The Redesign of Everything

Join Louise Nash and Samantha Walmsley-Bartlett in this podcast episode of 'The Redesign of Everything'  where they talk with Mikayla Plaw; Executive Director and Organisational Development & Sustainability of Profile Group to share how finding a partner light the path forward was a pivotal moment in her journey to delivering circular outcomes within the nine businesses of Profile Group. 

This conversation breaks down their collaboration with the Circularity team, which resulted in multiple circular solutions to the complex challenges of manufacturing waste. Specifically the use of single use packaging within their businesses for transportation of aluminium and how shifting to a reusable alternative has not only reduced emissions and waste, but also cost.

 ‘In order to make change quicker and more effective in your businesses you really need to go to experts that do this day in and day out’ - Mikayla Plaw.

This month on the Redesign of Everything, we explore how we can best commercialise the circular economy opportunity in Aotearoa. One key insight is how finding the people who are just as passionate in tackling the same issues, and you’ll have a coalition of the willing, ready to have your back. Our time with Mikayla has proven that partnerships and investing in trialling and testing of solutions is the key to building long term circular pathways.

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Joining us today is Alec Tang who is the Director of Sustainability at Kāinga Ora - Homes and Communities, a real-life Transformation Catalyst here today with us talking about the redesign of everything.

Now, we have known Alec for some time now. I first met Alec on the side of a street in downtown Tamaki when I was introduced to him when I had just started out at Circularity and it was indicated to me that Alec was someone to watch and they were not wrong at the time he was leading the Council’s Chief Sustainability Office …and overseeing the finalisation and adoption of Te Tāruke-ā-Tāwhiri: Auckland's Climate Plan.

Alec believes like many of that… “we need to move to an economy that is more regenerative, that is fairer and more distributive, that better recognises the finite nature of the natural resources that we are reliant on. 

Now there is really so much to share about Alec, but just to cover a few….he is a Chartered Environmentalist (CEnv) and Fellow of the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (FIEMA). He has spent the bulk of his career developing and delivering innovative sustainability solutions across business, academia and the public sector. Most recently, Alec’s work has been focused on the creation of low-carbon, resilient and equitable urban environments. He is recognised as one of the inaugural Top Voice on LinkedIn for social impact across Australia and NZ. Is the Advisory Board Chair for the Auckland Climate Festival and also is a really engaging lecturer on sustainable business at Auckland University of Technology. I have heard from many of his students who have been inspired to follow his footsteps after hearing him speak. He is uber famous for his twitter feed which is largely street videos and photography shot while he cycles his way around Tamaki including near misses from cars. 

Much of Alec’s work centers around how we can design our urban environments to promote low emissions choices and the delivery of inclusive, regenerative ways of living. Why is this important? 

Two-thirds of us will be living in urban areas by 2050. Despite taking up just 2 per cent of global landmass, our urban centres consume more than 75 percent of natural resources, are responsible for over 50 percent of solid waste and emit up to 60 percent of greenhouse gases, contributing to pollution, climate change and biodiversity loss. 

Today we are going to be getting to know Alec and exploring…What does the future of the urban environment look like? And how do we get there? 

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Join Louise Nash and Bree Asmus in this podcast episode of 'The Redesign of Everything' as we explore how creativity, communications and movement-making can boldy influence and drive climate action.

This conversation features the multi-talented force that is Lucy von Sturmer. Based in the Netherlands, Lucy is a global New Zealander who lives and breathes her purpose in work as a climate communications expert, business leader, impact entrepreneur, and founder of the global Creatives for Climate movement. Recognised by Forbes as a new leader transforming advertising for good, Lucy has written for the Huffington Post, been a guest lecturer at The Hague International University, and appeared as a speaker at the BCorp Global Climate Summit, and more recently, at NYC Climate Week in September 2022. 

Together, we traverse topics of inspiring change, sharing voice bravely, and challenging the dominant narratives in our society – as individuals and citizens, and as values-based businesses. We follow Lucy’s journey of earning her stripes in NGOs and civil society, through to working with big industries and brand leaders. We also touch on the gaps and challenges, on what’s keeping us up at night… for Lucy it's the alternate solutions and counter movements that offer ‘silver bullets’ but fall short of what is truly required in the face of the climate crisis. And possibly most importantly, we talk about what the future could look like if we all take part in shaping it, and how to not lose people along the way to apathy or overwhelm. 

