January 29, 2025 • 48 mins
From the $50 billion forest-carbon market to 50,000 tons of waste being transformed into textiles, disruptive solutions will likely be key to moving toward a so-called nature positive economy. In this episode of Bloomberg Intelligence’s ESG Currents podcast, Grace Osborne, BI’s ESG integration analyst for EMEA, is joined by Tracy Farrell, CEO of the IUCN-US, and Giulio Bonazzi, CEO of Aquafil, in two conversations. These leaders discuss the multifaceted ways the world is moving to mitigate biodiversity loss, including bridging the estimated $942 billion biodiversity-financing gap and revolutionizing the use of recycled materials to enable companies such as Prada to Gucci to reduce their impact on the planet.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
ESG has become established as a key business theme as
companies and investors seek to navigate the climate crisis, energy transition,
social mega trends, mounting regulatory attention and pressure from other stakeholders.
The rapidly evolving landscape has become inundated with acronyms, buzzwords
and lingo, and we aim to break these down with
industry experts. Welcome to ESG Currents, your guide to navigating
(00:34):
the evolving ESG space, one topic at a time, Brought
to you by Bloomberg Intelligence, part of Bloomberg's research department
working across all major world markets. I am Grace Osborne,
a mere ESG integration analyst, and your host for today's episode.
According to the World Economic Forum, transitioning to a more
(00:54):
nature positive economy could unlock up to ten trillion dollars
and business opportunities. Shifting financial flows away from activities that
damage nature and towards less harmful alternatives presents one of
the most promising and immediate avenues for nature related investment,
with the quest to halt and reverse biodiversity loss creating
a new imptus both for companies and innovative financial solutions
(01:17):
to mitigate the drivers of nature loss. In today's episode,
we will hear from two of our panelists from our
conference last December, Tracy Fowll, the CEO of the International
Union for Conservation of Nature US and North American Regional
director for the IUCN, and Julia Bonatzi, the CEO of Ackville.
(01:38):
So first up our discussion with Tracy to set the
scene on why we need to be bridging what's estimated
as a nine hundred and forty two billion dollar biodiversity
financing gap, and the role that private finance will take
in this and the need to step up. Tracy is
a driving force behind efforts to protect biodiversity. Most recently,
(01:59):
she has been leading initiatives which bridge the gap between
public and private sector and conservation finance projects valued over
five hundred million dollars. I'm very much looking forward to
getting Tracy's insights on conservation and buidbacity financing landscape. Welcome, Tracy,
thank you, it's great to be here. I guess to
start with and for those who are maybe not familiar,
(02:21):
could you give us a brief explanation of what the
ICN does and why it's so critical in today's world.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Absolutely so.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature was formed
about seventy six years ago, right after World War Two,
and the idea was to conserve resources equitably and sustainably
for people. So we operate in about sixty three.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Or so countries.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
We work on policy, we work on science best practice
to try and really link those really key issues of conservation.
So how do you conserve resources so that people can
benefit from them, how do you conserve biodiversity, and how
do you make sure that there's equitable and fair access
to those resources.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
So a pretty critical.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Role in today and what we're seeing in the nature
landscape as well, and natural capital loss at the rate
we're currently seeing, it'd be great to kind of hear
what you've seen as the evolution in regards to kind
of the nature financing landscape. It has evolved quite significantly,
so it'd be really great to get insights on this.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Absolutely yeah, it's been really fascinating. So I started on
this journey in sort of the late eighties early nineties,
and that was one Sustainable development was the it thing.
It was new, it was exciting. The promise and the
hope was that we would be able to link social
economic and ecological slash environmental factors and try and make
(03:46):
economies grow under that framework of sustainable development. And so
initially the financing ideas kind of came out of resource economics.
So we were doing things like trying to to make
how far are people willing to drive to get to
the Grand Canyon, and what kind of expenses do they
make along the way, what restaurants do they go to,
(04:08):
what do they pay for gas? So things like that
were called the travel cost method, and then you were
able to give an estimate of Okay, well, I guess
if we're going to Yellowstone or Eusemite or wherever, people
are willing to pay or have invested X number of
dollars to get there. So that was sort of our
initial foray, and then we got a little bit more
sophisticated and started looking at how can we understand the
(04:32):
value of ecosystem services? So that already seems a bit wonky,
but the basic idea is that the nature that we
survive and thrive from has value beyond just.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
The fact that it exists.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
So nature gives us clean air, clean water, and make
sure that we're protected from storms in addition to providing
those recreational benefits. So then the sort of financing evolved
into well, how do we actually value things like forest carbon,
how do we value water? And we've done a great
deal of work and some pretty interesting stuff. So the
(05:08):
forest carbon market is now very sophisticated and will be
about fifty billion in another couple of years, So that's amazing.
The idea of being able to create value from standing
forest or restored forests is pretty special. And then water
as well, investing in watershed restoration and providing value to
the role that forests play in retaining and regulating water flows.
(05:32):
So this has a huge amount of benefits of avoiding sentimentation,
then you don't clog dam turbines. So these sort of
finance schemes have gotten more and more sophisticated, and now
we're into even more future futuristic thinking how do we
do biodiversity credits. So that's a very interesting space, I
(05:52):
would say, very early in its development.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Yeah, and I think is so interesting to hear how
you kind of started and where things are going and
seeing that shift and having kind of financing a forest
is amazing standing or restoration, and you mentioned the kind
of biodiversity credits what kind of opportunities do you see
it here and are there any kind of challenges you
see around by diversity credits.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
Yeah, it's it's really interesting because it kind of goes
a little bit contrary to the other markets. So the
other markets are based on this idea of the fact
that you can understand and generate a value, and it's
almost like there's a like like so a forest carbon
credit is a credit anywhere. So once you've done the
(06:37):
evaluation and the assessment and the verification, a forest credit in.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
The Congo is the same as.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
It could be in Washington State, So that becomes easier
to kind of understand.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
It's like like it's tradable.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
It's it's able to be universally understood, and you can
invest and sell those those credits on the market for biodiversity. Though,
we're still looking at what's that unit, what's that common
kind of metric or thing that you're measuring.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
It's not trees, it's not sort of a hector.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
It's kind of like a hector with lots of different
benefits in it. So that's been a little bit tricky,
but we're getting closer. We've come up with a few
interesting metrics. So my organization, the International Union for the
Conservation of Nature, has come up with one metric that
helps you kind of understand where might you get the
best bang for your buck if you invest in either
(07:33):
conservation or restoration, and then that helps you get to
like like so that you can understand, oh, okay, if
I invest in this particular project in the Congo, it
is going to be equal to this kind of set
of biodiversity benefits in Washington State.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
So we're getting there.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
But it is still i'd say there's a bit of
work to do to make this a little bit easier
to distill and certainly easier for investors.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
To be able to invest in.
Speaker 4 (07:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Absolutely, I think that's definitely being one of the kind
of key challenges as people being able to get their
head around this idea of kind of an ecosystem benefit.
Whereas for the carbon market, Okay, one ton of carbon
here at equals x, and it's kind of got that
like for like and being able to put place a
value on I guess one aspect of a system because
we've removed that that could have kind of quite knock
(08:19):
on effects throughout the system. So quantifying that is is
a challenge. I think interestingly, at COP sixteen, where the
focus was really meant to be on finance, we actually
only saw about one hundred and sixty three million dollars
pledged towards the GBF fund. Do you think that private
investment has the opportunity to really bridge this gap?
