Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I'm delighted to welcome you to this webinar, which is the third presentation of the environmental resilience lecture series brought to you by the Environmental Protection Agency and the IEA. Throughout the course of this series, international experts address topics such as the circular economy, air quality, environmental governance, the bioeconomy, sustainable waste management, water quality, and climate change. On behalf of the IEA, I would like to thank the EPA for their sponsorship of this series. Today is Earth Day 2021 and we are delighted to be joined by Inger Anderson, Under Secretary General of the United Nations and Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Program. I would like to thank her for finding the time to speak with us today. Inger Anderson has been Under Secretary General of the United Nations and Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme since 2019. Between 2015 and 2019, she was the Director General of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Inger Anderson has more than 30 years of experience in international development, economics, environmental sustainability, strategy, and operations. For 15 years at the World Bank, she held several senior leadership positions, including Vice President of the Middle East and North Africa, Vice President for Sustainable Development, and head of the CJR Fund Council. Previously, Ms Anderson worked for 12 years on drought, desertification, and water management at the UN, including at the UN-Sudana-Sahalian office and UNDP. The title of today's address is Circularity to Restore the Earth. Ms Anderson will speak to us for about 20 minutes or so, and after her presentation, we will go to a Q&A session with you, our audience. You will be able to join the discussion using the Q&A function on Zoom, which you should see on your screen. And feel free to send your questions in throughout the session. Don't need to work to wait until the end, and it would be helpful if you identify yourself and any affiliation when you ask a question. A reminder that today's presentation and the Q&A session are on the record, and also feel free to join the discussion on Twitter using the handle epa-iea. First, please allow me to hand over to Laura Burke, Director General of the EPA, for some opening remarks. Laura. Thank you very much, Joan, and I'm just, the virtual world is confusing me a little bit for the moment, but first of all, thank you very much, Joan, and really delighted. The first thing I should say, we're really delighted to be joining with the IAEA on this Environmental Resilience Lecture Series. The aim is really to bring all stakeholders together behind a collective message of resilience, emphasizing both individual as well as societal responsibility to be good stewards of our shared environment. And really by taking concerted efforts to improve air and water quality, by reimagining waste cycles, and by focusing on raising environmental standards and governance, we can address pressing climate ecological and biodiversity crises. So delighted to be working in partnership with the IAEA and really delighted that Inger Andersen is joining us today to talk to us about the circular economy, which is so topical in Ireland at the moment, and if you let me just for a couple of minutes talk to you about why, and hopefully that'll put in context Inger's talk as well. So really moving to a circular economy is critical for Ireland. It's critical, of course, in terms of protecting our environment, but also protecting our economy and protecting local jobs. Our current model of consumption is built on convenience through short-lived or single-use products and disposable packaging. This happens in our homes and our businesses, worksites all across the country. We really live in a throwaway society. The marketing driven nature of our economy supercharges this behavior, urging replacement of products to ensure we're armed with the latest gadgets, fashions, homewares, long before we get full use of the products we have. But simply, there really isn't enough thought about where our stuff comes from or what happens when we're done with it. So we're busy accumulating more and more stuff, but really looking at the full life cycle of that stuff and whether we need it isn't taught through currently. So we're now developing a new national circular economy program in the EPA, and that's to be a driving force for Ireland's move to a circular economy by businesses, householders and the public sector. Creating a resource-efficient economy and resilient society requires rapid and far-reaching transformation across all sectors. And the EPA's circular economy program will support government strategy and translate national circular ambitions into the daily activities in workplaces and homes across Ireland. And I suppose what we're really doing is translating that aspiration into implementation on the ground. But our new program in a way isn't completely new. It really builds on 15 years of leadership by the EPA on waste prevention and resource efficiency. Starting from when Ireland and the EPA launched our first program of this type in Europe back in 2004-2005. And our work in this area includes Ireland's well-regarded food waste prevention program, the groundbreaking smart farming initiative, and the development of national guidance on priority topics such as construction waste and green public procurement. And we also support, and this is I suppose more recently, the Circular, which is an innovation and networking platform established just last year with 26 leading manufacturers to bring circularity into Ireland's manufacturing sector. And also, and I suppose this is my pitch to as many of you in the audience as possible, we also provide support funding to innovators and companies in the circular economy through our green enterprise program. And that's going to open for new proposals this year in May. And to give you an example of the type of things we fund, an example of our work in this area is the support we've given to send Mel's brewery and panelletto bakery in Longford to come together to use surplus bakery products as a raw material for beer manufacturing. And that's circular economy that I'd have to say I think is great and it's the type of circular economy I like. But working like this not only of course realises value from a material that would otherwise have gone to waste, but it creates a new product and that product has strong sustainability