"Circular Economy" -hacking a broken system while building a new future | Harald Friedl | TEDxTirana

[Music] hello Vania hello Tirana so I want to tell you a people's story that connects me with you and everything would be experiencing at the moment in the world and the story starts in my childhood obviously my mother always says that I was like this why why why I was inquisitive child why are there more poor people on the roads why are some countries richer than others why are we solving this problem like this it's another smarter way of doing it now I have kids by my own and one of them especially has such an inquisitive mind about two months ago which was the birthday of my three children they all born in the same week and the little one who is seven he was sitting there and as he was blowing out the candle I was thinking how is his future gonna look like and my inquisitive mind brought me to a whole soul search in the last 10 years I went international from my home country interviewed people I had a tough time with myself sometimes didn't want to get out of bed because I couldn't figure out the meaning and what it meant to me and what my life and my position in life was in the rightest book but an Australian nurse and she's also sketching out what do people really think about the end of their lives and these people normally we would assume are not lying and it comes down in my positions in my research I came down to four things that really matter in life you know taking away economic realities you have to work yes true you want to love and be in relationships all of this but what really really met us what they can't debate away a connection community sharing collaboration when I think about the future they want to give to my children and they should have I'm also thinking about the beautiful landscapes and it was lucky enough to see such a beautiful landscape when I travel to Green and the second-biggest icecap of the world a huge fridge and I was hanging there out with some locals and they are telling the stories when you're sitting in there in front of their eyes that they're very proud of did a terrific they say Harold you are here now at the ground zero of climate change you can see firsthand here when the ice is melting what climate change is doing they also described how it sounds to them what the ice is doing they said the ice is crying Harold the ice is crying because it makes funny sounds when the air disappears and comes through the cracks when the ice is melting and to say that 10,000 rivers now flowing from the ice into the ocean and these were many many many less still a couple of years ago and I was thinking they are all this is not the future at the birthday of my kids that I told you about was also my son's first birthday and this our designer put on this sheet together because thought is such a beautiful contradiction this guy is born in its first birthday and in the same week in the same week I'm reading an article about Japanese scientists that found the deepest bottom of the ocean in the Mariana Trench and here you see on the picture the ocean has spilled there are more plastic in the next 12 years than fish everybody knows this so many people talking about it over dinner a couple of weeks ago I was talking to a colleague of mine who is working a lot in Brazil and Brazil and the Amazon is considered something like the lungs of our planet it filters out a lot of the dirt that is going out in our atmosphere and then he told me something I didn't know and was really really shocking I hadn't thought about it he said listen if this is continuing for four to five more years only four to five more years this ecosystem is functioning on its own it's not gonna function anymore it's gonna be replaceable damaged and we all know what happens when a listening a living system loses its lung functions and then we are not talking even about economic and financial problems differential crisis ten years ago happened with a big bang the whole the whole world was shaken but it a system really change I was safe now that the same thing doesn't happen again and when you looking at social inequality that 1% of the world has an accumulated wealth that is bigger than 99% or is the same as 99% of the rest of the world it's just unbelievable and when you look at this statistic yes it's true that in terms of GDP of gross domestic products our richness is increasing we are doing better this is a graph that is showing this over the last decades in America but in terms of development as humans you are sowing is seeing what the red line is showing we've been going sideways we have not going up because this line also takes into consideration of economic issues but also social and environmental so we're talking about social inequality we're talking about environmental problems we are talking about an economic system that is not fit anymore this is not a system as see fit for any of you and that's not for my children I want to talk about this guy because it's at the heart of everything at the heart of everything we have maneuvered ourselves into a linear economy a linear economy has been driving a lot of the negative consequences we are seeing now and in the cart of the linear economy is a take make in the waste economy and we are very much part of this and the recently read that's why I put this guy here pig pig is the new thing it's the problem of immediate gratification we want and we want more we want ever more and more and more it's a very one-dimensional system we're getting the resources out of the planet somewhere we are producing something we're using it and then we're throwing it away and this applies to many things many things if a data life the things we wear the washing machines we use the phones we use and the pile on the right here the red thing it's in incineration most of these things are never making it back into a system but how stupid is this so we have maneuvered ourselves into the wrong direction consumerism was very much at the heart of this and yes the linear system has also brought us a lot of wealth for some it has brought this additional income for some but overall it has brought as an incredibly negative toxic cocktail of negative consequences it's not a system I want to see for the future the system I want to see is a circular system and for this we