Speaker 3 (08:42):
Yeah, it's a it's a great question. So the Global
Bidiversity Framework, the initial idea was to kind of advance
where we'd gotten two in the last round, so everyone
was very excited in twenty twenty two and looking at okay,
what's the version four point zero, I'm not even sure
we're ver and we're on now, but the convention has
been around for a while, but we really needed to
(09:04):
go much further than just setting biodiversity targets. But the
new framework has ecosystem targets, and it has resource mobilization targets, So,
as you mentioned, there's the idea to really really ramp
up this investment, so we get much more towards seven
hundred billion and even a trillion a year, which really
then kind of.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Closes the gap.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
But the targets are actually pretty interesting because it allows
for public investment, which is mostly what we've had to date,
so most of the two hundred billion or so a
year is coming from developed country governments. It's coming from
also developing country governments doing their own investments in their
own countries, as well as these big multilateral funds like
(09:47):
the Global Environment Facility. That's been great, but there's still
a really big gap, and the hope also in the
Global Biodiversity Framework is that the private sector will will
help us get closer. I'm not sure how far the
overall what the overall balance might be or should be,
but so far we're a little bit far from where
I think we could be. So I think I think
(10:09):
last year was around thirty five billion that was invested
from various private investments and markets. But we'd love to
see that number grow by quite a bit because some
estimates have shown then it really could. So depending on
which framework you look at and which kind of set
of future pathways, we should be able to increase that tenfold.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
I think it's interesting we as we speak to quite
a few different investors, often that kind of saying, oh,
it's just a challenge to kind of get our heads around,
or there's not enough data, but often actually speaks people
really entrenched in in conservation and biaversity work. Actually, there
is a huge amount of data already available. It's about
being able to kind of use this in the right
(10:54):
way their investors can use it to kind of make
investment into bidaversity conservation. I think it's scenario that's going
to need really strong fusion between private finance, scientists, policymakers, expertise,
and also the public sector. Have you seen any examples
of very successful public and private partnerships and financing conservation.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Yeah, there's some.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Really, I just kind of love to go back to
the Costa Rica model, which is I thought a lot
about this question in advance, and there are lots of
I would say, big and smaller scale projects, but there's
only one that I know of that fuse the public
and private opportunities at a countrywide, wide scale, and that's
the Costa Rica example, where they started with somewhere in
(11:43):
the mid nineties they only had twenty five percent of
their force cover left, so massive, massive deforestation, lots of
agricultural development and pressure. And then there was a visionary
in the Minister of Environment at the time who said, well,
what if we could really transform how we value what
we have and really what we have is probably more
(12:03):
of a tourism market. So what would it take to
be able to restore our forests, make sure we have
clean water, and generate revenue from our natural assets. So
that happened over a number of years, and what they
did is they worked with basically worked with fossil fuel industry,
(12:24):
and they also worked with tourism, They worked with agriculture
and said, well, look, this might not be hugely popular,
but we want to add a tax, very small tax
to gasoline that's sold in Costa Rica, and also to water,
very very small tax on water. But we're going to
use that revenue. We'll put it into a fund, and
then that fund is going to go to pay for
(12:45):
farmers who were doing conservation agriculture and being able to
manage their lands in ways that allows for better forest
regeneration and growth, minimizes the total overall clearing. And we
also want to invest in our tourism and in our
water flows, restoring forests so that waters can freely and
not have too much sentiments. So over about twenty years
(13:09):
or maybe thirty years, they did that. So force cover
then doubled, and tourism is now by far the number
one economic earner for the country and continues to be
several years later. So that was a mix that took
the public sector vision and the regulation. As you mentioned,
that's critical the commitment, but also trying to engage those
(13:30):
industries who were of course a little bit reluctant at first,
and the individual farmers and citizens to be able to say,
bear with us, let's get there together, because this could
be incredibly powerful. So it's still the best country wide
example of that I know of how you can really
integrate both the markets, the individuals, citizens, policy, regulation and
(13:51):
get everything to pay for nature.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Yeah, it's amazing, and I think I hadn't even realized
that that kind of transition has cubs in my mind.
I think of cost three Eco as one of the
most bid of a places on Earth as it is today,
and I think that's such a good example of pulling
together all those stakeholders for that kind of benefit and
showing that it can drive economic output by kind of
investing in nature and restoration. I think one of the
(14:17):
metrics that both investors in corporates might be quite familiar
with within when they're looking at their nature impacts or
wide diversity impacts would be the IUCN Red List species metric.
It would be really good to hear kind of more
about that particular metric and also why you think it's
important for corporates and investors to be kind of looking
at this as a metric.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Yes, thank you for asking that.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
That's a kind of an exciting question at the moment
because we're celebrating the Red List sixty year in an grosary,
so go red List after sixty years, still going strong.
And it was the initial thinking that still holds today
is that we need to have a baseline of the
health of species, so which ones are under various levels three.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
At where are they?
Speaker 3 (15:02):
And that helps us both to track progress, but it
also allows for accountability, so that we can see which countries,
which corporations, what kinds of interventions are being implemented, and
what does that do to the species, So do they
become less threatened? Ideally yes, more threatened. It's not what
(15:22):
you want to see, but if you do see it,
it means that we need to course correct. And so
the Red List has been this great baseline tool that
we can use globally. It's a global data set that
gets constantly improved over time. And sadly more and more
species get red listed. So over the course of many,
many years now, we've used the red list to show
(15:43):
that just under eight hundred species have become extinct. So
we have that data, and we also know that a
million or so are at risk. So without this kind
of foundational data set that's been around for sixty years,
there's nothing else that we have that tells us kind
of the status of where we are and what we
can use for KPIs and other metrics to hopefully watch
(16:06):
that trend go up rather than down.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Go the right way. Yeah, I think it's very interesting
because we went through a process of kind of integrating
more biodiversity metrics into things like our ESG scores, and
we were looking at pairing that kind of data and
where kind of company assets lie, so how they might
impact that red list or kind of which ones are
(16:29):
in the realms of their assets. So I think a
really critical kind of list to be looking at and
seeing what impacts they might be having. I think we've
talked a little bit around the rise of biodiversity credits
and obviously nature based solutions, and I guess one challenge
we might see is whether we should be putting a
(16:53):
value on nature. Obviously it's a critical thing in many
ways for us be doing, but might be consider it
a slight kind of moral question as well as whether
we should be booing nature like this.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
And that comes up a lot.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
It's when I mentioned sort of the old school days,
when we were first trying to assign values to resources
sixties and seventies or so, the value for nature onto
itself was known, and it's still known of as intrinsic.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
So it's valuable because it is so.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
That alone might get a little bit lost in the
shuffle of all this excitement around markets and trying to
commodify nature and putting values to various natural assets. So
that is a concern that we here expressed often, and
it is a valid one, because we don't want to
take things so far that we've lost sight of the
(17:44):
fact that nature just is valuable because it's there and
it doesn't have a voice. Species don't have their own voice,
they can't self advocate, so if we don't, then nobody will.
So that's something to not lose in all this thinking,
and maintaining the kind of the purity of that thinking
is very much a value and priority that a UCN
(18:05):
has through its members and through its own values and
mission statement. But I think the flip side is that
the crisis is just so huge and we're not winning
the war on this, we're sliding backwards. The numbers are
pretty scary with the rates of loss and conversion of ecosystems,
(18:26):
so we kind of can't afford not to look at
some of these opportunities. But they need they need to
meet all the standards. They have to be done very well.
We have to make sure that we're accurately valuing the
different benefits. They have to be verified, validated, provide benefits
to the local community that's providing them, and have the
(18:47):
necessary policies education. So there's a lot that needs to
be done to get it right. So it's good to
keep our excitement enthusiasm perhaps a bit in check, to
also remember that the basics are nature is valuable. If
it was recognized for its intrinsic value, then we wouldn't
be here in the first place.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Yeah. Absolutely, I think it's such an interesting question, and
that kind of concept of commodifying nature and the concept
of natural capital could seem like a foreign concept, but
actually we are using it as a kind of an
economic input and it's having an impact, so it's kind
of critical in the fire against by diversity loss. I
(19:26):
think then, just kind of shifting gear and looking ahead,
what do you think are the biggest challenges and opportunities
for meeting the financing gap and what are your kind
of hopes for the future of nature financing.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Yeah, the challenges are big.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
I mentioned the need to get the right methodologies in
place and make sure that we're doing this properly, and
we've had some I'd say we've had some maybe two
steps forward one step back when you look at the
forest carbon market and we've been at this for twenty
plus years, but it's still something.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Where we really need to improve how do we assign
that value?
Speaker 3 (20:04):
And there's been some healthy and good criticism of projects
over the last ten years or so that I have said, well,
wait a minute, this hasn't Some of these haven't really
generated the same kind of credits that we thought that
they would, and the methodology is a little bit funky
perhaps and needs to be improved, so we do need
to That's one of the things I'd like to see
(20:25):
is that we continue to refine and improve what we
have I am concerned. I don't want us to throw
the baby out with the bathwater. So although we need
this criticism, I want us to be careful and mindful
that these are still this is what we have. So
if we're going to use various tools to try and
invest in nature, I think we need to keep all
(20:45):
of them in play, including the forced carbon markets, while
also looking at biodiversity credits. Is there a way for
us to better assign value? I think we're making good
strides and we are seeing much more interest in this market,
so I hope that that continues to evolve.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
I also hope.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
That we start to take advantage of the fact that
there is a growing awareness interest. I think among general
society that huh, well, things seem to be in trouble,
even if you recognize that as this.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Was a hot summer or that was a really bad rainstorm.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
However, you identify as a human with change and threat
and concern and fear for your own life and your
family's lives and your health and wealth. That's important to
connect to that and get people to start also asking
questions like what can I do with my pension fund?
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (21:38):
Is there a way I can direct my own investments,
and we're starting to see that happen more and more.
So I really just hope to see more and bigger,
and I hope that we get better also at telling
the impact story and the scale. That's the last one
is we still have to evolve what we're doing to
take it to scale, because that's the part where we
(21:59):
really online the big the big bucks from the private markets.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Yeah, absolutely, and really drive drive change. I think more and.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Better is a good place, a good place to end now.
Next up is our discussion with Julia Bonatzi, the visionary
CEO of Akvil, a global leader in sustainable nylon production.
Julio has been at the forefront of innovation in the
textiles industry, driving Akvil's mission to revolutionize the use of
recycled materials, including things like ghost fishing nuts, and create
(22:29):
a more circular economy. With a deep commitment to sustainability
and cutting edge technology, the company is reshaping the textiles industry,
enabling clients from fashion brands to ev producers to meet
their own sustainability goals, reduce their impact on biodiversity, and
meet tightening environmental regulations. Thank you for joining us, Julio.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
Thank you grace. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
So, perhaps to start with giving your impressive career in
the textiles industry, Kadisha, what initially inspired you to focus
on sustainability within the industry.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
Well, this is easy people, for sure, this was back
during the nineties. First of all, I got married in
ninety two, and this is not, you know, not important.
