Showcasing circular solutions at XLabs LIVE

Kia ora koutou,

XLabs LIVE is live! Our participating teams, which include Transpower, Downer, Lion, Beca, Silver Fern Farms, and the Western Initiative, have dived straight into better understanding the nature of the challenges that they are bringing into XLabs, and the momentum is strong.

What’s new?

• We launched XLabs LIVE with a potent sense of potential, inspiration, and energy on Day 1. The event was opened by Te Aroha Grace (Ngāti Whatua Orakei), who offered a mihi and karakia to ground our efforts. Following opening addresses by Circularity founder Louise Nash, Ministry for the Environment Deputy Secretary Anne Haira, and Tātaki Auckland Unlimited’s Jane Finlayson, the teams got stuck into sharing and refining their challenges. Some great cross-team collaboration is already in the works…?
• Our first XLabs Lunch & Learn expert panel addressed the question “What will the future of a Circular Economy in Aotearoa look like?” Hosted by Louise, the panel featured Anne Haira of MFE, business journalist Rod Oram, Scion’s Florian Graichen, Tamoko Ormsby of Ka Awatea, and Matthew Jackson of Alimentary Systems. Conversation highlights included moving from supply chains to supply networks, the opportunities presented by adopting place-based circular innovations, and the need to combine western approaches with matauranga Māori to find solutions that uplift both people and the planet.?
• We hosted a fabulous Circular Innovation Showcase yesterday afternoon at XLabs, with over 50 circular economy solutions, products, and prototypes on display. The businesses ranged across many sectors from upcycled food to electric ferries, and from hempcrete to waterless beauty products.
• In a The Redesign of Everything podcast highlight, we had a conversation with Joe Iles of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation about trends in the circular economy, his visit to Aotearoa three years ago, and his advice for XLabs teams.
• In addition to the team at Lion, a team from the Ministry for the Environment have completed the XLabs LEARN programme. Congratulations everyone! Our online LEARN programme is designed for you and your business to upskill and build knowledge and capability in the circular economy. It is open to both individuals and businesses - sign up here.?
• We ran our first Re:Plastics workshop in Auckland earlier this month in collaboration with Plastics New Zealand. The energy of the day has proven the demand for these training materials, and we will soon be rolling these workshops out nationwide. The workshops and Re:Plastics Guide is designed to transform how we view, use, recover, and reuse plastics?with the goal of developing a movement around circular economy plastics in Aotearoa. Stay tuned for upcoming workshop dates!

Circularity's insights to design a better way forward

Our food system isn’t often what springs to mind when we talk about the circular economy. But the current state of it has a massive impact on the health of both the planet and ourselves. Back in February, Circularity founder Louise Nash attended the World Expo in Dubai for Food, Agriculture & Livelihoods Week, and spoke on a panel on reducing food waste and loss, alongside Nishchint Bhatia, Vice President and Head of Agronomy (Africa Middle East and South Asia) for PepsiCo International UAE, the University of Otago’s Professor Miranda Mirosa, and UK MP and Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Government of UK, Jo Churchill.

Louise was quoted in the summary document for the Week saying: “We need to give back more than we take. That’s the honourable harvest that we need to encourage from our retailers, from our supermarkets, from our brands.”?

Some of Louise’s key takeaways include:

• The impetus for a radical redesign of our food system to centre around how nature’s natural systems operate. In nature, there is no waste, and all the nutrients flow through the system in a circular fashion - how could we take inspiration from this model??
• How we might change people’s attitudes and help them to better understand food, where it comes from, and the impacts of the whole system??How do we think differently about the food that we see in the supermarket? How do we change attitudes about what is fit to eat, what is nutritious, and what we should be coveting? How can customer awareness be raised so that people understand how their food preparation and behaviour impacts on food waste?
• The importance of listening to growers and farmers. They know the land, they know what works. We need policy and incentives to support them to experiment?- to explore what’s possible within natures boundaries when we adopt circular and regenerative models.?

The regenerative agriculture movement in New Zealand has been really ramping up in the last couple of years thanks to the efforts of a range of stakeholders, but we have yet to achieve the wide scale cut-through that will be required to make a significant impact. That’s why we’re so excited to have several food industry companies participating in XLabs this week, including Silver Fern Farms, LeaderBrand, AS Wilcox, NZ Hot House, George Weston Foods, and Rescued Kitchen.

Want to join us in creating this change for Aotearoa? Start a project with us. Contact us at [email protected] and let’s chat.

Some good news to light your fire:

• Following Ecuador and a few other countries, Panama has joined the movement to grant nature the legal right to exist. This means all successive governments' future policies must respect the rights of Panama’s ecosystems, including its tropical forests, rivers, and mangroves.
• Aotearoa’s first Emissions Reduction Plan was released this week, and our government has identified that in order to reach our targets, one of the key actions (9.4) was to support business moving to circular models. The government will specifically investigate opportunities to support industry-led and regional programs that enable businesses to adopt circular economy models. We are already two years into delivering on that action!
• A California coastal panel recently?rejected a longstanding proposal to build a $1.4bn seawater desalination plant to turn Pacific Ocean water into drinking water - preventing the dumping of highly saline water into the ocean which would devastate the local ecosystem.?

Spotlight on local innovation?

• Our Circular Innovation showcase at XLabs LIVE included over 50 amazing circular innovations represented, coming from here in Aotearoa and around the world. Some of our favourites include….
• Zincovery, a company decarbonizing the Zinc recycling industry, by using a novel low temperature furnace technology.?
• ARcubed, with their OneBin product powered by AI, which automatically separates waste into its components to be diverted from landfills. Circularity team member Samantha Walmsley-Bartlett is mentoring this team.
• Hempcrete, an amazing new carbon negative building material made from renewable hemp sources, rather than concrete.?
• If you’re travelling locally this winter, NZ Herald has put together a guide for how to have a sustainable Wellington weekend in style - from eco-friendly shops to locally sourced kai.?
• Know any amazing innovators looking for funding to take their idea to the next level? The P4NE Aotearoa New Zealand programme is now open for applications for projects that support nature and indigenous communities.?

Catch you in a couple of weeks!

Ngā mihi nui,