need a true systems heck we need to build the systems heck around things that matter a meaning economy about sharing about community about connectivity because this is what matters to us and in my vision for the future for our children a circular system is the way to go because it looks very much what is reality and reality is the things are systems it's a very beautiful system it's taken out of nature but there are other systems you a system your family is a system it business is a system your families countries or systems cities a city is a classical example of a system it's not going in a lion yes interaction between the different parts it's the ecology of things that matters and the question is now how can we develop in such a system a system an economy that works and I truly believe that the circular economy has a real opportunity to be such a system that works for our children and they want to see for mine why because it looks first at renewable energy it doesn't look anymore at energies that we are running out of oil for example the whole energy transition is very very important and in Holland where I live at the moment the public transport system is very good because it's taking part of this already the whole electric electrically driven trains are now run through green energy that's a huge step forward I also believe that the circle economy is a system that works for future generations because it's trying to see how we can use things smarter how we can use them longer and I'll give you a very practical example we have worked with a big company that makes machineries for hospitals and obviously these hospitals they help people and so we took the job to try to help them don't think in a way that you sell more machines to the world because this is an old way of thinking if you want to be relevant in the future think how you can get more words out for the people that you're trying to serve and how do you make this at a better price so we developed a circular system where they are taking back all the machines into their remanufacturing hub out of this they are making new machinery you're not do not put somewhere in the landfill thirdly I think a circular economy is a real answer for a future system that we want to see because it looks at designing out waste at reducing waste but eliminating waste hopefully and the most radical examples that we although many know is Spotify so what if I has revolutionized a whole industry and now when you learn to listen to more music it's not anymore about buying new cities buying new CD players which would be obviously negative for the environment in its impact now it's about making it available and the great thing about a circular economy that makes me so passionate about it is it's grounded in entrepreneurial realities we want to get the best out of human race innovation entrepreneurship we're using technology for solutions that we hadn't thought are possible and it's about radical collaboration we started to work with the textile chain and textile chain is very problematic in its negative consequences but they only started to find out solutions when all the guys who were part of the textile supply chain set in one room all this different ability and opportunities came up it was about transparency and vertical collaboration it's a very difficult thing to achieve and this is not only what is happening in in cities it's not only happening in businesses and here I'll just show you on one map that we are really trying to have less on the right side you have less waste but you're trying to loop back everything into the system it's not only happening in businesses and this is the interesting thing and why I think this is going to be a real movement a revolution businesses get involved but it's on the cities and governments are getting involved I moved my family at least in Asia before I lived I live now in Holland because the Dutch government said in 2050 in thirty two years from now our country wants to be a hundred percent circular and I think they have not a great deal of idea how this can look like but the ambition is there and the whole country started to work it's incredible the energy that is there it's a businesses working together civil society organizations the government local governments it really gives hope one city we are working with we found something very simple and something very nice as an example to show we found out that there's a lot of food waste and when we look and start to work with the city and you see this here on this plan on this map on this graph we are mapping out how things flows through a city because the city is an organism I told you this before it's a system so when you look at then all these things are flowing through the city and then you have to think okay how can we make this smarter how come in avoid waste how we can can make connections and when you start to think about this you're getting a very different picture you're starting to see cycles everywhere and then one one party stood up in our meeting and said there's so much bread wasted a third of the bread produced every single day is being wasted and then the beer brewing company said oh it's fantastic we can use all of this we just make beer from this and it's an example is very simple and there's more complicated ones but it shows how one part of a system see something is waste and a different one that would like to pay for it and now it's hard Tech it's a beer like she tastes quite good there's made from bread which a concrete outcome of our work there and the good thing it's not only happening in Western Europe or in Europe or the America they're developing countries emerging economies coming and saying how can we use this new way of thinking a circle economy is a true answer here how you can develop a pathway that is human centric that is the low carbon based and it's innovative and it's good for the people and the social causes so when you apply this lens of a circular economy this way of thinking in systems you come to whole ocean but reality check when we did a study of the whole world how circular the world actually is it's quite depressing the world economy at the moment is only nine point one percent circular meaning 90 plus percent are never making it back in a system it's waste the land field they are burnt it's really wasted