It is important because my wife started the organic farming
during that year for making olive oil and later with
red wines. Then for sure you remember seven Suzuki going
(23:28):
to Rio with that incredible speech, and people like Doug Tompkins,
the founder of the nod face, and last but not least,
Ray Anderson, you know, and Ray Anderson an interface has
really changed a lot my way of thinking later on
always staying, you know, with good people Jennin Venus and
(23:49):
the other unbelievable scientists that have really led me to
understand that it was important to change.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
I think interesting actually people's understanding of some of the
impacts that the textiles industry have. Often they see the
end of life product and they don't really understand the
entire footprint through to their say they're clothing. For example,
an aquafil has really been a leader in the use
of recycled materials, particularly through nylon six recycling, creating a
(24:22):
cyclar economy. It'd be really great if you could talk
us through kind of the process you have in creating
recycled nylon and why it is so significant and reducing
both the climate and nature impacts within the textiles industry,
because I think often we see nature impacts and climate
as two separate entities but actually very much intertwined.
Speaker 4 (24:45):
Yes they are, of course. Well, I like nylon because
it's a very performing molecule, so you can you can
make beautiful products, working and living for long and then
of course also giving a lot of beautiful esthetical solutions.
But in our case, we like to call it ECONYL,
and this is the brand we are selling our nylon.
(25:07):
It's an Ilon, it's an Ilon six in fact, but
instead of using petroleum raw materials, it comes entirely from waste.
So it's an Ilon but with a very different story
and believing in some of these wastes are particularly ugly,
like carpets for example, or fishing nets that we have
to go around the world and to collect them. So
(25:27):
ECONYL is one hundred percent based on waste and these
waste are then transformed into nylon with a very low
carbon footprint, something like minus ninety percent. So it's a
good combination between let's say, changing the nylon to our customers,
but of course without taking any new resource from the planet.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Yeah, I think it's really interesting decoupling that kind of
growth and resource consumption. And I guess in that process
you're not only taking kind of waste out of the environment,
which is critical, but also we look to kind of
reduce end of life waste, and we're seeing kind of
more scrutiny on that as well.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
Well.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
Clearly this is shifting from recycling to circular economy. And
when you speak about recycling, I would say you can
do it by yourself. Yes, you have to create a
new value chain because collecting waste and rescuing waste and
sorting waste it is something that today doesn't exist. But
when you go for circular economical solutions, you have to
(26:34):
work with the entire value change, redesigning and re engineering
products and processes. So really, if you want to have
circular solutions, you have to practice a great eco design project.
So you need, of course collaboration throughout the value chain
and the industry.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
Yeah, and I think that's something we're seeing companies struggle
with quite a lot, actually, like consumer facing brands that
now have more kind of take back and things like this,
but where they have maybe multiple fibers and one item
is actually a really significant challenge in trying to kind
of recycle that end of life.
Speaker 4 (27:10):
Today's generation of product, especially in the apparel or garment industry.
I tell you it's unrecyclable. Of course, you have multiple fabrics,
sometimes multiple fibers inside one single fabric, and then of
course metal components or other plastics. Think about zippers, bottoms
and other paths. So to take back these products and
(27:33):
to recycle them, believe me, it's impossible. So you have
to make them in a different way.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Yeah, it starts. I think that's what people are thinking,
Oh right, at the end of life. Actually, you need
to think about that from the beginning, from the conception,
the design, right from the get go. And I think
the other thing is that obviously we see in the
rise of okay, maybe consumer facing brands, say, for example,
in apparel, you have non zero targets and things like that,
and people may not understand that a significant portion of
(28:00):
the carbon missions come and production of the textiles because
as you said, traditionally it is created using kind of
oil based products. So I think it's important that also
that recycled element is helping cut some of that a
significant portion of the carbon missions to meet some of
these targets.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
It is very important. I think around eighty percent of
the carbon emissions are coming from us, so from us
making the upper part of the process. In particular, also
for me, the biggest part of my carbon emissions are
coming from my suppliers. Of course, petrochemical products are heavily
impacting the environment. So through econil we have worked and
(28:42):
still working hard that you're reducing the carbon footprint. To
give an idea, Sorry about these strange definitions, but the
embedded energies of producing econil is around seventy five percent
lower than the one of the petroleum based nile. Then
with a massive usage of sustainable energies like renewables, of course,
(29:06):
we are able to reduce the impact down to ninety percent,
So we still have another ten percent. We are working
on it. It's a journey, one step at a.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Time, yeah, and that as a substantial drop in order
to kind of help your end clients be able to
meet some of their goals. I guess one thing obviously
at the heart of ESG investing is we're looking at
things that are financially material. It's the belief that environmental
social governance has actually a financial impact on a company
and doing things better. It would be interesting to understand
(29:37):
why kind of the embedding of sustainability into act FILS
textiles offering is providing kind of growth opportunities for the company,
how it's enabling clients who might be under certain regulatary
pressures that we're seeing.
Speaker 4 (29:50):
Well, during your introduction, you've spoken about the ten trillions,
you know, so I still have some room to get there.
But for sure, when you're recycle, you would love to
see For example, in my case, oil price is very
high because sometimes I mean, the trajectories of buying oil
derivatives or collecting waste are very far apart, you know,
(30:13):
in my case, especially when we collect by ourselves our waste.
This can happen in Scandinavia or in South America, in Chile,
when we speak about fishing nets or carpets. In California,
this activity is based on labor, and labor is for
us of course an important cost factor logistical costs, and
(30:34):
then sometimes sorting and disposing eventually what is non recyclable. Then,
of course it's an intense work of research and development
because you have really to bring to the market technologies
that were not existing before. So you have to invest
a lot of money in research development and sometimes capital
expenditures for the say developing the plants and solutions for
(30:58):
recycling these ways. So I mean it's not inexpensive. I
tell you, you have, of course to be ready to spend
a lot of time.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
I can't imagine. And I think what's interesting is that
you have this product that has multiple kind of serving
clients across sectors. It'd be interesting to learn a little
bit more about kind of the different sectors that this
product is serving well.
Speaker 4 (31:24):
The main application to date is still related to the
carpet industry, and also in this field that we have
developed lately, also some interesting solutions for example for transportation
for cruising, a part of course for corporate office applications.
But other than that, textile and we serve the most
(31:44):
famous luxury brands like Prada, Gucci, Stela, McCartney, Louisiton and
many many others. A lot is going into swimwear or
active sportware apparel like your yogaware or pilate ware. For
sure you're having some nylon fiber insight. And later, I
(32:05):
mean about two years ago, we stepped back into the
engineering polymer business or making chips and pellets for the
injection molding, because these can give a lot of synergies.
You can imagine a chair. In a chair, you can
have the plastic part but also the textile part. So
this is very important to deliver solutions to the market.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
It's interesting seeing that kind of cross sector and I
think we're seeing kind of regulations coming in for different
players in different sectors. We have things like the EU
Circular Textiles Directive that's impacting maybe more kind of the
operaile side, Extended Producer Responsibility Act some also some things
(32:45):
that are coming in for car producers as well for
recyclability input. It'd be interesting to hear a bit more
about how you're serving customers and meeting some of those regulations.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
Yes, compliance is a necessity, and believe me that in
Europe there are a lot of regulations, among the most important.
Some years ago we have seen the Single Use Plastic
Directive and inside this there is a branch talking about
the recycling offficionets. Then they approved at least the European
Parliament has approved the Circular Textile Directive, which should be
(33:21):
enforced around or earlier than two thousand and thirty, which
is a kind of very very challenging. Starting from twenty
twenty five, every single member states should create hubs for
collecting of garments at the end of life, for recycling them,
of course, not for disposing. And this summer before the
(33:44):
general elections, the European Parliament has approved the so called
end of life Vehicle Directive, which states that for two
thousand and thirty all the plastic components inside a car
sold into the European Union have at least twenty five
percent of post consumer content. Clearly, to comply with these
(34:05):
regulations is very challenging and you are a risk of
paying big, big fines and tickets. As with Econilla, we
can deliver a lot of solutions, but of course we
need also to work closely with automotive car manufacturers or
with textile producers in order to avoid to pay these fines.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
Yeah, and I think it's interesting. So, for example, within
the automative industry, So this is predominantly that you're helping
them with kind of the carpets for the cars.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Is that correct.
Speaker 4 (34:39):
Well, inside the car, of course you have plastics and
a lot of fibers that are plastics as well, you know,
because synthetic fibers at the end of the day, they
are plastics, and so they have to comply with this.
You have the flooring, you have the car maths, and
you have of course the car interiors like the seeds
or the other part of the interior of a car.
(35:00):
And then you have automotive car makers that are more
pushy or more challenging suppliers to deliver solutions, and others
that are maybe waiting and copying, if I may say so.
But of course there is a lot of plastics and
fibers inside and automotive.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Inside the KAI.
