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Yasmin Ahmed & Emma Grace Bailey
Despite this rallying opening cry from Harriet Lamb, CEO of WRAP, what followed was a series of discussions on how hard it is to change the status quo. Luckily, a strong and persistent narrative from the material innovators in the room demonstrated that change is possible today. We just need to stop looking for reasons why it won’t work, and truly embrace the possibilities of what next-gen solutions can offer - even if they look different to what we’re used to.
As ever, plastic was heralded as the bar we need to meet with the next wave of materials, and it’s here that a radical undoing of our collective bias clearly needs to happen. As Sonalie Figueiras, CEO and founder of Source Green, put it: “The way we think about the industry and how we solve the problem is lacking. Why do we need 1:1 solutions for plastic? Where can we accept compromise? Plastic is held up as a benchmark when all its externalities aren’t factored into its costs.”
While there will always be reasons not to take action - lack of legislation, lack of data, and lack of supposed consumer buy-in were all floated as barriers to change - the reality is we have to. The consensus at the end of the 48-hour summit was that we have the tools to do so, now we need the drive.
Discover five key themes that emerged over the course of the event, giving insights into the challenges that lie ahead, as well as the sheer scale of possibility available to those willing to take it on.
Just as the petrochemical industry mobilised across the entire value chain to bring what was a very expensive and very new material to market, the same "cross-pollination" is needed for biomaterials to gain ground today. As ever, this collaborative narrative was identified as a key driver of change across the two day event, with everyone from startups to corporate investors alike recognising the need for partnerships to scale alternatives to fossil fuel materials. A spirit of collaboration was called for between legislators, brands, systems providers, and waste management players, who together can build a regulatory framework and operational infrastructure that will facilitate the transition. John Bissel, co-CEO and founder of Origin Materials, said that while "the historical knowledge of how to grow a scalable and operative materials industry has gone, we’re blazing that trail all over again. We’ve done it before and we can do it again.”
But we actually need to do it. While collaboration holds many of the answers, the industry is still reticent to dive in and join forces with not only their own supply chains, but their competitors. PlasticFree’s co-founder, Sian Sutherland, stated in her keynote address that now is the time to switch from "think tanks to action tanks", a sentiment reinforced by Stuart Chidley, co-founder of Beauty Kitchen and Re, who said plainly "don’t talk about collaboration. Collaborate." Encouragingly, investors at the event were actively on the hunt to do just that, recognising the role they play in pairing the fast-moving innovation found in startups with the slow-moving but scaling capacity of corporate entities. Voicing their hunger for surprising and inspirational innovations that are beyond the current understanding of corporations, they called on scaled businesses to adopt 'maverick thinking', encouraging them not to think of startups as an average supplier, and instead assume some of the risk involved in bringing these much needed materials to market.
Despite being dedicated to the next generation of materials, the summit highlighted that confusion exists within the world of biomaterials itself - so much so that industry players are operating with an inconsistent understanding of what they actually are. From bioplastics to industrially compostable substrates, anything that wasn't a fossil fuel plastic appeared to fall under the biomaterial moniker, leading to calls for universal definitions and standards to facilitate both industry and consumer adoption. Thibaut Monfort-Micheo, co-founder of algae-based material provider FlexSea, even went as far as to suggest that "we should ban the use of the term compostable when it only means industrially compostable". Others noted that the unregulated language around these concepts is becoming self-serving and tokenistic, resulting in an accidental, lazy, or at times "intentionally deceitful" greenwashing trend that is blurring the lines for markets and consumers.
It was also apparent that biomaterial alternatives are still facing resistance, despite them offering "the best of both worlds", as the CEO and co-founder of Shellworks, Insiya Jafferjee, noted. "They are recyclable, if we invest in the infrastructure; efficient and effective; and they can even degrade in the environment." The lack of uptake was attributed to unnecessarily high expectations of alternative materials, which ironically aren’t applied to plastic, stifling progression before it’s even started and acting as a "poison pill for new material innovation", according to Bissel. And while creators of these materials are in full agreement that there is no one-size-fits-all solution - "We know seaweed isn’t going to replace every single piece of plastic, but we’re focused on where it has the best and most impactful use case," said Notpla's co-founder Pierre Paslier - there is a vital need for the industry to change its perception of plastic so it is no longer the bar that all new materials need to meet. As Figueiras remarked, "we don’t need to tick every plastic box to replace it" - and why would we want to, when we're often using a material designed to last forever to create items that are used for minutes.