“The redesign of everything is something our entire generation is having to get our heads around. We go to schools, we go to universities, and we’re trained in things that no longer make sense in terms of our future careers and what we value in society. So on a personal level, the redesign of everything has been a mission of mine. What does it look like to live in alignment with your values? What does it look like to be part of positive change, and what contribution can I make as an individual? 

On a societal level right now, we’re being called to really question the existing notions of growth, of what is important, and even successful in life and society. In the values-driven business space, we're exploring what it looks like to stand for more that is money. And if we are going to have this new economy we hear so much about, with systems change that we also care so much about, then we need to reimagine our lives and we need to challenge dominant ideas and narratives. Which is why I also practice in activism.”  

We’re also thrilled to announce that we’ll be co-hosting an event with Lucy alongside Creatives For Climate and Comms Declare in October 2022 as part of the Auckland Climate Festival. Together we’ll explore the role that creativity can play in addressing the climate and ecological emergency, with global insights from those within the creative industries who are paving the way for policy change.

Join us on ​​Thursday 27th October at 9am 

Registration link here.

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Join us for this episode of The Redesign of Everything podcast, as we talk about all things related to rescuing good food, designing a business with circularity baked in, and the incredible potential of collaboration. 

We're joined by the fabulous Diane Stanbra of Rescued, who shares her insights into their journey towards circularity — which includes taking part in our XLabs circular economy training program in 2022. From which came a spontaneous circular collaboration with the team from Lion NZ!

Together we explore everything from rescuing hundreds of lemons with freezer burn, to crafting beautiful food, ingredients, and baking kits. We dive into a few rabbit holes to talk about the challenges of our food systems, and the demand we put on them as consumers to deliver consistently 'perfect' produce. In Diane's own words, "As consumers, we demand a perfect piece of fruit, and we demand convenience in this fast moving world. So manufacturers and producers are growing to a certain size and scale. There’s products that don’t even make it off the farm because they don’t meet the specification. There will always be surplus food, but there doesn’t have to be waste. That’s why we have established ourselves as a first point of rescue." 

Tune in and be part of the conversation.

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Every year in New Zealand we discard over 6.3 million tonnes of construction and demolition waste to landfills, 20.1% of which is rubble and concrete, while 12.6% is timber. Averaged across the population, this represents over one tonne per person. Beyond waste, the negative impacts extend to wasted energy, pollution, and the social impact of living near ever-expanding landfills.

In this episode, we speak with Leo Ingleson and Emelee Mello about where their journeys began to where they are today and the role they play in advancing circular economies at Downer and in their personal lives. 

We also talk about their experience at XLabs, after they brought together a diverse team from across the company to participate in New Zealand’s first circular economy training program, designed to create space for business teams to spark creative collaboration, imaginative innovation, and tangible progress towards creating a circular future, together. 

They came into XLabs to find a circular solution to this complex challenge of construction waste. Downer is an Integrated Services is a provider with 10,500 employees over 300 sites. From originally thinking that they might look at how they could address the 1,200 tonnes of concrete power poles that are decommissioned from New Zealand’s transmission grid each year, the team quickly pivoted and went back to the drawing board to ask how they might design out waste on construction projects, by connecting their people with the tools and data to reduce dependency on virgin materials and reuse existing materials.

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Silver Fern Farms have a vision to create goodness from their farms, generating nature positive solutions for their premium beef, lamb, and venison which are sought after in New Zealand’s export markets. The company is recognised for their commitment to a regenerative future, working in collaboration with New Zealand farmers. They recently led the industry in launching New Zealand’s first Toitū-certified and USDA approved net carbon zero beef range, for the US market. 

In this episode we speak with Nick Rowe about what it means to be committed to innovation, breaking apart the status quo, and putting it back together to lead New Zealand’s agriculture sector into a regenerative future. To remain relevant and thriving in 2040 and 2050, Nick believes companies, particularly those in the agricultural sector, need to answer some of those really big, tough, complex questions coming at us around carbon and climate change. 