Speaker 4 (35:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
I think it's an interesting way. We have those first
movers that are innovating the space and those.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
I kind of follow to.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
I think it's just interesting to see how different companies
across different sector has been pushed in different ways and
where that kind of potentially means kind of growth opportunities
for acfl and recycled nylon. I think I read that
your sales at the Recycled Fiber has now made about
fifty percent of a total fiber cells.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
Yes, yes, we have. This yearra we will reach fifty
four percent and we have a target to get closer
to sixty percent before the end of next year. Besides percentages,
I like to speak about quantities because I can tell
you in tons or in pounds you know, of course,
depending by the place or where you come from. But
(36:05):
we recycle more than forty five thousand tons per year
of or we produce more than forty five thousand towns
per year of econi Nyland. It means that we collect
more than fifty thousand towns per year of waste, and
which represents more than one hundred million pounds per year.
So we are not a startup. It's not an easy program,
(36:27):
this one. It's a lot, a lot of material.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
Yeah, and that's a significant kind of taking waste elsewhere
environment and I guess generating value off the back of it.
I guess do you struggle with challenges between kind of
balancing tensions between short term business goals and then kind
of more long term environmental objectives.
Speaker 4 (36:50):
Well, this can also be a problem because when for example,
oil or oil derivatives are low I mean price wise,
and we on the other side may face expensive logistical
moments like the ones we are experiencing during the last
couple of years. These of course can drive your cost
decoupling from petrochemical systems, you know, so first point, second point,
(37:17):
when you make investments and you have high capital expenditures
because I mean, equonil depolymerization system is a chemical plant.
So like all chemical plants, I tell you they're not
in expense inexpensive. So far we have spent more than
two hundred million dollars, you know, to developing this solution.
So clearly you have also to pay your depreciation. So
(37:39):
you know, sometimes you can be struggling, you know, in.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
Certain moment, high up front kind of capital costs. I
think maybe shifting focused slightly, but we saw quite a
lot of supply chain disruption and recent years for the
textiles industry, and I guess it's not really shifting, it's
kind of a follow on. But actually whether having that
kind of circular economy business model does that create a
(38:05):
layer of kind of stability within the supply chain.
Speaker 4 (38:09):
It really does, because clearly decoupling from petroleum, you are
less exposed to the variation of oil and gas prices,
and also politically, you are less dependent on critical raw
materials that you have to import from other areas. Europe
is very much representing an area where of course manufacturing
(38:32):
and the industries are among the most important in the world,
but we are totally dependent in terms of energy and
raw materials from other part of the planet. So developing
circular solutions makes you less dependent, so you need less
critical raw materials, you need less energy, does of course
less dependency from other parts of the world, and this
(38:54):
is very important, I think.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
Yeah, I think important and kind of hedging some of
the volatility rests that we can and see particularly obverse
in oil prices and things like that. And I guess,
beyond kind of waste reduction, the texts industry can have
quite significant implications for kind of biodiversity.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
What are kind of the other areas.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
Which you think are important for reducing this impact. I
guess both across things like microplastics, and obviously there's lots
of water involved in the process often and chemical dies
and things like that.
Speaker 4 (39:27):
Yes, clearly, when you make a fiber you are exposed
to a lot of potential problems, and we have met.
We've made extensive studies, first of all to check whether
nylon or its raw material the monomer is having problems
in terms of health and safety, and luckily it doesn't.
And then of course we have created also systems for
(39:50):
understanding the microfiber release, which is very important. Very likely
soon there will be also regulations. Besides, of course bearing
a social responsibility for what you are doing. So I'm
not saying, of course, I am in relatively conflict of interest,
because every fiber is releasing micro fibers, like also the
(40:12):
natural ones. In the case of synthetic fibers, you can
eat them, you digest them, but of course you get
only what is outside. In terms of natural fibers. Of
course your body is fully digesting and this is of
course even more important for the dice and pigments that
are let's say, part of this product. I'm lucky to
(40:34):
say that we make a nylon filaments, not short fibers,
and according to our measurements, we reallyse zero to nothing
or little microfibers during the life of the final product.
But of course, if you want to test and check
whether your jacket or your sneakers or your bag is
(40:56):
releasing microfibers. This is today possible, and it is very
accurate the system well, and I.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
Think that's a big thing that we're hearing when we
speak to investors and also to corporates is that they're
having challenges in terms of measuring some of these outputs.
So actually being able to kind of have a measurement
of that impact is enabling kind of better decisions to
be made.
Speaker 4 (41:20):
Measuring is absolutely important, first of all, because if you
don't measure, you don't know where to, let's say, try
to change things. And then also you cannot imposer regulations,
you know, because people start saying, it's not me, it's you,
it's the other guy. So measuring is really the first
(41:41):
step also to solving a problem.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
Yeah, I think it's the key component to be able
to do be able to take action on it. If
you don't have that measurement, you have that insight baseline
of what you're working from. I guess obviously we have
taught to regulation quite a lot, but are you seeing
from kind of the different global opportunities that there's potentially
more great opportunities in certain regions because of regulations being
(42:04):
kind of nuanced between say your US a park.
Speaker 4 (42:09):
Well, Europe is certainly an area. But you know, we
will see also with the new Parliament and the new
Commission that so far has developed a lot of directives.
In US. We have seen, of course California. In fact,
we are collecting carpets in California because there is an
extensive producer responsibility system in place. So this is of
(42:34):
course helping to create circularity and taking carpets out of
landfills in Japan as well for certain products studying, but
not least, I tell you China is moving fast. In fact,
if you ask me, where is the country around the
world that you are operating plants and you have the
(42:55):
lowest emissions requested by the legislation in terms of water emissions,
I tell you China. So they are coming and checking
very carefully our let's say emissions when we dispose water,
and they are about fifty percent of what is allowed
today in Europe. So China is moving fast also in
(43:15):
this direction, and this better you know to keep an
eye because I am afraid that they will or there
is to become the environmental champions in you know, twenty
or thirty years time.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
Well, it's really interesting. I don't think most people would
think of China as kind of leading in that side
of things, but actually interesting in that statistic I gave
initially around tentrally enough opportunities if we shift that niche
positive kind of economy. The World Economic Forum says that
twenty percent of these opportunities they see line and China.
So it's interesting.
Speaker 4 (43:48):
For example, when we collect fishing nets from India, we
are not allowed to explot them under the form of
a fishing net, so you have to ask for special permission,
so they don't want How can I say to help
exporters of waste efficient net is a textile waste made
of plastics, you know, So not only Europe or US
(44:10):
are starting to change, but everybody must.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
Everyone's taking chefs and I think that's the key thing.
Really need that global momentum in order to kind of
drive change and be disruptive and serve clients that have
been forced to change as well. I guess then, looking ahead,
what is next for akfell other kind of any upcoming
innovations that you're particularly excited about, and what do you
(44:33):
kind of envision for the future of sustainability within kind
of the textiles industry.
Speaker 4 (44:38):
We are working hard to create, let's say, sets of
ingredients that can help our customers to designing and engineering
products like with monomterial molecules of course anylon in this
case or easy to decompose or to separate. This is
certainly an area I believe that I mean close to
(45:02):
twenty twenty five. We hope to be able to announce
it to be able to recycle mixed fabrics having nylon
spandex inside. This could be a real revolution for certain
applications for certain garments. But also, as you know, we
are working on a bio based nine on six. So
I particularly like nylon not only because of its performances,
(45:25):
but it can also come from oil. Yes, sure it
can be perfectly recycled through mechanical recycling or depolymerization which
is a chemical recycling system, but also may come from
sugar fermentation. So you can practically take only once resources
and in this case are renewable from the planet and
(45:46):
keeping them serving forever you know your necessities of products.
So this is something that we're working hard with a
company here in San Diego called Geneomatica. We have already
produced some hundreds of tons of bio based capital, actam
and nylon, and hopefully in a few years this is
(46:07):
what could become a solution because recycling is absolutely necessary,
but it's not enough. You have also to produce primary
materials in a sustainable way if you want to really
leave heritage for future generations with enough you know, raw
materials for their needs.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
I think it's so interesting, and there's often that kind
of debate between whether you want sympathtic or bio based
and actually then capture both.
Speaker 4 (46:33):
It depends by the application and you cannot say which
one is better. If you need something that can decompose faster,
you can maybe go to bio based, but not all
bio based molecules are decomposing, you know, are biodegrading, and
you know degradation sometimes is not good. So it also
depends by what is degrading into the soil or into
(46:56):
the air. In this case, we are putting together a
way of making the same molecule. And of course, I
tell you, when you collect the waste, one of the
most difficult things that you have to do is sorting,
so separating the different our case fiber types, and so
the less number of fibers you have, the easier it is.
(47:19):
So I am not in favor of putting new materials
in the market.
Speaker 1 (47:23):
I think that's like a key part actually the challenge
that's trying to be solved. For a moment, I think
you're mentioning that maybe being able to have better reciting
capabilities for max fibers and futures, so that will be
game changing.
Speaker 4 (47:35):
Yes, believe me that not all will be possible. So
don't let's say rest quietly waiting. You know a magician
that comes and solve every problem, you know, please help
help us in this difficult task.
Speaker 1 (47:51):
Absolutely, I think with that, I think it's been absolutely
fantastic to hair what act first doing hair, the processes,
the disruptors, and how it's enabling kind of positive change,
reducing both kind of my impacts on nature and climate
whilst kind of driving growth. So thank you so much
for joining us.
