I had the pleasure of being a panel member in the WRAP conference in Cardiff yesterday (13 November 2013). Thanks to Beth Winkley and her team for the invitation and the hospitality.

This was the brief:

‘Panel members will be required to speak for no more than 5 minutes about what the circular economy means for their business/sector. This will be followed by a discussion about the opportunities of and barriers to the circular economy, and questions from the floor.’

I failed miserably to stick to time and I thought it might be useful to reflect at leisure on what I said.

I have come a very long way to share a secret with you and that secret is that I am not the repository for all the answers to all the challenging questions surrounding sustainable resource use; but what I hope is not a secret is that through projects such as WISE Network (www.wisenetwork.org) we are forming collaborations between academia and businesses to ensure that we are all more innovative and able to find solutions such as those mentioned by Rebecca and Matthew Davies from Gray’s Waste earlier.

A word about Bangor. When I first started working with businesses in Wales on sustainability it became clear that we as an institution have to walk the talk ourselves.

Almost three years ago Bangor Universtiy’s Vice Chancellor  committed us to being the sustainable university.  I am not ashamed to confess that we have to add ‘whatever that means’ to that bold statement. We have the top level support at ‘board level’ that Liz spoke of and which is so essential if we are to mobilise the willing in the ranks. In July our Executive has signed a robust Sustainability Policy (www.bangor.ac.uk/sustainability/documents/SDPolicy202013ENG.pdf) and we are about to consult on the development of a strategy to deliver on this ambition.

The challenge we are facing as a University is to work out together as staff, students, local community, business community and all the other groups we interact with, what sustainability means. How do we incorporate cradle to cradle thinking? Do we even know what that means? There is no blue print; there are some general principles but essentially there is no ‘one size fits all’. If we try to slavishly copy an institution we think is prestigious it’s not going to ring true. I like to think of it in terms of knitting a jumper with an intricate pattern. We know what a jumper looks like; two arms and a hole for the head to go through. Beyond that it can be personalised. No point me having a jumper fit for a prop forward or Twiggy, I have to have one that fits me. The colours need to work together not clash. We don’t want a jumper that’s dominated by one colour. Our challenge to staff, students, and others is to ask themselves what contribution they bring and how does what they do contribute to the bigger picture. Where do we, our disciplines and research fit in? How can we, when we make decisions, say with our hands on our hearts that we have considered the long term implications to the people and planet aspects not only ‘that’s the cheapest, tough luck’. This applies not just to us, but our supply chains too.

It’s messy ( or as Liz called it earlier,  ”disruptive’)  Organisations like to manage and often fear ‘letting go’. Yes, we have an EMS, yes, there are processes and procedures, we have a strong tender out for waste management which will include working with us to reduce our waste. Our catering team is amazing and really pushing the agenda forward. The students are engaged with the Green impact awards. But we want the interconnectedness of all things to be understood by everyone and for as many people as possible to relate their teaching, learning, research and decision making around the big picture. I am not quite as confident as the Millenium Stadium that everyone is on the same page. We’re making some progess but I am cautious about making too many announcements on achievements at this stage; I am well aware that despite best efforts some of what we are doing might ring hollow to some especially if progress isn’t fast enough. The best I can do today is to say “watch this space and wait and see!”

As I said, for me the motivation for pushing sustainability across the university was the work with business. We engage with businesses from a basic sustainability HealthCheck (www.sbbs.org.uk) to delivering detailed interventions. We listen to what businesses need, help them where we can, step alongside them to work with them when appropriate; on resource efficiency as Rebecca mentioned but also behaviour change, health and wellbeing, alternative materials for products, ecological engineering, analytical and quality control expertise, remote sensing and GIS with sustainable business development and an ambition to see a resilient Welsh economy underlying everything we do. If you feel that you have a challenge that need solving, contact us.

Moving seamlessly on to the wider challenge. It was encouraging to hear Jane Hutt reiterating the government’s aspirations for a One Planet Wales. But I am concerned that fine words don’t always match reality in the big bad world. Prof Calvin Jones published an excellent article in April on click on Wales outlining the extent of the challenge and pointing out that it is people not technology than hold the key to tackling these issues (http://www.clickonwales.org/2013/04/technology-cannot-tackle-climate-change/)

Before I finish I want to throw out a thought for the day. I’ve been wondering recently (and I’m probably not alone), whether the biggest threat to humanity might be ‘religious extremists’. If we look around us there are ideological conflicts everywhere. And sorry, even if you are atheists, you are not let off the hook as ‘religious traits’ aren’t necessarily all ‘god-related’ and can come in many and various guises.

There is a quote attributed to a chap called Victor Lebow who, in 1955, described what is going on very succinctly and it is as relevant now a sit was then:

” Our enormously productive economy demands that we make Consumption our way of life, that we convert our buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction and ego satisfaction in consumption. We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced and discarded at an ever increasing rate”.

Sixty years of proselytising on behalf  of the god Mamon has instilled in people the belief that material things are a human right and there is a huge emotional attachment to accumulating things.

Change is painful; motivating change is not easy.

People respond to messages that are easy to implement. Think Russell Brand. Think Jeremy Paxman. Think, ‘that interview.’ Brand made some good points but the big, unhelpful take home message that people remember is ‘don’t vote because all politicians are a waste of space’. How much better if he’d reminded us all that they are humans with feet of clay and that they behaves as they do because we, the electorate, are so fickle.

So to answer the question what does the circular economy mean for my sector. For Bangor at least it’s a practical challenge when managing our own resources, of inspiring the next generation of leaders to move away from the linear use and dispose model and go beyond the reuse reduce recycle to a true cradle to cradle economy. It’s an exciting opportunity to engage with the sharpest brains (students and businesses) to find solutions. But the biggest challenge is finding solutions and messages that resonate with people’s value base. Without that we’ll find ourselves in a vicious circle of empty talking. Not the sort of circular economy we want!