EarthX Website: https://earthxmedia.com/
Reducing or eliminating waste from manufacturing is the focus for sustainability today. NYC designer Laurence Carr explores how circularity is bigger than one industry, country, or even generation.
About Chez Laurence:
Designer Laurence Carr meets manufacturers and brands who are employing circular, regenerative, and sustainable practices. See how they're seeking to change the end-of-life concept with eco-friendly techniques.
EarthX
Love Our Planet.
The Official Network of Earth Day.
About Us:
At EarthX, we believe our planet is a pretty special place. The people, landscapes, and critters are likely unique to the entire universe, so we consider ourselves lucky to be here. We are committed to protecting the environment by inspiring conservation and sustainability, and our programming along with our range of expert hosts support this mission. We’re glad you’re with us.
EarthX is a media company dedicated to inspiring people to care about the planet. We take an omni channel approach to reach audiences of every age through its robust 24/7 linear channel distributed across cable and FAST outlets, along with dynamic, solution oriented short form content on social and digital platforms. EarthX is home to original series, documentaries and snackable content that offer sustainable solutions to environmental challenges. EarthX is the only network that delivers entertaining and inspiring topics that impact and inspire our lives on climate and sustainability.
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Reducing or eliminating waste from manufacturing is the focus for sustainability today. NYC designer Laurence Carr explores how circularity is bigger than one industry, country, or even generation.
About Chez Laurence:
Designer Laurence Carr meets manufacturers and brands who are employing circular, regenerative, and sustainable practices. See how they're seeking to change the end-of-life concept with eco-friendly techniques.
EarthX
Love Our Planet.
The Official Network of Earth Day.
About Us:
At EarthX, we believe our planet is a pretty special place. The people, landscapes, and critters are likely unique to the entire universe, so we consider ourselves lucky to be here. We are committed to protecting the environment by inspiring conservation and sustainability, and our programming along with our range of expert hosts support this mission. We’re glad you’re with us.
EarthX is a media company dedicated to inspiring people to care about the planet. We take an omni channel approach to reach audiences of every age through its robust 24/7 linear channel distributed across cable and FAST outlets, along with dynamic, solution oriented short form content on social and digital platforms. EarthX is home to original series, documentaries and snackable content that offer sustainable solutions to environmental challenges. EarthX is the only network that delivers entertaining and inspiring topics that impact and inspire our lives on climate and sustainability.
EarthX Website: https://earthxmedia.com/
Follow Us:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/earthxmedia/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/earthxmedia
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EarthXMedia/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@earthxmedia
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@EarthXMedia
How to watch:
United States:
- Spectrum
- AT&T U-verse (1267)
- DIRECTV (267)
- Philo
- FuboTV
- Plex
- Fire TV
#EarthDay #Environment #Sustainability #Ecofriendly #Conservation #EarthX
Category
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TVTranscript
00:00🎵
00:29🎵
00:31One of the most important movements in sustainability today,
00:35and one you've no doubt heard me talk about plenty in this series,
00:38is circularity.
00:40Traditionally, the manufacturing economy has adopted
00:43a linear make-take-and-toss approach,
00:46in which our raw materials are used to make a product
00:50that will be purchased, used, and tossed into a landfill
00:54at the end of its life.
00:56The circular economy, by contrast, takes existing materials
01:00and either recycles or upcycles them
01:03to transform them into something useful,
01:07and then repurposes their parts to go on and live again
01:11in infinite life cycles,
01:14which dramatically reduces waste
01:16and the destruction of natural resources.
01:21The concept of circularity is bigger than one industry,
01:25one country, or even one generation.
01:28It's a fundamental process that is both ancient and new.
01:34Recently, I was invited to host a panel
01:37for the Sustainability Stories Activation
01:40at High Point Market in North Carolina,
01:43and I invited leading furnishings and textiles brands
01:46who advocate for circularity to join me on stage.
01:51The shift to a circular production model for businesses
01:55is not just a moral choice.
01:57It is a sensible economic choice.
02:00The question today for businesses in our industry
02:03who may have been sitting on the sidelines,
02:06how do we make the big shift?
02:08Sustainable Furnishings Council
02:11serves our nearly 400 member companies.
02:15Each of these companies has made their own
02:18public and verifiable commitment to sustainability,
02:22to transparency, and to continuous improvement.
02:28Even when we all reduce our CO2 emissions
02:33as dramatically as can be expected,
02:36we've only gotten about halfway there
02:40to sustaining life as we know it on this planet.
02:45So we have to go beyond that,
02:48and circularity is a way to do it.
02:52We help partner with the suppliers into this industry.
02:56We are the first building block.
02:58We are the fiber that they have to choose from,
03:00so we're giving them that ability to go sustainable.
03:03We're enabling our customers
03:06and the suppliers into this industry
03:08ways to divert their waste from the landfill.
