WEBVTT

00:00:01.218 --> 00:00:05.738
I will never ever forget
the feeling I felt as I saw the sea

00:00:05.738 --> 00:00:07.923
and set foot on the boat
for the first time.

00:00:07.923 --> 00:00:09.829
And to that four-year-old kid,

00:00:09.829 --> 00:00:12.781
it was the greatest sense of freedom
that I could ever imagine.

00:00:13.774 --> 00:00:15.698
I just felt, you know, from that age,

00:00:15.698 --> 00:00:19.257
I would absolutely love one day,
somehow, to sail around the world.

00:00:27.524 --> 00:00:29.196
When you set off on those journeys,

00:00:29.196 --> 00:00:32.615
you know, you take with you
everything you need for your survival.

00:00:32.925 --> 00:00:34.680
What you have is all you have.

00:00:34.680 --> 00:00:36.666
You have to manage what you have

00:00:36.666 --> 00:00:39.339
down to the last drop of diesel,
the last packet of food.

00:00:39.339 --> 00:00:41.677
It's absolutely essential,
else you won't make it.

00:00:41.757 --> 00:00:44.704
And I suddenly realized,
"But why is our world any different?"

00:00:44.704 --> 00:00:46.732
You know, we have finite resources,

00:00:46.732 --> 00:00:49.447
available to us once
in the history of humanity.

00:00:49.785 --> 00:00:52.565
You know, metals, plastics, fertilizers.

00:00:52.565 --> 00:00:55.852
We're digging all this stuff
out of the ground, and we're using it up.

00:00:56.347 --> 00:00:58.366
How can that work in the long-term?

00:00:59.154 --> 00:01:02.296
Surely there was a different way
we could use resources globally

00:01:02.296 --> 00:01:04.088
that used them and not used them up.

00:01:04.088 --> 00:01:05.945
That was the question I had in my head,

00:01:05.945 --> 00:01:07.992
and it took me a long time
to get to a place

00:01:07.992 --> 00:01:10.899
where I realized there is
a different way the economy can run,

00:01:10.899 --> 00:01:13.632
there is a different way
we can use stuff, use materials.

00:01:13.867 --> 00:01:15.795
And that would be the circular economy.

00:01:19.539 --> 00:01:23.068
The way the economy functions
predominantely today is very extractive.

00:01:23.068 --> 00:01:24.069
It's linear.

00:01:24.069 --> 00:01:27.116
We take something out of the ground,
we make something out of it,

00:01:27.116 --> 00:01:29.971
and at the end of the life
of that product, we throw it away.

00:01:30.240 --> 00:01:31.746
No matter how efficient you are

00:01:31.746 --> 00:01:33.927
with the materials
you feed into that system,

00:01:33.927 --> 00:01:35.332
even if you make that product

00:01:35.332 --> 00:01:38.232
using a little bit less energy
and a little bit less material,

00:01:38.232 --> 00:01:40.188
you're still going to run out in the end.

00:01:40.460 --> 00:01:43.190
If you turn that on its head
and look at a circular model,

00:01:43.190 --> 00:01:45.100
whereby when you design a product,

00:01:45.100 --> 00:01:49.088
you take a material out of the ground,
or you take recycle material, ideally,

00:01:49.088 --> 00:01:50.563
you feed that into the product,

00:01:50.563 --> 00:01:51.852
but you design the products

00:01:51.852 --> 00:01:55.358
so you can get the materials back out
by design, from the outset.

00:01:55.500 --> 00:01:57.577
You design out waste and pollution.

00:01:57.577 --> 00:02:00.671
Why would you ever create either
in a world with finite resources?

00:02:00.671 --> 00:02:02.500
It's about the design brief.

00:02:03.298 --> 00:02:05.010
Today, if you buy a washing machine,

00:02:05.010 --> 00:02:08.411
you pay tax when you buy it,
you own all the materials within it,

00:02:08.411 --> 00:02:10.917
and then when it breaks,
as they inevitably do,

00:02:10.917 --> 00:02:13.292
you pay tax again, landfill tax.

00:02:13.292 --> 00:02:15.332
Within a circular system,
all that changes.

00:02:15.332 --> 00:02:17.498
You don't own your machine,
you pay per wash.

00:02:17.498 --> 00:02:20.317
It would be looked after
by the manufacturer of the machine,

00:02:20.317 --> 00:02:21.520
and they would make sure

00:02:21.520 --> 00:02:23.664
that once that machine 
comes to the end of its life,

00:02:23.664 --> 00:02:25.858
they take it in,
they know what sits within it,

00:02:25.858 --> 00:02:27.861
and they can recover
the materials from it.

00:02:27.861 --> 00:02:30.053
So you end up with a circular
system by design.

00:02:30.053 --> 00:02:32.767
We've studied at great length
the numbers behind that,

00:02:32.767 --> 00:02:34.018
you know, the economics,

00:02:34.018 --> 00:02:35.246
and it's much cheaper.

00:02:35.246 --> 00:02:39.683
It's 12 US cents 
versus 27 US cents per wash

00:02:39.683 --> 00:02:41.420
to have that circular machine.

00:02:42.595 --> 00:02:44.773
We would live within a system that works.

00:02:44.773 --> 00:02:47.163
We would not be producing waste.

00:02:47.163 --> 00:02:48.637
We would have a better service.

00:02:48.637 --> 00:02:51.114
We would have better access to technology.

00:02:51.114 --> 00:02:52.638
From all the studies we've done,

00:02:52.638 --> 00:02:55.453
because those manufacturers
aren't buying all the materials,

00:02:55.453 --> 00:02:56.474
selling them on,

00:02:56.474 --> 00:02:57.806
we would get a better price,

00:02:57.806 --> 00:03:00.601
because they would be guaranteed
their flow of materials

00:03:00.601 --> 00:03:02.057
going back into the system.

00:03:06.836 --> 00:03:07.942
I'm hugely optimistic

00:03:07.942 --> 00:03:09.722
because when you look at the numbers,

00:03:09.722 --> 00:03:11.722
when you look at
the economics behind this,

00:03:11.722 --> 00:03:14.325
it makes sense to switch
to a circular economy.

00:03:14.325 --> 00:03:17.658
There's more value in a circular economy
than in a linear economy.

00:03:17.658 --> 00:03:20.801
There's absolutely a cost
in the transition for a big organization,

00:03:20.801 --> 00:03:22.981
but maybe you need to ask yourself
another question:

00:03:22.981 --> 00:03:24.470
What's the risk in linear?

00:03:24.470 --> 00:03:26.138
Because to me, that's a no-brainer.

00:03:26.138 --> 00:03:27.521
There's a big risk in linear.

00:03:27.777 --> 00:03:31.636
It simply cannot be the future,
based on pure economics.

00:03:31.636 --> 00:03:33.587
So, actually, where do you put your time?

00:03:33.587 --> 00:03:34.968
Where do you put your effort?

00:03:34.968 --> 00:03:37.183
Let's work out what circular
really looks like

00:03:37.183 --> 00:03:40.673
and try and paint that circular tapestry
as best as we possibly can.

00:03:41.053 --> 00:03:44.912
Subtitles by Maurício Kakuei Tanaka
Review by Jenny Lam-Chowdhury