Speaker 4 (48:09):
Thank you, Grace,
ESG has become established as a key business theme as
companies and investors seek to navigate the climate crisis, energy transition,
social mega trends, mounting regulatory attention and pressure from other stakeholders.
The rapidly evolving landscape has become inundated with acronyms, buzzwords
and lingo, and we aim to break these down with
industry experts. Welcome to ESG Currents, your guide to navigating
(00:34):
the evolving ESG space, one topic at a time, Brought
to you by Bloomberg Intelligence, part of Bloomberg's research department
working across all major world markets. I am Grace Osborne,
a mere ESG integration analyst, and your host for today's episode.
According to the World Economic Forum, transitioning to a more
(00:54):
nature positive economy could unlock up to ten trillion dollars
and business opportunities. Shifting financial flows away from activities that
damage nature and towards less harmful alternatives presents one of
the most promising and immediate avenues for nature related investment,
with the quest to halt and reverse biodiversity loss creating
a new imptus both for companies and innovative financial solutions
(01:17):
to mitigate the drivers of nature loss. In today's episode,
we will hear from two of our panelists from our
conference last December, Tracy Fowll, the CEO of the International
Union for Conservation of Nature US and North American Regional
director for the IUCN, and Julia Bonatzi, the CEO of Ackville.
(01:38):
So first up our discussion with Tracy to set the
scene on why we need to be bridging what's estimated
as a nine hundred and forty two billion dollar biodiversity
financing gap, and the role that private finance will take
in this and the need to step up. Tracy is
a driving force behind efforts to protect biodiversity. Most recently,
(01:59):
she has been leading initiatives which bridge the gap between
public and private sector and conservation finance projects valued over
five hundred million dollars. I'm very much looking forward to
getting Tracy's insights on conservation and buidbacity financing landscape. Welcome, Tracy,
thank you, it's great to be here. I guess to
start with and for those who are maybe not familiar,
(02:21):
could you give us a brief explanation of what the
ICN does and why it's so critical in today's world.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Absolutely so.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature was formed
about seventy six years ago, right after World War Two,
and the idea was to conserve resources equitably and sustainably
for people. So we operate in about sixty three.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Or so countries.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
We work on policy, we work on science best practice
to try and really link those really key issues of conservation.
So how do you conserve resources so that people can
benefit from them, how do you conserve biodiversity, and how
do you make sure that there's equitable and fair access
to those resources.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
So a pretty critical.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Role in today and what we're seeing in the nature
landscape as well, and natural capital loss at the rate
we're currently seeing, it'd be great to kind of hear
what you've seen as the evolution in regards to kind
of the nature financing landscape. It has evolved quite significantly,
so it'd be really great to get insights on this.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
Absolutely yeah, it's been really fascinating. So I started on
this journey in sort of the late eighties early nineties,
and that was one Sustainable development was the it thing.
It was new, it was exciting. The promise and the
hope was that we would be able to link social
economic and ecological slash environmental factors and try and make
(03:46):
economies grow under that framework of sustainable development. And so
initially the financing ideas kind of came out of resource economics.
So we were doing things like trying to to make
how far are people willing to drive to get to
the Grand Canyon, and what kind of expenses do they
make along the way, what restaurants do they go to,
(04:08):
what do they pay for gas? So things like that
were called the travel cost method, and then you were
able to give an estimate of Okay, well, I guess
if we're going to Yellowstone or Eusemite or wherever, people
are willing to pay or have invested X number of
dollars to get there. So that was sort of our
initial foray, and then we got a little bit more
sophisticated and started looking at how can we understand the
(04:32):
value of ecosystem services? So that already seems a bit wonky,
but the basic idea is that the nature that we
survive and thrive from has value beyond just.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
The fact that it exists.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
So nature gives us clean air, clean water, and make
sure that we're protected from storms in addition to providing
those recreational benefits. So then the sort of financing evolved
into well, how do we actually value things like forest carbon,
how do we value water? And we've done a great
deal of work and some pretty interesting stuff. So the
(05:08):
forest carbon market is now very sophisticated and will be
about fifty billion in another couple of years, So that's amazing.
The idea of being able to create value from standing
forest or restored forests is pretty special. And then water
as well, investing in watershed restoration and providing value to
the role that forests play in retaining and regulating water flows.
(05:32):
So this has a huge amount of benefits of avoiding sentimentation,
then you don't clog dam turbines. So these sort of
finance schemes have gotten more and more sophisticated, and now
we're into even more future futuristic thinking how do we
do biodiversity credits. So that's a very interesting space, I
(05:52):
would say, very early in its development.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Yeah, and I think is so interesting to hear how
you kind of started and where things are going and
seeing that shift and having kind of financing a forest
is amazing standing or restoration, and you mentioned the kind
of biodiversity credits what kind of opportunities do you see
it here and are there any kind of challenges you
see around by diversity credits.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
Yeah, it's it's really interesting because it kind of goes
a little bit contrary to the other markets. So the
other markets are based on this idea of the fact
that you can understand and generate a value, and it's
almost like there's a like like so a forest carbon
credit is a credit anywhere. So once you've done the
(06:37):
evaluation and the assessment and the verification, a forest credit in.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
The Congo is the same as.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
It could be in Washington State, So that becomes easier
to kind of understand.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
It's like like it's tradable.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
It's it's able to be universally understood, and you can
invest and sell those those credits on the market for biodiversity. Though,
we're still looking at what's that unit, what's that common
kind of metric or thing that you're measuring.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
It's not trees, it's not sort of a hector.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
It's kind of like a hector with lots of different
benefits in it. So that's been a little bit tricky,
but we're getting closer. We've come up with a few
interesting metrics. So my organization, the International Union for the
Conservation of Nature, has come up with one metric that
helps you kind of understand where might you get the
best bang for your buck if you invest in either
(07:33):
conservation or restoration, and then that helps you get to
like like so that you can understand, oh, okay, if
I invest in this particular project in the Congo, it
is going to be equal to this kind of set
of biodiversity benefits in Washington State.
Speaker 2 (07:47):
So we're getting there.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
But it is still i'd say there's a bit of
work to do to make this a little bit easier
to distill and certainly easier for investors.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
To be able to invest in.
Speaker 4 (07:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Absolutely, I think that's definitely being one of the kind
of key challenges as people being able to get their
head around this idea of kind of an ecosystem benefit.
Whereas for the carbon market, Okay, one ton of carbon
here at equals x, and it's kind of got that
like for like and being able to put place a
value on I guess one aspect of a system because
we've removed that that could have kind of quite knock
(08:19):
on effects throughout the system. So quantifying that is is
a challenge. I think interestingly, at COP sixteen, where the
focus was really meant to be on finance, we actually
only saw about one hundred and sixty three million dollars
pledged towards the GBF fund. Do you think that private
investment has the opportunity to really bridge this gap?
Speaker 3 (08:42):
Yeah, it's a it's a great question. So the Global
Bidiversity Framework, the initial idea was to kind of advance
where we'd gotten two in the last round, so everyone
was very excited in twenty twenty two and looking at okay,
what's the version four point zero, I'm not even sure
we're ver and we're on now, but the convention has
been around for a while, but we really needed to
(09:04):
go much further than just setting biodiversity targets. But the
new framework has ecosystem targets, and it has resource mobilization targets, So,
as you mentioned, there's the idea to really really ramp
up this investment, so we get much more towards seven
hundred billion and even a trillion a year, which really
then kind of.
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Closes the gap.
