If you turn that on its head and look at a circular model, 38 00:01:43,190 --> 00:01:45,100 whereby when you design a product, 39 00:01:45,100 --> 00:01:49,088 you take a material out of the ground, or you take recycle material, ideally, 40 00:01:49,088 --> 00:01:50,563 you feed that into the product, 41 00:01:50,563 --> 00:01:51,852 but you design the products 42 00:01:51,852 --> 00:01:55,358 so you can get the materials back out by design, from the outset. 43 00:01:55,500 --> 00:01:57,570 You design out waste and pollution. 44 00:01:57,577 --> 00:02:00,671 Why would you ever create either in a world with finite resources? 45 00:02:00,671 --> 00:02:02,500 It's about the design brief. 46 00:02:03,298 --> 00:02:05,010 Today, if you buy a washing machine, 47 00:02:05,010 --> 00:02:08,411 you pay tax when you buy it, you own all the materials within it, 48 00:02:08,411 --> 00:02:10,917 and then when it breaks, as they inevitably do, 49 00:02:10,917 --> 00:02:13,292 you pay tax again, landfill tax. 50 00:02:13,292 --> 00:02:15,332 Within a circular system, all that changes. 51 00:02:15,332 --> 00:02:17,548 You don't own your machine, you pay per wash. 52 00:02:17,548 --> 00:02:20,517 It would be looked after by the manufacturer of the machine, 53 00:02:20,517 --> 00:02:23,664 and they would make sure that once it comes to the end of its life, 54 00:02:23,664 --> 00:02:25,858 they take it in, they know what sits within it, 55 00:02:25,858 --> 00:02:27,861 and they can recover the materials from it. 56 00:02:27,861 --> 00:02:30,053 So you end up with a circular system by design. 57 00:02:30,053 --> 00:02:32,767 And we've studied at great length the numbers behind that, 58 00:02:32,767 --> 00:02:34,018 you know, the economics, 59 00:02:34,018 --> 00:02:35,246 and it's much cheaper. 60 00:02:35,246 --> 00:02:41,420 It's US$ 0.12 versus US$ 0.27 per wash to have that circular machine. 61 00:02:42,595 --> 00:02:44,773 We would live within a system that works. 62 00:02:44,773 --> 00:02:47,163 We would not be producing waste. 63 00:02:47,163 --> 00:02:48,637 We would have a better service. 64 00:02:48,637 --> 00:02:51,114 We would have better access to technology. 65 00:02:51,114 --> 00:02:52,638 From all the studies we've done, 66 00:02:52,638 --> 00:02:55,453 because those manufacturers aren't buying all the materials, 67 00:02:55,453 --> 00:02:56,474 selling them on, 68 00:02:56,474 --> 00:02:57,806 we would get a better price, 69 00:02:57,806 --> 00:03:00,601 because they would be guaranteed their flow of materials 70 00:03:00,601 --> 00:03:02,057 going back into the system. 71 00:03:06,836 --> 00:03:07,942 I'm hugely optimistic 72 00:03:07,942 --> 00:03:09,722 because when you look at the numbers, 73 00:03:09,722 --> 00:03:11,722 when you look at the economics behind this, 74 00:03:11,722 --> 00:03:14,325 it makes sense to switch to a circular economy. 75 00:03:14,325 --> 00:03:17,658 There's more value in a circular economy than a linear economy. 76 00:03:17,658 --> 00:03:20,801 There's absolutely a cost in the transition for a big organization, 77 00:03:20,801 --> 00:03:23,230 but maybe you need to ask yourself another question: 78 00:03:23,230 --> 00:03:24,470 what's the risk in linear? 79 00:03:24,470 --> 00:03:26,138 Because to me, that's a no-brainer. 80 00:03:26,138 --> 00:03:27,521 There's a big risk in linear. 81 00:03:27,777 --> 00:03:31,636 It simply cannot be the future, based on pure economics. 82 00:03:31,636 --> 00:03:33,587 So, actually, where do you put your time? 83 00:03:33,587 --> 00:03:34,968 Where do you put your effort? 84 00:03:34,968 --> 00:03:37,107 Let's work out what circular really looks like 85 00:03:37,107 --> 00:03:40,673 and try and paint that circular tapestry as best as we possibly can.