pedigree. So, I suppose to encourage you all to think about that and maybe bid for that program. In addition to that, we currently have a consultation program open asking about asking public and businesses to help shape this new circular economy program I was talking about. So we want your views and your thoughts with regard to the program's objectives and priorities and it's available there on the EPA website. So again, really ask you to engage with us on that consultation. But that's it from me. I now really look forward to hearing Inger's thoughts, her experience, her expertise and bringing how that can be brought into the Irish context and how we in Ireland can move closer to circular economy. So I'm going to hand over to Inger. Thank you very much and thanks for taking the time today. Thank you so very much to you Director General Laura Burke and also to Professor Owen Lewis for this kind invitation and of course to the EPA as a whole and IAEA for for doing the work that you do and for really pushing the issue of circularity. I'm not with you in in in person only two short years ago I had the great pleasure of being in Ireland for the biodiversity conference that was held in February of 2019. Yes. And it was again another example of Ireland's leadership and really seeking to lean in on these critical issues of our times. In these trying times, when we talk about resilience, most people turn to how to respond and recover from COVID-19 pandemic. And it's true that the pandemic has brought a lot of suffering we know millions of people have died. The global economy has contracted by around 4% in 2020 and livelihoods have collapsed with an estimated 120 million people pushed into extreme poverty just last year. The resilience go beyond COVID-19. This pandemic is but one symptom of how our planet's ailing health is affecting our own. Today on what in the UN they refer to as International Mother Earth Day. We have to think about hard about how to radically alter our relationship with nature and for the better. Today, we have to turn our minds to the solutions, the solutions to the three planetary crisis that we in UNEP speak of the climate crisis, the biodiversity and nature crisis, and the pollution and waste crisis. It's only in addressing these crisis together and these interconnected crisis that we can truly build that resilience. And as an unsustainable consumption and unsustainable production, as we just heard from you, Professor, Director General Burke are really the very drivers of these crisis. So we can only build resilience if we make the global economy entirely circular. So how to do that? Well, I hope to get to that through today's talk because there are tremendous potential to create prosperous, sustainable and a peaceful planet. And the actions we can take will help get us there. But first, let me just give some brief numbers of why we have no option but to change and let me start with the climate crisis because as we all know climate is in serious trouble. The atmospheric greenhouse gases are higher than they've been for 800,000 years. And as a result, the planet is warming. We've been already seeing these disruptive changes in our lives in precipitation and melting my sheets in glaciers and most recently and frequently obviously in extreme weather events across the world. We know that we've not done enough, even with the Paris Accord and its goals to limit global warming to under two degrees and to pursue 1.5. Now the new net zero commitments are interesting and important and they are covering much of the world's emissions, but targeting 2050, but promises is not that what's going to get us there obviously is the actions that we need to take. And right now, with what we're doing we are hurtling toward above three degrees. And so that's a little bit on the climate crisis now a little bit on biodiversity and nature. And as we've altered about 75% of the terrestrial surface of the earth and about 66% of the marine surface around one million of the around 7.8 million species that we have on this good earth face extinction and around 10% of forests have been lost since 1990. And again, we made promises in 2010 we agreed under the biodiversity convention on a series of targets that we should have reached last year, we have met none of these 20 targets the bottom line is that we cannot survive without nature and biodiversity. We cannot have our food have them have our foods be pollinated and our crops be pollinated regulating the weather the filter the water and so on, without biodiversity and finally of course, the third crisis pollution and waste that toxic trail of pollution, and waste that we leave behind that is growing every pollution is causing premature 9 million deaths from primarily from dirty air up to 400 million tons of heavy metals solvents toxic sludge and other industrial waste enter the world's waters annually and estimated 2.2 billion tons of municipal solid waste was generated in 2016. This is expected to grow to 3.4 billion tons by 2050. If we keep going with that throw away society that we just heard you refer to director general. So, have we done enough, we all know the answer no we have not. And these three crisis have devastating economic and social implications in the sustainable development goals we've set these lofty ambitions to create a planet of peace and plenty. So, we're celebrating planetary crisis are really undermining those hard one development gains and impeding progress, for example, even small increases in temperature risks, opposed risk to health food security to water supply and to human safety. In 2018 and loan damages from climate related natural disasters cost about $155 billion. So again, I mentioned the loss of pollinators critical to more than 75% of the world's food crops. The loss of those threatened annual global crops outputs at a worth about well between 235 billion to around above 500 billion. So, meanwhile, of course, since the mid 20th century, at least 40% of all intrastate conflicts conflicts between nations have been linked to somehow. This is not what we're in the position of or the competition for natural resources. So the burden of this environmental decline is always felt disproportionately by the poor, and by the most vulnerable and future generations will suffer even more so there's also that intergenerational failure. So the way we produce use and discard is responsible for these crisis at the heart of these crisis lies our unsustainable model of consumption and production