Speaker 3 (09:25):
But the targets are actually pretty interesting because it allows
for public investment, which is mostly what we've had to date,
so most of the two hundred billion or so a
year is coming from developed country governments. It's coming from
also developing country governments doing their own investments in their
own countries, as well as these big multilateral funds like
(09:47):
the Global Environment Facility. That's been great, but there's still
a really big gap, and the hope also in the
Global Biodiversity Framework is that the private sector will will
help us get closer. I'm not sure how far the
overall what the overall balance might be or should be,
but so far we're a little bit far from where
I think we could be. So I think I think
(10:09):
last year was around thirty five billion that was invested
from various private investments and markets. But we'd love to
see that number grow by quite a bit because some
estimates have shown then it really could. So depending on
which framework you look at and which kind of set
of future pathways, we should be able to increase that tenfold.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
I think it's interesting we as we speak to quite
a few different investors, often that kind of saying, oh,
it's just a challenge to kind of get our heads around,
or there's not enough data, but often actually speaks people
really entrenched in in conservation and biaversity work. Actually, there
is a huge amount of data already available. It's about
being able to kind of use this in the right
(10:54):
way their investors can use it to kind of make
investment into bidaversity conservation. I think it's scenario that's going
to need really strong fusion between private finance, scientists, policymakers, expertise,
and also the public sector. Have you seen any examples
of very successful public and private partnerships and financing conservation.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Yeah, there's some.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Really, I just kind of love to go back to
the Costa Rica model, which is I thought a lot
about this question in advance, and there are lots of
I would say, big and smaller scale projects, but there's
only one that I know of that fuse the public
and private opportunities at a countrywide, wide scale, and that's
the Costa Rica example, where they started with somewhere in
(11:43):
the mid nineties they only had twenty five percent of
their force cover left, so massive, massive deforestation, lots of
agricultural development and pressure. And then there was a visionary
in the Minister of Environment at the time who said, well,
what if we could really transform how we value what
we have and really what we have is probably more
(12:03):
of a tourism market. So what would it take to
be able to restore our forests, make sure we have
clean water, and generate revenue from our natural assets. So
that happened over a number of years, and what they
did is they worked with basically worked with fossil fuel industry,
(12:24):
and they also worked with tourism, They worked with agriculture
and said, well, look, this might not be hugely popular,
but we want to add a tax, very small tax
to gasoline that's sold in Costa Rica, and also to water,
very very small tax on water. But we're going to
use that revenue. We'll put it into a fund, and
then that fund is going to go to pay for
(12:45):
farmers who were doing conservation agriculture and being able to
manage their lands in ways that allows for better forest
regeneration and growth, minimizes the total overall clearing. And we
also want to invest in our tourism and in our
water flows, restoring forests so that waters can freely and
not have too much sentiments. So over about twenty years
(13:09):
or maybe thirty years, they did that. So force cover
then doubled, and tourism is now by far the number
one economic earner for the country and continues to be
several years later. So that was a mix that took
the public sector vision and the regulation. As you mentioned,
that's critical the commitment, but also trying to engage those
(13:30):
industries who were of course a little bit reluctant at first,
and the individual farmers and citizens to be able to say,
bear with us, let's get there together, because this could
be incredibly powerful. So it's still the best country wide
example of that I know of how you can really
integrate both the markets, the individuals, citizens, policy, regulation and
(13:51):
get everything to pay for nature.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Yeah, it's amazing, and I think I hadn't even realized
that that kind of transition has cubs in my mind.
I think of cost three Eco as one of the
most bid of a places on Earth as it is today,
and I think that's such a good example of pulling
together all those stakeholders for that kind of benefit and
showing that it can drive economic output by kind of
investing in nature and restoration. I think one of the
(14:17):
metrics that both investors in corporates might be quite familiar
with within when they're looking at their nature impacts or
wide diversity impacts would be the IUCN Red List species metric.
It would be really good to hear kind of more
about that particular metric and also why you think it's
important for corporates and investors to be kind of looking
at this as a metric.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Yes, thank you for asking that.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
That's a kind of an exciting question at the moment
because we're celebrating the Red List sixty year in an grosary,
so go red List after sixty years, still going strong.
And it was the initial thinking that still holds today
is that we need to have a baseline of the
health of species, so which ones are under various levels three.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
At where are they?
Speaker 3 (15:02):
And that helps us both to track progress, but it
also allows for accountability, so that we can see which countries,
which corporations, what kinds of interventions are being implemented, and
what does that do to the species, So do they
become less threatened? Ideally yes, more threatened. It's not what
(15:22):
you want to see, but if you do see it,
it means that we need to course correct. And so
the Red List has been this great baseline tool that
we can use globally. It's a global data set that
gets constantly improved over time. And sadly more and more
species get red listed. So over the course of many,
many years now, we've used the red list to show
(15:43):
that just under eight hundred species have become extinct. So
we have that data, and we also know that a
million or so are at risk. So without this kind
of foundational data set that's been around for sixty years,
there's nothing else that we have that tells us kind
of the status of where we are and what we
can use for KPIs and other metrics to hopefully watch
(16:06):
that trend go up rather than down.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
Go the right way. Yeah, I think it's very interesting
because we went through a process of kind of integrating
more biodiversity metrics into things like our ESG scores, and
we were looking at pairing that kind of data and
where kind of company assets lie, so how they might
impact that red list or kind of which ones are
(16:29):
in the realms of their assets. So I think a
really critical kind of list to be looking at and
seeing what impacts they might be having. I think we've
talked a little bit around the rise of biodiversity credits
and obviously nature based solutions, and I guess one challenge
we might see is whether we should be putting a
(16:53):
value on nature. Obviously it's a critical thing in many
ways for us be doing, but might be consider it
a slight kind of moral question as well as whether
we should be booing nature like this.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
And that comes up a lot.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
It's when I mentioned sort of the old school days,
when we were first trying to assign values to resources
sixties and seventies or so, the value for nature onto
itself was known, and it's still known of as intrinsic.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
So it's valuable because it is so.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
That alone might get a little bit lost in the
shuffle of all this excitement around markets and trying to
commodify nature and putting values to various natural assets. So
that is a concern that we here expressed often, and
it is a valid one, because we don't want to
take things so far that we've lost sight of the
(17:44):
fact that nature just is valuable because it's there and
it doesn't have a voice. Species don't have their own voice,
they can't self advocate, so if we don't, then nobody will.
So that's something to not lose in all this thinking,
and maintaining the kind of the purity of that thinking
is very much a value and priority that a UCN
(18:05):
has through its members and through its own values and
mission statement. But I think the flip side is that
the crisis is just so huge and we're not winning
the war on this, we're sliding backwards. The numbers are
pretty scary with the rates of loss and conversion of ecosystems,
(18:26):
so we kind of can't afford not to look at
some of these opportunities. But they need they need to
meet all the standards. They have to be done very well.
We have to make sure that we're accurately valuing the
different benefits. They have to be verified, validated, provide benefits
to the local community that's providing them, and have the
(18:47):
necessary policies education. So there's a lot that needs to
be done to get it right. So it's good to
keep our excitement enthusiasm perhaps a bit in check, to
also remember that the basics are nature is valuable. If
it was recognized for its intrinsic value, then we wouldn't
be here in the first place.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Yeah. Absolutely, I think it's such an interesting question, and
that kind of concept of commodifying nature and the concept
of natural capital could seem like a foreign concept, but
actually we are using it as a kind of an
economic input and it's having an impact, so it's kind
of critical in the fire against by diversity loss. I
(19:26):
think then, just kind of shifting gear and looking ahead,
what do you think are the biggest challenges and opportunities
for meeting the financing gap and what are your kind
of hopes for the future of nature financing.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
Yeah, the challenges are big.
Speaker 3 (19:40):
I mentioned the need to get the right methodologies in
place and make sure that we're doing this properly, and
we've had some I'd say we've had some maybe two
steps forward one step back when you look at the
forest carbon market and we've been at this for twenty
plus years, but it's still something.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Where we really need to improve how do we assign
that value?
Speaker 3 (20:04):
And there's been some healthy and good criticism of projects
over the last ten years or so that I have said, well,
wait a minute, this hasn't Some of these haven't really
generated the same kind of credits that we thought that
they would, and the methodology is a little bit funky
perhaps and needs to be improved, so we do need
to That's one of the things I'd like to see
(20:25):
is that we continue to refine and improve what we
have I am concerned. I don't want us to throw
the baby out with the bathwater. So although we need
this criticism, I want us to be careful and mindful
that these are still this is what we have. So
if we're going to use various tools to try and
invest in nature, I think we need to keep all
(20:45):
of them in play, including the forced carbon markets, while
also looking at biodiversity credits. Is there a way for
us to better assign value? I think we're making good
strides and we are seeing much more interest in this market,
so I hope that that continues to evolve.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
I also hope.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
That we start to take advantage of the fact that
there is a growing awareness interest. I think among general
society that huh, well, things seem to be in trouble,
even if you recognize that as this.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Was a hot summer or that was a really bad rainstorm.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
However, you identify as a human with change and threat
and concern and fear for your own life and your
family's lives and your health and wealth. That's important to
connect to that and get people to start also asking
questions like what can I do with my pension fund?
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (21:38):
Is there a way I can direct my own investments,
and we're starting to see that happen more and more.
So I really just hope to see more and bigger,
and I hope that we get better also at telling
the impact story and the scale. That's the last one
is we still have to evolve what we're doing to
take it to scale, because that's the part where we
(21:59):
really online the big the big bucks from the private markets.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
Yeah, absolutely, and really drive drive change. I think more and.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Better is a good place, a good place to end now.
Next up is our discussion with Julia Bonatzi, the visionary
CEO of Akvil, a global leader in sustainable nylon production.
Julio has been at the forefront of innovation in the
textiles industry, driving Akvil's mission to revolutionize the use of
recycled materials, including things like ghost fishing nuts, and create
(22:29):
a more circular economy. With a deep commitment to sustainability
and cutting edge technology, the company is reshaping the textiles industry,
enabling clients from fashion brands to ev producers to meet
their own sustainability goals, reduce their impact on biodiversity, and
meet tightening environmental regulations. Thank you for joining us, Julio.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
Thank you grace. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
So, perhaps to start with giving your impressive career in
the textiles industry, Kadisha, what initially inspired you to focus
on sustainability within the industry.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
Well, this is easy people, for sure, this was back
during the nineties. First of all, I got married in
ninety two, and this is not, you know, not important.
