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Our second event in March on Thursday 11th saw the Future Economy Network host ‘Better Business Design: Reducing Your Waste”, which was attended by a wide range of delegates. Before the event began, attendees enjoyed some pre-seminar networking in small break out rooms.
Katherine Piper, Director of Partnerships at Future Leap, highlighted the benefits of joining the Future Economy Network and also shared updates about our carbon neutral sustainability hub in Bristol. Katherine briefly updated attendees on the plans for the Festival of Sustainable Business, now that Government guidance has provided us with a roadmap out of the pandemic.
Matt Tipping, Founder of The Good Stream, set the morning off with a look at the language that is often used around resource and waste. Highlighting the subtle implications of using extractive and exploitive language when terming the planet’s life “source” as “resource”, can lead to unconscious and damaging effects of how we then treat our environment. Through beautiful illustrations and guided storytelling he brought to the forefront of our attention the impacts language can have on design, and reinforced that behaviour change for sustainable practice in business should not be placed on the shoulders of one person in the company, but everyone.
Jane Martin, Head of Fundraising and Partnerships at City to Sea, had recently been involved in assessing the use and management of single use plastic packaging and how covid19 has created a turn of events, impacting the progression of sustainable behaviours as we have retreated into the habitual neglect of our throwaway culture. Her inspiring talk gave the opportunity to outline the next steps in changing and challenging the behaviours of single use plastic, which have arisen as a result of covid19 as she pointed us to legislation strategies. She reinforced the need to change government policies at the same time as businesses continuing to voluntary commit to sustainable actions.
Connor Bryant, Founder of The Rubbish Project, finished the talk off with an impassioned approach at reducing your waste completely. His advice: Only ever buy recycled products. If we commit to only ever buying recycled products, we will well and truly be on our way of reducing our waste as there will no longer be a revenue stream for new material suppliers. In doing so we can wholeheartedly embrace the circular economy framework and work towards a world where “plastic will be such a valuable asset to recycle that there will be a huge economic incentive in removing it all from the oceans”.
During all discussions, the audience were invited to ask questions and take part in the conversation throughout. Multiple attendees made use of the 60 second pitch opportunity, including Garrett Creative, Claric Legal, Staplebarn and Digital Detox. Everyone was then able to network in different groups using facilitated break out rooms before the event finished. A huge thank you to the speakers and attendees of this event, without which our events calendar would not be possible.