03:11We were the first company about 15 years ago
03:15to provide a full organic upholstery goods in the market.
03:20So let's talk about waste reduction
03:23and how you design waste out of the manufacturing process.
03:27The big thing that I would say with this industry
03:29is you have to design for recyclability,
03:31and it all starts at the beginning.
03:33You have to look at the fibers that you're putting in,
03:35the types of material you're putting into those fabrics.
03:37Linen by nature is a very ecological product.
03:41There's actually 20% linen fiber in your dollar bill,
03:45so you're all linen lovers and you didn't realize it.
03:48When you're talking about natural fibers,
03:50the farming and growing of that plant
03:54that you're looking at as a resource is really critical.
03:57Flax in particular does not use any irrigation
04:01when you're growing it in areas that grow linen well,
04:04like in Belgium.
04:05We're looking at genetically modified flax plants
04:08that are engineered so that they can be more drought resistant,
04:12and I know cotton is making big, big surges with that as well.
04:16What choices do you make for packaging your products?
04:21We've already had a philosophy along the way
04:25with our products of using as minimal packaging as we can,
04:29but we still air freight around the globe,
04:32so there is a need for a more sustainable
04:35plastic kind of wrapping in particular,
04:39but it's minimizing as much as you possibly can.
04:42Look at a PET-type packaging because that can be recycled.
04:46It's designed to be recycled.
04:48We can take that back and we can turn it back into a usable fiber.
04:51It's kind of like the Wizard of Oz.
04:52Not all witches are bad.
04:53You had a good witch and a bad witch.
04:55You've got a good plastic and a bad plastic.
04:57There's some fashion for girls to wear shorts that are cut jeans,
05:03so I started wondering, what happens to the legs?
05:07Where did the legs go?
05:09Well, I found out that there was tons of warehouses that didn't know what to do with the legs,
05:14so we sewn the legs together, patched them all up,
05:18and we made couches that look incredible with the legs of the jeans of the girls.
05:25That's what we do.
05:26What a wonderful story. I love it.
05:34One of my favorite furniture companies, the Danish brand Mater,
05:39introduced circularity into their products over 15 years ago.
05:43They were ahead of the curve then, and they still are today.
05:47Mater makes beautifully designed furniture using waste,
05:52and when I say waste, I'm talking about things like fishing nets and insulin cartridges.
05:58Mater uses waste to develop cutting-edge technology that sequesters carbon from 50 years or more,
06:05and innovative solutions that directly address the climate crisis.
06:13Hello, Kattil. Hello, Henrik. Wonderful to have you here.
06:17So let's talk about Mater and its story.
06:21Mater is Latin for mother.
06:24Mater is Latin for mother.
06:27Mother cares for children, but Mater, we care for the world.
06:32And to make it simple, it's about taking waste and making it into beautiful design furniture.
06:38We've set out from the very beginning to create a positive impact,
06:42and having said that, it's clear that we can't alone change the world ourselves.
06:47But what we can do is that we can make a positive impact on the products that we choose to launch.
06:53Danish design is very famous globally for its design tradition,
06:58and I wanted to set up a company that played back into the heritage of Danish design.
07:03It was very clear to me and the team that really sustainability wasn't incorporated in any of the brands on the market.
07:11So setting up a business that has sustainable thinking in its core from the start,
07:17I had no idea how difficult that was.
07:20And it has been super difficult, and you learn day by day.
07:24And the more mistakes you make, the more you learn.
07:27A piece of wooden furniture today leaves waste.
07:32What happens with the waste of wood that we do not use?
07:36Today, we use that waste wood in some of our collections, but back in 2006,
07:41that wood was used for heating the entire factory up.
07:46So new principles were installed to take all the pieces that were left over from the production
07:53into creating meaningful next life.
07:56We were one of the first that was exposed to a new cleaning method for cleaning fish nets,
08:03fishing nets from oceans.
08:05And we launched the first piece of furniture made entirely in ocean plastic waste,
08:12and that took the company into a new philosophy of looking at different corporate waste streams.
08:19What are some of the most innovative ways you're using waste for product creation?
08:25And which products are you most proud of and why?
08:30We have two waste streams with Carlsberg.
08:32One is on reused plastics, and the other one is on waste from their beer production.
08:39So we get the waste, it's called mask, it's a fiber.
08:42Then we mix that with waste from a medical company, the waste for their insulin pen production.
08:49So we create the mix, and then out of that, it becomes a material that we mold
08:55and we press into beautiful design furniture.
08:59Some of the larger waste streams come out of big global corporations.
09:03Now, this is essentially a mechanism for flushing the toilets.
09:08Now, when you manufacture that, a byproduct or sort of plastic waste is what I have in my hand here.
09:17A thing that would normally need to just be discarded or even burned as waste.