It is important because my wife started the organic farming
during that year for making olive oil and later with
red wines. Then for sure you remember seven Suzuki going
(23:28):
to Rio with that incredible speech, and people like Doug Tompkins,
the founder of the nod face, and last but not least,
Ray Anderson, you know, and Ray Anderson an interface has
really changed a lot my way of thinking later on
always staying, you know, with good people Jennin Venus and
(23:49):
the other unbelievable scientists that have really led me to
understand that it was important to change.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
I think interesting actually people's understanding of some of the
impacts that the textiles industry have. Often they see the
end of life product and they don't really understand the
entire footprint through to their say they're clothing. For example,
an aquafil has really been a leader in the use
of recycled materials, particularly through nylon six recycling, creating a
(24:22):
cyclar economy. It'd be really great if you could talk
us through kind of the process you have in creating
recycled nylon and why it is so significant and reducing
both the climate and nature impacts within the textiles industry,
because I think often we see nature impacts and climate
as two separate entities but actually very much intertwined.
Speaker 4 (24:45):
Yes they are, of course. Well, I like nylon because
it's a very performing molecule, so you can you can
make beautiful products, working and living for long and then
of course also giving a lot of beautiful esthetical solutions.
But in our case, we like to call it ECONYL,
and this is the brand we are selling our nylon.
(25:07):
It's an Ilon, it's an Ilon six in fact, but
instead of using petroleum raw materials, it comes entirely from waste.
So it's an Ilon but with a very different story
and believing in some of these wastes are particularly ugly,
like carpets for example, or fishing nets that we have
to go around the world and to collect them. So
(25:27):
ECONYL is one hundred percent based on waste and these
waste are then transformed into nylon with a very low
carbon footprint, something like minus ninety percent. So it's a
good combination between let's say, changing the nylon to our customers,
but of course without taking any new resource from the planet.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Yeah, I think it's really interesting decoupling that kind of
growth and resource consumption. And I guess in that process
you're not only taking kind of waste out of the environment,
which is critical, but also we look to kind of
reduce end of life waste, and we're seeing kind of
more scrutiny on that as well.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
Well.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
Clearly this is shifting from recycling to circular economy. And
when you speak about recycling, I would say you can
do it by yourself. Yes, you have to create a
new value chain because collecting waste and rescuing waste and
sorting waste it is something that today doesn't exist. But
when you go for circular economical solutions, you have to
(26:34):
work with the entire value change, redesigning and re engineering
products and processes. So really, if you want to have
circular solutions, you have to practice a great eco design project.
So you need, of course collaboration throughout the value chain
and the industry.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
Yeah, and I think that's something we're seeing companies struggle
with quite a lot, actually, like consumer facing brands that
now have more kind of take back and things like this,
but where they have maybe multiple fibers and one item
is actually a really significant challenge in trying to kind
of recycle that end of life.
Speaker 4 (27:10):
Today's generation of product, especially in the apparel or garment industry.
I tell you it's unrecyclable. Of course, you have multiple fabrics,
sometimes multiple fibers inside one single fabric, and then of
course metal components or other plastics. Think about zippers, bottoms
and other paths. So to take back these products and
(27:33):
to recycle them, believe me, it's impossible. So you have
to make them in a different way.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
Yeah, it starts. I think that's what people are thinking,
Oh right, at the end of life. Actually, you need
to think about that from the beginning, from the conception,
the design, right from the get go. And I think
the other thing is that obviously we see in the
rise of okay, maybe consumer facing brands, say, for example,
in apparel, you have non zero targets and things like that,
and people may not understand that a significant portion of
(28:00):
the carbon missions come and production of the textiles because
as you said, traditionally it is created using kind of
oil based products. So I think it's important that also
that recycled element is helping cut some of that a
significant portion of the carbon missions to meet some of
these targets.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
It is very important. I think around eighty percent of
the carbon emissions are coming from us, so from us
making the upper part of the process. In particular, also
for me, the biggest part of my carbon emissions are
coming from my suppliers. Of course, petrochemical products are heavily
impacting the environment. So through econil we have worked and
(28:42):
still working hard that you're reducing the carbon footprint. To
give an idea, Sorry about these strange definitions, but the
embedded energies of producing econil is around seventy five percent
lower than the one of the petroleum based nile. Then
with a massive usage of sustainable energies like renewables, of course,
(29:06):
we are able to reduce the impact down to ninety percent,
So we still have another ten percent. We are working
on it. It's a journey, one step at a.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Time, yeah, and that as a substantial drop in order
to kind of help your end clients be able to
meet some of their goals. I guess one thing obviously
at the heart of ESG investing is we're looking at
things that are financially material. It's the belief that environmental
social governance has actually a financial impact on a company
and doing things better. It would be interesting to understand
(29:37):
why kind of the embedding of sustainability into act FILS
textiles offering is providing kind of growth opportunities for the company,
how it's enabling clients who might be under certain regulatary
pressures that we're seeing.
Speaker 4 (29:50):
Well, during your introduction, you've spoken about the ten trillions,
you know, so I still have some room to get there.
But for sure, when you're recycle, you would love to
see For example, in my case, oil price is very
high because sometimes I mean, the trajectories of buying oil
derivatives or collecting waste are very far apart, you know,
(30:13):
in my case, especially when we collect by ourselves our waste.
This can happen in Scandinavia or in South America, in Chile,
when we speak about fishing nets or carpets. In California,
this activity is based on labor, and labor is for
us of course an important cost factor logistical costs, and
(30:34):
then sometimes sorting and disposing eventually what is non recyclable. Then,
of course it's an intense work of research and development
because you have really to bring to the market technologies
that were not existing before. So you have to invest
a lot of money in research development and sometimes capital
expenditures for the say developing the plants and solutions for
(30:58):
recycling these ways. So I mean it's not inexpensive. I
tell you, you have, of course to be ready to spend
a lot of time.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
I can't imagine. And I think what's interesting is that
you have this product that has multiple kind of serving
clients across sectors. It'd be interesting to learn a little
bit more about kind of the different sectors that this
product is serving well.
Speaker 4 (31:24):
The main application to date is still related to the
carpet industry, and also in this field that we have
developed lately, also some interesting solutions for example for transportation
for cruising, a part of course for corporate office applications.
But other than that, textile and we serve the most
(31:44):
famous luxury brands like Prada, Gucci, Stela, McCartney, Louisiton and
many many others. A lot is going into swimwear or
active sportware apparel like your yogaware or pilate ware. For
sure you're having some nylon fiber insight. And later, I
(32:05):
mean about two years ago, we stepped back into the
engineering polymer business or making chips and pellets for the
injection molding, because these can give a lot of synergies.
You can imagine a chair. In a chair, you can
have the plastic part but also the textile part. So
this is very important to deliver solutions to the market.
Speaker 1 (32:24):
It's interesting seeing that kind of cross sector and I
think we're seeing kind of regulations coming in for different
players in different sectors. We have things like the EU
Circular Textiles Directive that's impacting maybe more kind of the
operaile side, Extended Producer Responsibility Act some also some things
(32:45):
that are coming in for car producers as well for
recyclability input. It'd be interesting to hear a bit more
about how you're serving customers and meeting some of those regulations.
Speaker 4 (32:55):
Yes, compliance is a necessity, and believe me that in
Europe there are a lot of regulations, among the most important.
Some years ago we have seen the Single Use Plastic
Directive and inside this there is a branch talking about
the recycling offficionets. Then they approved at least the European
Parliament has approved the Circular Textile Directive, which should be
(33:21):
enforced around or earlier than two thousand and thirty, which
is a kind of very very challenging. Starting from twenty
twenty five, every single member states should create hubs for
collecting of garments at the end of life, for recycling them,
of course, not for disposing. And this summer before the
(33:44):
general elections, the European Parliament has approved the so called
end of life Vehicle Directive, which states that for two
thousand and thirty all the plastic components inside a car
sold into the European Union have at least twenty five
percent of post consumer content. Clearly, to comply with these
(34:05):
regulations is very challenging and you are a risk of
paying big, big fines and tickets. As with Econilla, we
can deliver a lot of solutions, but of course we
need also to work closely with automotive car manufacturers or
with textile producers in order to avoid to pay these fines.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
Yeah, and I think it's interesting. So, for example, within
the automative industry, So this is predominantly that you're helping
them with kind of the carpets for the cars.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Is that correct.
Speaker 4 (34:39):
Well, inside the car, of course you have plastics and
a lot of fibers that are plastics as well, you know,
because synthetic fibers at the end of the day, they
are plastics, and so they have to comply with this.
You have the flooring, you have the car maths, and
you have of course the car interiors like the seeds
or the other part of the interior of a car.
(35:00):
And then you have automotive car makers that are more
pushy or more challenging suppliers to deliver solutions, and others
that are maybe waiting and copying, if I may say so.
But of course there is a lot of plastics and
fibers inside and automotive.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Inside the KAI.
Speaker 4 (35:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
I think it's an interesting way. We have those first
movers that are innovating the space and those.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
I kind of follow to.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
I think it's just interesting to see how different companies
across different sector has been pushed in different ways and
where that kind of potentially means kind of growth opportunities
for acfl and recycled nylon. I think I read that
your sales at the Recycled Fiber has now made about
fifty percent of a total fiber cells.
