Using 'Future-back thinking' to visualise a plastic-pollution free world.

Last year I had the honour to meet Scott D. Anthony, a world leader in innovation strategy, author of books such as Dual Transformation and Seeing What’s Next, Senior Partner at Innosight and one of Harvard Business Review’s most prolific contributors.  As you might imagine, it was a protein rich couple of hours (literally, we shared ideas over a bite from a local street market) but the thing that has stayed at the fore of my mind since has been his concept of Future-Back thinking. Future-back thinking is an effective way to help leaders convey their vision of what the future will look like to their team or indeed their own superiors. Essentially, leaders who use Future-back thinking imagine what the future will look like after the successful realisation of an ambitious, intangible vision. We can bring this to life by writing a postcard to ourselves from the future, perhaps writing the speech you would give to employees or customers after the point of success. We have used the idea internally at jHub Defence and found it really useful so I’ve played with it here to give you an idea of what it looks like.

In this article I use Future-back thinking to consider a vision for the eradication of plastic pollution from the perspective of the UN Secretary General in 2030. I’ve written a hypothetical speech that they could deliver having successfully eradicated the problem. I’m no expert on plastic pollution, so go easy on me, but I found that the Future-back technique helped me think through some of the problems we will face on that journey and to consider the consequences of some of the more superficially attractive solutions. Hopefully, even with my limited knowledge of the topic, I’ve managed to build a compelling vision of what our future could look like, if we choose it. 

In short, leaders need people to help them shape the future. To convince people to help them, leaders need to put a picture of the future into the mind's eye of their followers. I’d be really grateful if you’d read through and let me know what you think, both in terms of the Future-back technique and the speech. Thank you, please share if you enjoy it!  

SPEECH BY THE UN SECRETARY GENERAL ON PLASTIC ERADICATION –

21 APRIL 2030 - NEW YORK

In the 12 years since the plastic pollution crisis hit the public consciousness in 2018, in part due to the final episode of a hugely popular television series called Blue Planet II, we have made spectacular progress. Today I am proud to stand before you to announce that plastic in our oceans is at its lowest level since the 1980s and that the rate at which plastic enters the environment is now significantly lower than the rate at which we are able to remove it. This means that, if we continue at the current rate of extraction, our environment will be almost entirely, 99%, free of non-biodegradable plastic by 2040. I want to take this opportunity to remind you how we achieved this, one of the most impressive feats of ingenuity and determination in human history. 

Leadership

Of course, you will remember that progress was initially slow, through 2018-2020, research and development into possible solutions was underfunded and still in its early stages, some progress was made, technical prototypes deployed, ocean booms to collect floating rubbish in estuaries and currents for example, and volunteer groups made an important difference at the local level. But collectively, this noble activity, recorded here, was not going to stem the tide of plastic waste flowing into the environment or ever clean it up. 

All that changed when a group of wealthy activists convinced a consortium of 35 world leaders to join them for the first Global Environmental Crisis Congress in 2021, (GECC21). Conceived over a beer in a luxury Fijian beach resort, GECC21 has become one of the most important meetings in world history. 

When 2 tech billionaires holidaying together with their families watched a turtle, mortally wounded by the plastic waste cutting into it flesh, die in front of their children they became frustrated. Even there, at the zenith of luxury, they still couldn’t escape the scourge of pollution and they resolved to do something about it. They went on to convince over 25 of the world’s leading scientists, environmentalists, philanthropists and technologists to join them for a meeting in Fiji in 2021, that group went on to recruit a further 35 of the world’s most influential political leaders and GECC21 was born.  China, a nation that suffered the negative impacts of domestic and imported plastic pollution more than most, chaired the meeting with courage and determination and, in doing so, took its position as world leader on environmental protection. That incredible meeting allocated a budget of $100Bn over 10 years to removing plastic from our environment and spawned 25 separate initiatives even before its delegates had flown home. The inspirational leadership of that small group, ‘The 60’ as they are now known, was the spark that lit the flame.

Initial losses

The injection of funds and high-level support created a surge of enthusiasm which we were initially not able to convert into tangible success. Significant sums were squandered on disagreements over strategy, and ideation or research and development that failed to convert into beneficial outcomes. That all changed in 2022 when effort was refocused on output and a much more structured and disciplined approach to innovation. This helped us better assess our opportunities and more efficiently deliver tangible benefits. We were suddenly able to assimilate ideas and close failing projects faster which, in turn, freed resources to concentrate on those projects that were going to make a significant difference. Once this happened, a coherent strategy quickly emerged and far from quashing creativity, this controlled, effective approach to innovation emboldened free thinkers to act. 

The Turning Point

Our first major victory was bacteria that literally eats polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic and breaks it down into harmless by-products. Originally discovered in 2016 by Shosuke Yoshida, funds from GECC21 enabled researchers to quickly, 24 months, breed a new strain of bacteria that ate and reproduced faster and also excreted a carbon-based waste product that could be used as fuel. The fear that these bacteria could cause harm to man-made structures if allowed to breed freely in the environment were mitigated by confining them to purpose built power stations. There are now over 30 Microbiological Power Plants across the world, devouring over 100M tonnes of plastic and producing 50M tonnes of fuel which converts in to 100Bn kWh of electricity per year at 2000kWh/tonne.

