By collaborating across multiple sectors, including energy, finance and transport, COP26 seeks to align efforts and promote opportunities between governments, businesses and the public to enable us all to deliver on these high-level objectives. However, as the waste and resources sector has been overlooked, we are taking it upon ourselves to showcase the crucial role our sector will play in supporting every other sector of the economy in delivering the objectives of decarbonisation and NetZero carbon.
Why the waste and resources sector is vital to delivering net zero | Suez
The impact industrialisation has had on our planet has been catastrophic: we can clearly see the damage caused as fires, floods and famine plague our societies. In the face of the devastation caused and with the knowledge that carbon emissions are the source; we simply cannot continue in the same vein. Now is the time to put meaningful, deliverable and practical solutions into practice.
Through reducing the resource intensity of our operations, every organisation and individual around the world can work to reduce carbon emissions. And, as we collectively reduce, reuse and recycle, we can begin to lower the resources required to sustain human life and move further towards a circular economy where only minimal natural resources would be required.
Focusing on the how the resources sector must support, advise and guide other sectors in their materials use, John Scanlon, CEO for SUEZ recycling and recovery UK, delivers a keynote presentation as he explores the progress made by the waste and resources sector to date, and looks ahead to the immediate- and medium-term actions required by the sector and all those who interact with it.
Panel discussions featuring speakers from across multiple sectors follow the keynote speaker presentation as we seek to understand the realities of changing how our economy operates in search of a more sustainable future.
Featuring input and insight from:
- Dr Adam Read. External Affairs Director, Suez and President of CIWM
- John Scanlon, CEO for SUEZ
- Lorna Slater, Minister for Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity, Scottish Parliament
- Iain Gulland, Zero Waste Scotland
- Professor Mark Maslin, UCL
- Marcus Gover, WRAP
- Duncan Simpson, Scottish Resources Association
- Martin Cracknell, Scottish Environmental Services Association
- Stuart Hayward-Higham, SUEZ recycling and recovery UK
Resource security in a net zero world | Green Alliance
Achieving a net zero economy is not simply a matter of just expanding low carbon infrastructure and planting more trees. The technologies needed rely on resources, including a range of rare earth metals, that are sometimes scarce and can come with geopolitical risks. At the same time as governments are promising to reforest land to offset carbon and decarbonise, pressures on land use are also building, and include demands for food, fibre, timber, biomass and chemical feedstocks.
To date, global policies have often ignored the role that cutting demand for energy, materials and other products could play in securing needed supplies.
This panel discussion considers options for a more balanced approach, taking into account geopolitics and supply chain risks, and the effect that greater resource efficiency, due diligence measures and demand reduction could have on the global effort to tackle climate change.
Chair:
- Susan Evans, senior policy adviser – resources, Green Alliance
Panellists:
- Jack Barrie, research fellow, Chatham House
- Lorna Bennet, project engineer, Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult
- John Barrett, professor in energy and climate policy, Leeds University
- Stuart Hayward-Higham, technical development director, SUEZ Recycling & Recovery UK
From wheels to meals: a city’s food footprint | ReLondon
45% of damaging greenhouse gas emissions come from the global management of land and the production of goods and food, and these emissions need to be tackled in a way that requires a transformational change in how we make, consume and dispose of ‘stuff’ – they require a global shift to a circular economy.
This event launches a ground-breaking report by ReLondon and Circle Economy which details the flows of food in and out of London, using a methodology which all cities could use for a variety of material streams. This material flow analysis highlights waste and carbon ‘hot spots’ around the city, providing the data needed to target tangible action on carbon emissions in London.
Introduced by ReLondon Chair Dr Liz Goodwin OBE, the event considers ways in which cities and businesses can tackle those ‘hot spots’ and features speakers and panellists from a variety of players engaged in creating a circular economy for food – not just in London but in cities around the world.
Catch up on this event for insights into the new data on London’s food flows, and conversation about what we can (all) do about food’s impact on cities and the planet. We share practical examples of innovative reduce, reuse, share and recycle models of working; and hope to inspire and empower other cities, as well as businesses and citizens, to change their policies, practices and behaviours to create a sustainable food system for all.
Speakers and panellists include:
- Dr Liz Goodwin OBE, Senior Fellow and director, Food loss and waste at World Resources Institute, and Chair of ReLondon
- Shirley Rodrigues, Deputy Mayor, Environment and Energy at Greater London Authority
- Councillor Georgia Gould, Chair of London Councils
- David Jackson, Director of marketing and public affairs at Winnow
- Iain Gulland, Chief Executive, Zero Waste Scotland
- Jamie Crummie, Co-founder and director at Too Good To Go
- Jean Billant, Senior business advisor at ReLondon
- Max Russell, Project manager in the Cities programme at Circle Economy
- Sarah Malone, Senior advisor at ReLondon
- Councillor Christina Cannon, Glasgow City Council
- Sarah Ottaway, Sustainability and social value lead, SUEZ recycling and recovery UK
- Wayne Hubbard, Chief Executive at ReLondon
Reaching net zero: harnessing the crucial role of resource efficiency | Aldersgate Group
This Aldersgate Group event in Glasgow looked at the crucial role that resource efficiency can play in supporting economy-wide decarbonisation. The event was held in partnership with Suez and looked at this critical issue in detail.
As economies worldwide look to undergo radical transformations to meet net zero emissions by 2050, resource efficiency has a crucial, but often overlooked, role to play. Research has shown that a shift towards a more circular economy can play a significant part in meeting interim climate targets. In Europe, it is estimated that applying circular economy principles across the EU economy can increase EU GDP by an additional 0.5% by 2030 and create around 700 000 new jobs. Resource efficiency can therefore bring significant environmental, economic and social benefits.
This is why the Aldersgate Group examined this vital issue during COP26 together with Suez. Featuring an international multi-sectoral panel, this event explores what role circularity can play in cutting emissions across different sectors, what is required from regulations and policy incentives to drive investment in resource efficient business models, and what kind of strategy should be pursued to equip the workforce with the skills required for a circular economy.
Chair: Nick Molho, Executive Director, Aldersgate Group
Panellists:
- Martin Casey, Director Public Affairs Europe, CEMEX
- Greg Lucas, Sustainability Manager, IKEA
- Caroline May, Head of Environment, health and safety, Europe, Middle East and Asia; Partner, Norton Rose Fulbright
- Philippa Spence, Managing Director, Ramboll UK
- Dr Adam Read, External Affairs Director, Suez
- Terry A’Hearn, SEPA