Speaker 4 (35:44):
Yes, yes, we have. This yearra we will reach fifty
four percent and we have a target to get closer
to sixty percent before the end of next year. Besides percentages,
I like to speak about quantities because I can tell
you in tons or in pounds you know, of course,
depending by the place or where you come from. But
(36:05):
we recycle more than forty five thousand tons per year
of or we produce more than forty five thousand towns
per year of econi Nyland. It means that we collect
more than fifty thousand towns per year of waste, and
which represents more than one hundred million pounds per year.
So we are not a startup. It's not an easy program,
(36:27):
this one. It's a lot, a lot of material.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
Yeah, and that's a significant kind of taking waste elsewhere
environment and I guess generating value off the back of it.
I guess do you struggle with challenges between kind of
balancing tensions between short term business goals and then kind
of more long term environmental objectives.
Speaker 4 (36:50):
Well, this can also be a problem because when for example,
oil or oil derivatives are low I mean price wise,
and we on the other side may face expensive logistical
moments like the ones we are experiencing during the last
couple of years. These of course can drive your cost
decoupling from petrochemical systems, you know, so first point, second point,
(37:17):
when you make investments and you have high capital expenditures
because I mean, equonil depolymerization system is a chemical plant.
So like all chemical plants, I tell you they're not
in expense inexpensive. So far we have spent more than
two hundred million dollars, you know, to developing this solution.
So clearly you have also to pay your depreciation. So
(37:39):
you know, sometimes you can be struggling, you know, in.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
Certain moment, high up front kind of capital costs. I
think maybe shifting focused slightly, but we saw quite a
lot of supply chain disruption and recent years for the
textiles industry, and I guess it's not really shifting, it's
kind of a follow on. But actually whether having that
kind of circular economy business model does that create a
(38:05):
layer of kind of stability within the supply chain.
Speaker 4 (38:09):
It really does, because clearly decoupling from petroleum, you are
less exposed to the variation of oil and gas prices,
and also politically, you are less dependent on critical raw
materials that you have to import from other areas. Europe
is very much representing an area where of course manufacturing
(38:32):
and the industries are among the most important in the world,
but we are totally dependent in terms of energy and
raw materials from other part of the planet. So developing
circular solutions makes you less dependent, so you need less
critical raw materials, you need less energy, does of course
less dependency from other parts of the world, and this
(38:54):
is very important, I think.
Speaker 1 (38:55):
Yeah, I think important and kind of hedging some of
the volatility rests that we can and see particularly obverse
in oil prices and things like that. And I guess,
beyond kind of waste reduction, the texts industry can have
quite significant implications for kind of biodiversity.
Speaker 2 (39:12):
What are kind of the other areas.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
Which you think are important for reducing this impact. I
guess both across things like microplastics, and obviously there's lots
of water involved in the process often and chemical dies
and things like that.
Speaker 4 (39:27):
Yes, clearly, when you make a fiber you are exposed
to a lot of potential problems, and we have met.
We've made extensive studies, first of all to check whether
nylon or its raw material the monomer is having problems
in terms of health and safety, and luckily it doesn't.
And then of course we have created also systems for
(39:50):
understanding the microfiber release, which is very important. Very likely
soon there will be also regulations. Besides, of course bearing
a social responsibility for what you are doing. So I'm
not saying, of course, I am in relatively conflict of interest,
because every fiber is releasing micro fibers, like also the
(40:12):
natural ones. In the case of synthetic fibers, you can
eat them, you digest them, but of course you get
only what is outside. In terms of natural fibers. Of
course your body is fully digesting and this is of
course even more important for the dice and pigments that
are let's say, part of this product. I'm lucky to
(40:34):
say that we make a nylon filaments, not short fibers,
and according to our measurements, we reallyse zero to nothing
or little microfibers during the life of the final product.
But of course, if you want to test and check
whether your jacket or your sneakers or your bag is
(40:56):
releasing microfibers. This is today possible, and it is very
accurate the system well, and I.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
Think that's a big thing that we're hearing when we
speak to investors and also to corporates is that they're
having challenges in terms of measuring some of these outputs.
So actually being able to kind of have a measurement
of that impact is enabling kind of better decisions to
be made.
Speaker 4 (41:20):
Measuring is absolutely important, first of all, because if you
don't measure, you don't know where to, let's say, try
to change things. And then also you cannot imposer regulations,
you know, because people start saying, it's not me, it's you,
it's the other guy. So measuring is really the first
(41:41):
step also to solving a problem.
Speaker 1 (41:43):
Yeah, I think it's the key component to be able
to do be able to take action on it. If
you don't have that measurement, you have that insight baseline
of what you're working from. I guess obviously we have
taught to regulation quite a lot, but are you seeing
from kind of the different global opportunities that there's potentially
more great opportunities in certain regions because of regulations being
(42:04):
kind of nuanced between say your US a park.
Speaker 4 (42:09):
Well, Europe is certainly an area. But you know, we
will see also with the new Parliament and the new
Commission that so far has developed a lot of directives.
In US. We have seen, of course California. In fact,
we are collecting carpets in California because there is an
extensive producer responsibility system in place. So this is of
(42:34):
course helping to create circularity and taking carpets out of
landfills in Japan as well for certain products studying, but
not least, I tell you China is moving fast. In fact,
if you ask me, where is the country around the
world that you are operating plants and you have the
(42:55):
lowest emissions requested by the legislation in terms of water emissions,
I tell you China. So they are coming and checking
very carefully our let's say emissions when we dispose water,
and they are about fifty percent of what is allowed
today in Europe. So China is moving fast also in
(43:15):
this direction, and this better you know to keep an
eye because I am afraid that they will or there
is to become the environmental champions in you know, twenty
or thirty years time.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
Well, it's really interesting. I don't think most people would
think of China as kind of leading in that side
of things, but actually interesting in that statistic I gave
initially around tentrally enough opportunities if we shift that niche
positive kind of economy. The World Economic Forum says that
twenty percent of these opportunities they see line and China.
So it's interesting.
Speaker 4 (43:48):
For example, when we collect fishing nets from India, we
are not allowed to explot them under the form of
a fishing net, so you have to ask for special permission,
so they don't want How can I say to help
exporters of waste efficient net is a textile waste made
of plastics, you know, So not only Europe or US
(44:10):
are starting to change, but everybody must.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
Everyone's taking chefs and I think that's the key thing.
Really need that global momentum in order to kind of
drive change and be disruptive and serve clients that have
been forced to change as well. I guess then, looking ahead,
what is next for akfell other kind of any upcoming
innovations that you're particularly excited about, and what do you
(44:33):
kind of envision for the future of sustainability within kind
of the textiles industry.
Speaker 4 (44:38):
We are working hard to create, let's say, sets of
ingredients that can help our customers to designing and engineering
products like with monomterial molecules of course anylon in this
case or easy to decompose or to separate. This is
certainly an area I believe that I mean close to
(45:02):
twenty twenty five. We hope to be able to announce
it to be able to recycle mixed fabrics having nylon
spandex inside. This could be a real revolution for certain
applications for certain garments. But also, as you know, we
are working on a bio based nine on six. So
I particularly like nylon not only because of its performances,
(45:25):
but it can also come from oil. Yes, sure it
can be perfectly recycled through mechanical recycling or depolymerization which
is a chemical recycling system, but also may come from
sugar fermentation. So you can practically take only once resources
and in this case are renewable from the planet and
(45:46):
keeping them serving forever you know your necessities of products.
So this is something that we're working hard with a
company here in San Diego called Geneomatica. We have already
produced some hundreds of tons of bio based capital, actam
and nylon, and hopefully in a few years this is
(46:07):
what could become a solution because recycling is absolutely necessary,
but it's not enough. You have also to produce primary
materials in a sustainable way if you want to really
leave heritage for future generations with enough you know, raw
materials for their needs.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
I think it's so interesting, and there's often that kind
of debate between whether you want sympathtic or bio based
and actually then capture both.
Speaker 4 (46:33):
It depends by the application and you cannot say which
one is better. If you need something that can decompose faster,
you can maybe go to bio based, but not all
bio based molecules are decomposing, you know, are biodegrading, and
you know degradation sometimes is not good. So it also
depends by what is degrading into the soil or into
(46:56):
the air. In this case, we are putting together a
way of making the same molecule. And of course, I
tell you, when you collect the waste, one of the
most difficult things that you have to do is sorting,
so separating the different our case fiber types, and so
the less number of fibers you have, the easier it is.
(47:19):
So I am not in favor of putting new materials
in the market.
Speaker 1 (47:23):
I think that's like a key part actually the challenge
that's trying to be solved. For a moment, I think
you're mentioning that maybe being able to have better reciting
capabilities for max fibers and futures, so that will be
game changing.
Speaker 4 (47:35):
Yes, believe me that not all will be possible. So
don't let's say rest quietly waiting. You know a magician
that comes and solve every problem, you know, please help
help us in this difficult task.
Speaker 1 (47:51):
Absolutely, I think with that, I think it's been absolutely
fantastic to hair what act first doing hair, the processes,
the disruptors, and how it's enabling kind of positive change,
reducing both kind of my impacts on nature and climate
whilst kind of driving growth. So thank you so much
for joining us.
Speaker 4 (48:09):
Thank you, Grace,
Host
Eric Kane
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