Disappointingly, the threat to human health posed by plastic at every stage of its life cycle was barely mentioned throughout the summit, a narrative that's essential for a fast and scalable switch to alternative materials, and one that should form the cornerstone of transition. It was evident that the industry has yet to recognise the scale of the threat, instead making calls for more studies and data to validate the claims. But the threat is coming. Researchers and scientists have categorically established "direct cause-and-effect links" between human exposure to everyday plastics and the body’s hormone systems. The chemical components of widely used plastics are now known as endocrine disruptors, leading to reproductive health complications, brain health issues, obesity, diabetes, and a number of cancers. Mounting evidence has already set the precedent for a materials transition, and Figueiras was uncompromising on this: "plastic isn’t safe to use."
While both public and industry awareness remains low at present, conjoined efforts by the newly launched Plastic Health Council - made up of A Plastic Planet, Plastic Soup Foundation, and 17 of the world's leading scientists and thought leaders on the issue - will spearhead action, regulation, and education. As public awareness grows, consumer pushback against this miracle yet toxic material will undoubtedly grow too, and given that "most people are much more motivated by personal health than environmental health," the impact on businesses will be fast and forceful. Innovating away from plastic today will future-proof a brand for tomorrow.
Recycling is still regarded as the gold standard of circularity, touted as the solution to the plastic waste problem. This belief, while heavily discredited, was at the forefront of conversations at the summit, highlighting the ongoing prevalence of recycling tunnel vision. For context, the industry has been attempting to make plastics circular for over 50 years, but the numbers don't reflect the effort. A 2022 Greenpeace report revealed that of the 51 million tonnes of plastic waste generated by US households in 2021, only 2.4 million tonnes was recycled. And even when it is reclaimed, plastic waste is "environmentally harmful to reprocess, often made of contaminated toxic materials, and not economical to recycle". Despite these findings, recycling remains one of the biggest sticking points in sustainability. Material innovators talked confidently about how their material could be recycled, while using recycled content to create new products was discussed as a given. This is in spite of the fact that corporates admitted there simply isn’t enough of a waste stream to do so, making the use of recycled content "incredibly expensive and competitive to implement", according to Farida Bensadoun, a packaging innovation manager at AB InBev.
To truly achieve circularity we must prioritise the two Rs that come before recycling in the hierarchy - reduce and reuse - something that Colin Kerr, Unilever's global head of packaging supports. "We look at recycling as a solution only if there is infrastructure in place," he said. "We believe that there are multiple potential solutions and we look at each one through the lens of consumer potential, technological potential, and end-of-life possibilities." The summit showcased a number of reuse business models to support this notion. From Again's cleaning infrastructure for packaging deposit return schemes, to Reath's data-powered, reusable packaging tracking platform, the consensus was clear - we must keep our products in use for far longer than we do. When products do reach their end-of-life - or "end of use", as Chidley put it - they should be able to fit into nature's infinite system of circularity, transformed back into nutrients and used as fuel for the next iteration of life. Pioneers such as Shellworks, FlexSea, and Notpla all took to the stage to showcase the possibilities of drawing on nature's own chemistry to create materials fit for both people and planet.
Designers have a significant role to play in making emerging materials desirable and fit for purpose, and the need for the creative community to unearth the possibilities of these new materials was a clear takeaway for all. But designers can't do it alone. Without being involved in conversations between businesses and material scientists from the beginning, the power of the creative mind to generate desire won't be realised. It was also evident that the focus needs to shift away from making a 'sustainable' product, to making a better one, with Pangaia’s Dr Amanda Parkes explaining that the Silicon Valley boom was driven by new products that people wanted, rather than what they needed. The world of new materials has to offer an attractive proposition that consumers can buy into, and designers must be bold and courageous in showcasing how it can be done. In other words, these materials shouldn't be restricted to the 'green' list, only used when a brand wants to nod to being better, and instead be seen by designers as powerful tools for change with the ability to make a design even better, even more useful and even more desirable than it was.
Radek Wojcik, creative director of design studio Made Thought, acknowledged that the design community is in the middle of a materials transition, meaning that "we are also in the middle of a mindset transition," calling on bold and brave brands to be the first to stand up and take a risk on new materials to show that it can be done. He explained that "the biggest pushback I get from brands when I suggest new materials is still how scalable they are," but it only takes one to lead for the rest to follow. To successfully marry the needs of tomorrow with the materials of today, the design lens must rise above the concept of convenience too, looking beyond what is merely realistic. As Chidley insisted, "unrealistic and achievable is innovation", and our fear of failure has to be abandoned.