09:27Now, our new technology enables us to melt that and mix it with fibers.
09:35The fibers I'm holding here in my hand, another waste stream, which is waste from roasting coffee shells.
09:42Shell bean waste is a very, very strong fiber.
09:46These two waste streams create a surface looking like this.
09:51This is a very unique surface. Technically, it's called a composite.
09:55And that composite is completely new to the market.
09:58And what we can do when we mix different waste streams from Carlsberg
10:02or from insulin manufacturers or from other large corporations,
10:07which today has a problem with their plastic waste,
10:10creating this new material that comes in all sorts of different colors and shapes and forms.
10:17We are able to press mold that into pieces of modern, classic furniture.
10:22And that is the heart of circular thinking these days.
10:25Yes.
10:26When you look at a piece of waste plastic like this, the way to get rid of this today is to burn it.
10:33And when you burn it, typically you will create heating for housing.
10:37Now, the downside of this, when you burn this material, is you release the carbon immediately.
10:44Now, if you capture the carbon into composites, materials like this,
10:49essentially is instead of burning it, you capture it in a material.
10:53Now, with a lifespan of a chair of, let's say, 10 years,
10:58what we have tested and what we know, we can reuse this material five times.
11:03So you're looking at a lifespan carbon capture of 50 years with this technology.
11:09Now, consumerism, that will continue to be there as long as there is people on the planet Earth.
11:16And I would say, thank God, we understand more the challenge that we have.
11:20And as the younger generations also grow up, you get more and more focus on the sustainability.
11:26We as manufacturers, we need to educate them.
11:30We need to drive that trend to make them aware of what is good, what is not so good,
11:38and how can we move going forward.
11:41We cannot ever, ever compromise on design and quality
11:45because no one is willing to pay for something which is not good, great design and good quality.
11:52What we see today is that the consumers, they're not really willing to spend much more for a product
11:59just because it's sustainable.
12:01They are willing to pay the price, the value of the product,
12:05when it also goes along with the quality design and quality of the product that you market.
12:13What are some of the innovations that Matter is working on?
12:17Some that we can look forward to in the future?
12:21We see it as waste streams. We see it as opportunities.
12:25And actually, we think that waste, within a few years, will not be seen as a problem, but as a commodity.
12:32Now, that is maybe a little bit of a bold perspective,
12:35but nevertheless, we actually see waste as the next golden area.
12:39So this binder is mixed with the coffee.
12:43If you throw it out in your garden, it will start to deteriorate after two days.
12:48So essentially, what we are coming out with is furniture that once it ends its life
12:54as a hopefully beautiful design product that you can cherish and maintain for many years,
13:00you can actually throw it out in your garden.
13:03Do you think also that you'll go beyond Matter and maybe sell some of your patents to be used further?
13:12The way we can create change is through scalability.
13:16And that is why we engage with large corporations, because their waste streams,
13:22they will still be here despite any biodegradable innovation that we might do.
13:26So if we can create business processes by understanding waste
13:30and make it meaningful to large-scale corporations, we can actually make a change quite fast.
13:50Here in New York City, we celebrate circularity for an entire week.
13:55Thanks to my friend, Tone Sandegaard, director of the Danish Cleantech Hub
14:01and founder of Circular City Week, the biggest circular economy festival in the U.S.
14:07Tone is a passionate, inspiring advocate who urges businesses to implement this model sooner rather than later.
14:17I'm so passionate about circular economy because it gives all of us a tangible way
14:23of participating in the climate change agenda and really thinking about how we use this world's resources.
14:31Circular City Week is a week-long festival of events all in support of circular economy.
14:38And it's really sort of a collaborative open platform where we invite everyone from all over the world
14:45to come together, showcase what they're doing within terms of circular economy,
14:50knowledge share, and start the conversation about what's next.
14:54We actually launched it in 2018.
14:57We realized that there wasn't really a lot of platforms existing in the U.S.
15:02that we could use to kind of facilitate this knowledge sharing that we had set out to do.
15:07We need to transform the way our economy works across all sectors and industries,
15:13including the built environment, fashion, finance, food, mobility, and plastics.
15:19It's thinking about resource efficiency.
15:22And whatever industry you're in, think about what kind of materials are you using when creating a product
15:31and thinking about when that product is no longer in use, what do we do with it,
15:37and ensure that it isn't just wasteful.
15:40Every product, every service has a materiality to it, and we have to think about how is that designed,
15:48how are we going to reuse it, and how to make sure that it stays in use as long as you possibly can.
15:54Right now, we are using more of the Earth's resources than what is there essentially to be used.
16:02So we are only leaving generations with less and less, and we have to stop doing that.
16:08We have to make an economic model and a material world where we are not using the Earth's resources.
16:18Do you see a large participation from the built environment, furnishings, and design industry?
