What are the business incentives and best practices for rethinking plastics packaging in your business strategy? In the world of packaging and sustainability, plastics continue to be a hot button issue. The urgency of eliminating plastic waste and addressing the environmental degradation it has caused is clear — not just to help people and planet, but increasingly to mitigate risk. This breakout will explore the business case for addressing plastic pollution and unpack the financial and reputational incentives for shifting your packaging strategy.  While many companies commit to post-consumer recycled content goals, invest in recycling infrastructure, explore material innovations and pilot new models  like reusable packaging — many companies are still doing nothing when it comes to addressing plastics in their operations.  Join this session to explore the comprehensive and cross-cutting packing strategies on the market and the business case for pursuing them. 

How can circular business models help companies decrease manufacturing and its environmental impact while increasing profit? From lighting fixtures and furniture to clothing and accessories, more companies are exploring models for providing products-as-a-service through such arrangements as rental or leasing, pay-per-use and subscriptions. By redefining ownership, can these models reduce the need for “new” in lieu of fewer, better and more durable products? Can they reduce waste and the environmental impacts associated with production by revisiting disposability and obsolescence? Will these new models hinder or ensure sustainable revenue streams? Join this session to tackle these questions and explore how selling less, might just translate to earning more. 

How should you assess your current packaging footprint and build future proof goals and a reporting framework for circularity?

Join this interactive discussion to explore the need for packaging baselines and the best practice methodologies for collecting information against which annual improvements and progress can be mapped. We'll explore examples of different approaches to setting scopes, data management, supplier engagement and a discussion about the best ways to set goals which reflect your organization’s level of ambition.

How do circular packaging initiatives advance — or hinder — carbon reduction goals, and how should companies approach and align these strategies? Climate commitments and circular packaging goals can often reflect two pillars under one company's sustainability strategy, yet these initiatives are rarely aligned and sometimes at odds. Some circular strategies like reusable packaging or selecting  widely recyclable materials (like PET versus plastics films) can sometimes come with a higher upfront environmental cost despite life cycle emission reductions — though this calculus can be difficult to quantify. This session will explore  how companies have aligned their circular initiatives with GHG reduction goals, and approached these strategies holistically. We’ll learn what circular projects have provided emission reductions, and how companies are measuring success.

How can cross-industry collaborations scale CE investments while advancing a more sustainable and profitable future? Across sectors and industries, stakeholders stand to benefit from the multi-billion dollar circular opportunity. By keeping valuable materials — packaging, apparel, electronics and organics — in manufacturing supply chains and out of landfills, companies can reduce costs and increase access to the recycled materials necessary for translating their sustainability goals into tangible realities. This provides a strategic business advantage, while also creating measurable impact and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Impact at scale, however, will require circular systems beyond organizational silos; companies, sectors and industries must collaborate in pursuit of collective impact and opportunity. In this session, we’ll hear how investors and corporations alike are leveraging capital on hand to scale circular supply chains while showing strong financial returns.

Biomimicry, the design and production of materials, structures, and systems that are modeled on biological entities and processes, is a pathway to creating sustainable and environmentally friendly designs. Biomimicry can also be lucrative and disrupt entrenched industries. Join a panel conversation with two investors turned entrepreneurs as they share why they launched nature-inspired companies that are good for the planet and for profits, and how you can apply these concepts to your own work. You'll hear from Chad Wasilenkoff, CEO of Helicoid Industries, Sissi Liu, CEO of Metalmark Innovations, and Jared Yarnall-Schane, Entrepreneurship Director of the Biomimicry Institute.

How can circular supply chains and sourcing be brought up to scale? The circular economy connects each step of the value chain from material extraction to material recovery. Every product reaches the end of its useful life. A discarded product becomes a potential source of raw materials able to cycle back into the economy, either immediately (recycling) or later through recovery from stockpiles or landfills. How can discarded products and secondary raw materials be captured and reintegrated into the economy? Join this discussion to learn about the challenges in developing circular supply chains, from local infrastructure to product development, and what trade-offs will need to be made to ensure a truly circular economy can be recognized. This discussion will start with insights from International Copper Association's latest research into the promises and limits of urban mining and how these learnings can be applied to circular sourcing strategies across materials.

The need for urgent action is clear: while the lifespan of individual garments dwindles, the environmental footprint of the apparel industry continues to grow. But where there’s inefficiency, there’s often opportunity. From renewable and recycled inputs to new business models such as repair, rental and recommerce to end of life management and more — plus enabling technologies, policies and partnerships — the apparel industry is ripe for a makeover. Join this session as we explore how diverse companies are prioritizing these initiatives and remaking their organizational strategy to close the loop in fashion.

Where do humans fit into the circular opportunity, and how should companies consider and engage them both upstream and downstream in the supply chain? Without intention, a circular economy will continue to reinforce the inequity and injustice inherent in the current linear system and communities will be no better off than they were before. However, an economic reimagination will require fundamental changes, which opens up the opportunity to center human impact in the new economic model. Join this breakout to learn how a circular economy can use transparency and effective management to consider and positively impact human workers both upstream and downstream in the supply chain.  

What can an expert teach you about the intersection of plastics production, carbon emissions and how your sustainability strategy impacts the ocean? Ask them! 

Approximately 6,300 million metric tons of plastic waste have been generated since the invention of this material — with 11 million tons spilling into the world’s oceans each year. If production continues unabated, greenhouse gas emissions from plastic manufacturing could reach 15 percent of our global carbon emissions by 2050. With the combined devastation to waterways and oceans due to plastic waste in the environment and warming waters, there are some questions worth asking: What is the relationship between carbon and plastic pollution? How should companies address this intersection in their sustainability strategy? What will your carbon commitments mean for our oceans? How should you collaborate with conservation groups to address both the plastic and climate crisis?

Bring any and all of your questions to this interactive Q&A with Janis Searles Jones, CEO of Ocean Conservancy.

The Alliance to End Plastic Waste is a nonprofit organization whose vision is to end plastic waste in the environment. With 11 million tonnes of plastic waste leaking into the environment on an annual basis, there is urgency to find ways to deal with this crippling environmental issue soon. Since 2018, the Alliance has brought together over 50 companies from across the plastic value chain to find solutions to address this crisis. Amongst the Alliance’s investment themes are Design for Circularity, which looks into ways companies can better design their products to ensure a more circular lifespan, and Advanced Recovery and Recycling, which leverages technology to unlock value from waste plastic so that it can be brought back into the economy across a multitude of applications. Join this roundtable to better discover how businesses can contribute to a circular future and help end plastic waste in the environment.