Our second victory was the investment we made in the Global Habitat Reconstruction Project which has seen 90M hectares of land re-greened to forest and scrubland. This reforestation vastly reduced the cost of wood products and created or re-created whole woodland industries. When combined with advances in material science and additive manufacture, also enabled by the GECC21 Fund, this changed the economics of plastic production by enabling cheap and plentiful wood pulp products, 3D printed at the point of need, to reclaim the packaging market. As a result of this initiative alone it is estimated that global plastic production dropped by 25%. This progress continues, and this year I am pleased to announce that it has reversed the global loss of woodland and scrubland habitats from 30M hectares per year in 2019 to a net increase of 20M hectares predicted for this year.

Another leap forward came when we harnessed the combinatorial power of satellite imagery services and artificial intelligence to better target our efforts. By observing and learning how plastic was getting into the environment, where it was and where it was likely to move to, we were able to apply all our other efforts more efficiently. The investments we made here also enabled the development of a fleet solar power drones which now orbit the globe at high altitude continuously looking for and monitoring pollutants of all kinds in our environment. 

It is true to say that autonomously harvesting plastic from the environment proved to be a difficult challenge but, after a number of false starts, we now have access to a myriad of autonomous and manned machines to help us remove plastic from wherever it can be found. Our beaches are now patrolled by autonomous rakes, our oceans, rivers and lakes by fleets of surface and subsurface vehicles that can identify and filter plastics of all types and sizes. Some of the cleverest of these even use the plastic they harvest to power themselves and, other than maintenance, can effectively run unmanned ad infinitum. When accurately targeted to specific locations by our intelligence systems, the thousands of these machines that we have deployed achieve incredible results and are currently removing over 50M tonnes of plastic waste a year from the environment.

Acceleration

But this was just the start. The incredible profitability of the new ‘Reverse-plastic Industry’ also led to a vast wave of new investment which has tripled the original GECC21 fund. Tangible progress and real success had also regained the trust of our best thinkers, some of whom had, perhaps, begun to lose faith in our ability to make a positive difference.

Sudden liquidity combined with the brightest minds on the planet led, in turn, to ambitious new initiatives. Like recycling techniques that enable previously unusable plastics to be tuned into useful products. These products include a revolutionary new building material that has enabled architects to reduce construction costs by up to 10% while improving the thermal properties of buildings thereby reducing their reliance on heating and air conditioning. It is estimated that by 2040, this material will have helped remove over 100M tonnes of plastic from the environment and prevented 10M tonnes of CO2 emissions through building efficiencies.  

Additionally, we are now able to make biodegradable plastics from plants that have superior properties to almost all their oil-based alternatives. These materials are used in a myriad of domestic and industrial roles and there are currently over 1000 new companies worldwide farming the required plants and manufacturing these specialist materials. Perhaps the most incredible of these is the structural material that has been used to build large sections of the Mars Explorer capsule which is currently orbiting the Red Planet with 5 brave astronauts aboard. When Mexican researcher, Sandra Pascoe Ortiz, first published her work in 2019, I wonder if she ever imagined that people would fly to Mars in a vehicle made from her Cactus!

Culture 

I could go on. But, as you know, technology provided only half the answer. We the people also had to take responsibility for our actions. The Global Responsibility to Dispose Programme meant that citizens of signatory nations were obliged by law to pick up and safely dispose of plastic waste wherever they encountered it. This was a huge cultural leap for the peoples of many nations, but its effect has been profound. 6.5Bn of the world’s population is now bound by law to safely dispose of plastic waste wherever they encounter it and regardless of whether or not they were responsible for its presence in the environment. 6.5Bn people collecting just a single gram of plastic each day recovers 6.5M kg of plastic each day. Such is the global enthusiasm for this initiative that we are achieving much more than that with estimates ranging from 10000 to 100000 tonnes of harmful waste being removed every day by people power alone. 

Perhaps the biggest change has been the change in the global cultural paradigm that the aggregation of these marginal gains has driven. Across the vast majority of the globe it is now culturally unacceptable to allow plastic into the environment and, although reinforced by the Global Responsibility to Dispose Programme, its power very rarely needs to be invoked, such is the global support for plastic eradication. 

Conclusion

Ladies and gentlemen, we, the people, have taken responsibility for our home and we are making it clean again. It gives me overwhelming pleasure to be able to confirm that, if we maintain the current rate of progress, we will soon have removed from our environment 99% of the 8.5 billion metric tons of plastic ever produced. 

David Attenborough, the presenter of Blue Planet II, who is now approaching his 104th Birthday, could not have known what an impact the Blue Planet II series would have. I had the privilege of a brief meeting with him earlier this year in which he expressed delight at the progress made but he left me in no doubt that there was much work still to be done.

Call to Action

With that in mind I implore all countries here represented to support GECC 2030 later this year which will now shift its focus to the next grand challenge, the maintenance of global biodiversity to support human well being. It will be a challenging road but no more so that the one we have just been down. And now, with one victory in sight, we know that we have the resolve, skill and determination to succeed in this, our next grand endeavour. 

Thank you all for your time. Congratulations to you and your citizens on our, their, astonishing achievement. Thank you.

Written by Adie Holt 2019, not by the UN Secretary General...yet.

P.S. Dear Sir David, hope you don't mind me guessing at a quote from the future you. Thank you.