We also talk about Nick’s experience with XLabs, after he brought together a diverse team from across the company to participate in New Zealand’s first circular economy training program, designed to create space for business teams to spark creative collaboration, imaginative innovation, and tangible progress towards creating a circular future, together. 

Nick joins us today to chat about the XLabs journey, Silver Fern Farms’s sustainability and circular economy initiatives, and how they are working to transform New Zealand’s red meat industry. 

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For over 100 years Lion brewed beer within a circular economy, with crate bottles being the norm. Now the company has its sights set on exploring how they might lead the Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) industry into a circular future. 

Lion have been making bold moves in sustainability, social responsibility, and the circularity of their products in recent years, with a vision to be a force for good. In 2020, they became Aotearoa’s first large-scale Toitū carbon zero certified beverage company. Under the leadership of the company’s General Manager Accelerated Change, John Steiner, Lion brought a team to XLabs this year to explore how they might design out a Skytower’s equivalent of packaging waste from their products each year. 

In this episode, we chat with John about the paradigm shift required within the FMCG industry in how we use energy and materials, the importance of change initiatives taking an end-to-end approach, and about how the circular economy is not just a good move for the environment, but also enables businesses to lower costs and improve resilience in the face of future disruptions to supply chains, international market volatility, and carbon pricing. 

“If you think of the name of the industry — ‘Fast Moving Consumer Goods’ — it’s the poster child for a linear consumption based economy: Make, buy, use, throw out at high speed… which is the opposite of the circular economy. The inspiration we can take from that name in moving to a circular economy is that we just need to make change happen fast - get stuck in, learn, iterate and make progress.”

— John Steiner, General Manager Accelerated Change, Lion

About our guest:

John Steiner has degrees in Musical Composition and Philosophy, Politics, and Economics which meant he was not obviously lined up for a career in FMCG Category & Revenue Management. But studying in Otago created a fondness for Speights that led to him to apply for Lion's graduate programme…. and he has ended up staying with the company almost twenty years. John has worked his way up through various roles spanning sales, business development, retail, category, & revenue, as well as being engaged with multiple customer groups and partner organisations. He is now applying his end-to-end knowledge, big picture thinking, technical expertise, and innate desire to make the world better in his current role as General Manager of Lion’s Accelerated Change team.

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The B Corp movement is on the rise, and has recently been formally established in Aotearoa with the appointment of the country’s first Aotearoa NZ Manager for B Lab Australia & New Zealand, Qiulae Wong. B Corp measures a company’s entire performance, from supply chains and carbon footprint to community work and employee benefits, it’s widely considered to be the “gold standard” of environmental and social certification. The process is rigorous and can take years to complete, starting off with a questionnaire tailored to the industry, location and size of your business. New Zealand now has 67 certified B Corps, which are part of a wider community of over 4,000 worldwide. Kiwi B Corps include Kiwibank, Allbirds, Fix & Fogg, Just Add Lime Ltd, Springload, Chia Sisters and Ethique.

In this episode of The Redesign of Everything, we chat with Qiulae about the B Lab’s “Business for Good" programme with New Zealand Trade & Enterprise, the B Corp certification process, the shift in motivations for companies towards a desire to become more resilient, what it means to have an impact business model, and how B Lab is leveraging B Consultants to have much broader impact than we could on our own - Circularity Founder Louise Nash, and Environmental Strategist Samantha Walmsley-Bartlett have recently completed training to become B Consultants.

“More and more now we’re starting to see executive teams and board members recognising there are regulatory changes on the horizon, and B Corp is a solid framework that is built on 15 years of developing internationally recognised standards. It’s actually about becoming a more resilient business.”

— Qiulae Wong, Aotearoa NZ Manager, B Lab Australia & New Zealand

About our guest:

Qiulae is the Aotearoa Manager for B Lab Australia & Aotearoa New Zealand. She has recently returned from London where she lived for 8 years. During that time she worked for the Ethical Fashion Group, a global industry body supporting more ethical and sustainable practices in the fashion industry, where she helped launch an online sustainable sourcing and information platform and grew it to over 50,000 users around the world. 

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In this episode we go under the hood and behind the scenes of XLabs - how did it all begin, the aha moments along the way, the experts involved and where XLabs could take your business. Register your interest and follow our journey at https://www.xlabs.nz/

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