but I'm hopeful that this can change and why because people start to ask the right questions and that's where it all starts and they ask me and so what can I personally do and then I have to be careful because I don't believe that only consumers will change everything it has to come together with businesses together with governments but we have a role to play and I'm going to give you an example I brought it all the way carrot I took a decision for my family that we don't want to buy them anymore in supermarkets a I don't trust anymore what is in it I don't know where it's precisely coming from a lot of the food we see in supermarkets comes from abroad and also the taste has been going down its quality I think so we my family signed up with the co-operative with a farmer we investing in a farmer and this farmer is producing food vegetables so be an investor in him and there are several investors and the interesting thing is it gives me a say in how he grows the food he is changing his business model because at the beginning of the year he knows how much membership money how much money he is making he's not dependent anymore at the resource that he gets out of his land at the end of the year he is in a better position I am in a good position because I know how this food is grown the fantastic thing I can go with my kids there we plant the food we do the whole thing they actually know how carrot smells and how it grows I know because we agreed we don't use artificial fertilizer we use the bio waste from the surroundings and it works and the nice thing is and to me that a typical example a thing but I believe this is where the circular economy can look like you're building community my kids hanging out there with elderly people who don't have a job anymore and they can volunteer they love it you'd love to grow food people who have time devote their time and we spent time together on the weekends there second example [Applause] [Music] second example my mom always asks me what are you wearing and I never cared really I was a guy who yeah I didn't care so much what I wear just has to be functional you know you go quickly into a shop shop this clothes you buy several things you maybe think okay size color fine but then when I started to work on circular economy topics this is not a choice anymore you can't go and just buy you need to know what you buy the textile industry is the second most polluting industry in the world and I'd like to see it differently it's the biggest chance for us to change something but we need to engage so I have two examples I have secondhand choose which is very circular this is good and I have least jeans from a company called merchants from the from Holland what is the least gene mean they don't belong to me anymore I'm a poor man but it feels very light it's very good the company has an interest when they least a changed and they bring back the change when I don't want it anymore or want a different one they are taking it back maybe somebody else gets it and the end of its life it's shredded it's put into small pieces and it's going back into the process that is guarded by this company and they're making inews jeans a really smart solution again good for me because I have the feeling I contribute in the right way and making good decisions good for society and globally it's a huge topic that is starting to textile industry number three [Applause] fons we all have them in our pockets or somewhere else and sometimes even the materials the items we are using to connect to each other can be forces for good I think this one is a really fantastic example it's a company called fair form and I always smile because it says actually the change is in your hands they started off as an initiative to try to tell people and educate people about do you know where the stuff that is in in phones where this is coming from and when you dig deeper it's always coming from the same countries and a lot of the materials that are in they are very rare they called a rare earth tungsten for example that is used in a thing that makes the phone vibrate it comes from conflict-ridden areas and on the social side because again it's a business that is taking its values very serious they are saying we are trying to change also the value chains they are trying to go into these countries to find ways on finding fair ways and engaging the co-workers so real with just this phone a real revolution is spreading into all currents of the value chain and let me try to come to an end now so give you three examples and how we dress how we communicate with each other on what we eat and these are very much at the core of what needs to change if we want to change this number because the world is only nine point one percent circular the global economy is nine percent for in circular and we have to change it is a big way ahead it's not acceptable but you can also say it's a good challenge and we're gonna take on this challenge and I'm hopeful because people asking and starting to ask the right questions and if you have questions then please sign up at world circular economy days dot org we've started to build a global movement there are many organizations is starting to to sign up its gonna be a movement that brings together people with questions because none of them are very easy and we can only solve them together and people with answers who have tried to do this for a while because they are out there it's only about actioning them if you agree with the way I describe the circle economy and how the meanings of life around sharing community and connectivity have to come together in a new economic system then I ask you please give us a fighting chance you me our kids our communities our cities our businesses and our governments that we make a circle economy a reality because many people have been searching for a long time including me I know truly truly believe a circular economy is a key to many of the answers we have been so long trying to achieve thank you [Applause] [Music]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 192,047

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, Global Issues, Change, Economics, Environment, Industrial design, Life, Life Development, Life Hack

Id: _PKbUFJ3Iu4

Length: 22min 45sec (1365 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 29 2018