16:23The reason for us actually doing it in New York in the first place is also because it is really a hub for the creative industries.
16:31So what we see in Circular City Week New York is that around a third of all the events and activities taking place
16:38within that space, within architecture, design, fashion, or material choices,
16:45and we also see a third of all the attendees actually being architects, designers, business owners,
16:52within the space of the creative industries.
16:55The students within some of these creative industries are so aware of circular economy and climate change.
17:02It is definitely where we see some activist young people.
17:05It is a constant learning curve, constantly learning, and you see different industries and different companies
17:11and different organizations keep learning and evolving.
17:14I think what we have seen for a long time within the furnishing industry is that we were keen on creating furniture
17:21with upcycled content or reuse, but we were trying to hide a little bit that it was actually upcycled.
17:28Whereas now I think there is an honesty to it, but we work with that as part of the design philosophy.
17:33I really think that is where we are seeing the furnishing industry moving really, really quickly
17:38and being amazing at adopting these new type of business models that are super challenging
17:43because traceability and accountability is not the easiest thing for anyone to live up to.
17:50I really think we are educating the consumers and being very transparent about how much water did I use creating this piece of fabric?
18:01How will it end its life afterwards? Do I have a plan for that?
18:05It is becoming so mainstream to be environmentally focused with whatever you produce
18:11and there is just no way out of it anymore.
18:14What are the differences between the US and European approaches to the circular economy?
18:19Circular economy in Europe is really driven by legislation and very large scale strategies
18:30for the individual member states of the European Union that are really taking on this topic.
18:36It gives some scale to the initiatives that are going on within circular economy.
18:41That is a little bit in contrast to the US where we more see what we might call a bottom-up approach
18:46in the sense that it is more individual, maybe companies or NGOs or institutions
18:52who are really taking on the concept and figuring out what it means to them.
18:57So one of the examples on the American side is for sure Nike,
19:02who use an innovative strategy to use upcycled plastic content in their sneakers,
19:07in a specific set of their sneakers and really promoted that
19:11and made every consumer aware that that was going on.
19:14I think in the US it becomes very localized.
19:18When we talk about recycling in plastics for instance,
19:21you would see in Europe we are approaching it from a
19:24how do we fix the whole system of plastic recycling.
19:30Circular economy, it is in its core an action-based strategy
19:35and I just think that is why it is really picking up so quickly
19:38and why it is becoming one of the core strategies that many companies or governments
19:45are really using in order to reach their climate change goals or their sustainability approaches.
19:52It gives us some real ways that everyone can understand,
19:56like the concept of minimizing resources used in the way we produce things.
20:02It is just so tangible and everyone can kind of understand it.
20:05When we now see a corporate social responsibility report,
20:08it is really sort of focused on what can we do with the packaging.
20:12Everyone has packaging, right?
20:14And some companies or corporates have been like,
20:16but I don't produce any energy, so how am I going to go climate neutral?
20:20But suddenly it is becoming very tangible that everyone can do something.
20:24I think there is definitely cultural kind of significance to how we approach circular economy.
20:31Having a long tradition for being really active within the climate change agenda
20:36and feeling very responsible for the development that we are seeing
20:41and having this concept of wanting to be first movers.
20:44What I sometimes see in the US is an economic agenda and it is an innovation agenda
20:49because it makes really hardcore economic sense.
20:53They actually complement each other amazingly.
20:55And that is why Circular City Week is such an awesome, awesome place
20:59to precisely exchange those views and inspire one another.
21:03I have become an absolute maniac about circular economy.
21:08I think it is amazing.
21:09And I am really passionate about what is going on.
21:12You know that when you find that thing in life, that kind of turns you on.
21:16Someday my kids are going to look at what we did and they are going to say,
21:20hey, amazing that you put this on the agenda.
21:23And I just, I feed off it. I love it.
21:30In the last several years, a company's commitment to sustainability
21:35really matters to investors and consumers.
21:38The shift in consumer buying behavior is true in fashion brands
21:43and in consumer goods that you would buy at the supermarket.
21:47Sustainable brands are driving over 50% of the growth in the entire category.
21:54Our industry is no different.
21:57Whether it's interior furniture, appliances or paints or arts,
22:02consumers are speaking with their wallets.
22:05It is simply no longer true that there is a trade-off
22:09between sustainability and quality or beauty and elegance.
22:14I have been espousing this for quite some time in my own design practice
22:19and in my advocacy for circular economy.
22:22But it's true today more than ever before.
22:26So how circularity fits in the circular business model
22:30is not just a means of tackling excessive and unsustainable consumption
22:35of nature resources, which is incredibly important.
22:39It is also a solution to climate change
22:42as well as a huge economic opportunity for businesses.
22:46That is what you can call a win-win-win.
22:51Until next time, I am Laurence Gare, designing a more circular future.