Circularity is arguably the base on which to solve climate issues. Consumers are changing their behavior and products now need to fit sustainability standards to match with consumers expectations. There is a need to redesign products to be sustainable and affordable. To fully implement circular principles requires a complete transformation of the existing system, and collaboration with a vast range of teams. Learn how to scale up existing operations and start to make circularity the norm.

The challenge of plastic waste is too big to ignore and too difficult to solve alone. In the U.S., companies are committing to transformative actions and uniting behind common measurable goals. However efforts fall short of science-based targets, with current commitments only reducing ocean plastic pollution by 7%. This session will address the challenges and opportunities around plastics packaging and unveil a science-backed tool that will help guide decision makers reduce plastic waste and reach their circularity goals.

As the calls to move towards a circular model continue to grow and with an ever-increasing range of options available to facilitate a shift away from the linear system. In the forms of ‘product as a service’, rental, repair, and resale – how can you gauge the positive effects of circularity on the climate and in line with your net zero goals? Hear how leaders in this field are measuring and reporting on environmental impact and carbon emissions and integrating their circular strategies into climate.

Ensuring the critical supply of battery metals is essential to the transition from internal combustion engines to EVs but various obstacles lie in the road ahead. A lack of new discoveries means shortages of key metals like nickel and copper are expected by 2025, and rising costs undermine cost-cutting efforts necessary for mass adoption, while the growing impact footprint of conventional metal production threatens both planet and people. The Metals Company has found a better way and will enable the battery-powered shift to EVs with the lightest planetary touch to kickstart a circular-resource economy.

The spotlight going into 2021 has firmly been set on Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, with those without a well-thought-out strategy scrambling to put one in place. Companies need to educate employees and re-think recruitment processes, but that will not go far enough towards ensuring equality. What can business and industry do to ensure a more just and equal society?

For many industries, the most challenging area in delivering the Net-Zero transition is the need to decarbonize supply chains. Join senior business leaders to learn how companies are prioritizing, engaging, and empowering different areas of their supply chain to help deliver meaningful decarbonization impact both now and in the coming years.

As regulators and customers turn up the heat over embedded deforestation in corporate supply chains, Rainforest Alliance’s Nigel Sizer talks to Terry Slavin about why offsetting should only be a last resort for companies on the road to net-zero. He explains how companies need to establish closer relationships with farmers to ensure forest-positive outcomes, and why biodiversity loss may be even an even bigger risk to life on the planet than climate change.

Your net-zero announcements have been made, climate goals have been set, and now the real hard work begins. You need to make an effective decarbonization roadmap that stands up to scrutiny and will deliver against reduction targets in the next 1-3 years’, 5-10 years’ time…all the way to becoming a net zero business. From Scope 3 suppliers and the manufacturing process to transportation and buildings. Hear innovative new approaches to deliver action across the value chain and transform their business on to a sustainable, net-zero footing – from investments in new technologies and infrastructure to identify pre-competitive collaboration opportunities with industry peers and out of industry partners.

2020 demonstrated the need to rethink and build greater resilience within business operations. For many, this resulted in a more localized supply chain. Businesses need to assess their place in long vulnerable supply chains. Hear how you can strike the right balance between localization, competitiveness, and responsibility to current suppliers and communities.

Scope 3 emissions remain the biggest challenge for companies reaching their net zero ambitions, with traceability, accountability and supplier engagement continuing to be very difficult on a global scale. Do we need to completely reassess our approach to supply chain management, where its built around greater transparency, collaboration, and support? Hear from companies that are taking a renewed approach to their supply chain and find out how they are addressing Scope 3 emissions.