metals would food fiber electronics you name it we wasted with throwing away money throwing away resources for our chance for a human for future of human health for future of prosperity and for future of equity, and only a root and branch transformation of the way we produce and the way we consume will enable humanity to achieve a well being for all within the earth's finite capacity. It's time to change our ways starting this year through this pandemic recovery through stronger nationally determined contributions that promise a renot that we are going to give into the Paris Accord every five years and coming up now for Glasgow. And that's how we're going to make the Paris goals achievable and reachable that's how we're going to reach long term sustainable sustainability through ambitious biodiversity framework that we're going to agree in coming at COP 15 under the biodiversity convention and through implementation of all the pollution and waste related conventions scaling up circularity and sustainable consumption and production has to be at the heart of these processes. And that is the 12th STG sustainable consumption and production in every single sector circularity and sustainable consumption and production can deliver these enormous environmental, economic and social benefits. Just consider a couple of points, applying circular closed loop approaches and demand sign measures to the processing of steel, aluminium, cement and plastic could achieve as much as 56% of the EU's 2050 emissions reductions for industry. That's worth one noting. So the global clothing industry, for example, emits more greenhouse gases than the international flights and maritime shipping combined. Not that they have flights and shipping should get a free pass, but we need to understand the footprint of our own consumption. That global clothing industry is responsible for growing land conversion by developing circular design measures using secondary raw materials and providing consumers with easy to access reuse and repair services. Circular economy can cut these emissions and the use of land to grow materials. So promoting repair ability, upgrade ability and availability of spare parts software support and material recovery and electronics, for example, could contribute to the fight against climate and reduce the need to gorge new materials from the earth. Collection and recycling only applies to 17% of EUA's produced globally. In this regard, we're proud at UNEP to be supporting a number of countries, let me mention here Nigeria, as a major importer of used electronics to develop a circular model for the electronic value chain, which can be replicated across Africa. So circularity can also build the resilience in our economies. The pandemic has shown the fragility and the limited flexibility of many of the global supply chains, for example, countries such as Cambodia or Bangladesh for whom textile exports and products represent about 84% of exports. We've seen orders worth over 1.4 billion canceled during the pandemic. And the current industrial agricultural models, meanwhile, rely on fossil fuels practices that damage ecosystems and supply chains and involve long distance transport and seasonal workforces. As a result, lockdowns have stressed food supplies in many, many places. Circularity can provide credible solutions to strengthen such fragile systems in food systems, for example, large scales investments in regenerative peri-urban production can bring food closer to consumers, reduce environmental impacts and fragility. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation research has highlighted that a circular scenario could lead to 50% reduction of pesticides and synthetic fertilizers for use by 2030 when we compared to 2012. And at the same time, it could result in a 12% drop in household expenditure. So friends and colleagues with many of these benefits up for grabs, we are seeing a surge in circularity-related initiatives and we just heard that from you, Director General. The EU's circular economy action plan foresees a cleaner and more competitive Europe. The African circular economy alliance is concentrated, excuse me, on low emission and climate resilient models that can emphasize green innovation and job creation. And the Latin American and Caribbean circular economy coalition and the global alliance for circular economy and resource efficiency both launched in February just now are working in the same space. So the good thing is that there are these alliances forming, there are constituencies nationally, there are locally communities that are moving this dial. There are many country efforts and initiatives and promises and cities are also doing a great deal. Let me mention the city of Phoenix, not necessarily a city you would know about in this topic, but the city of Phoenix has increased its recycling of waste to 36% by mid-2019 only from only 20% in 2015. So in three years, they've increased by 16%. In Accra Ghana, 95% of all electronic and waste, electronic and electrical waste, much of it imported from Europe, is collected. And most of this collection is informal. It has health impacts and efforts are therefore underway to train workers to safely and effectively recycle this waste. But we need to accelerate the transition and not necessarily export our waste to elsewhere. So let me offer up some suggestions for how we can create the necessary conditions to shift to real circularity. A few points. Governments must, must use the pandemic recovery stimulus to shift gears to circularity. Anything else would be nearly unforgivable. UNEP research shows that some investment has already gone into a green recovery and that's a good thing. In 2020, about 86 billion was announced globally for green transport infrastructure. That could not move as a shared and circular mobility system could mitigate all three crisis that I spoke about and potentially reduce costs of travel by around 70%. But similarly, let's talk about the construction industry because green building investment received about 32, 35 billion in this recovery endeavor, largely for building upgrades and for energy efficiency. And that could also promote new building techniques and more circular use of building materials. Investments in green research and development stood at around 28 billion. And so that's a good thing. But each of these we have to realize that according to our assessment only 2.5% of all the spending that has gone into the recovery, only 18% of the spending made in 2020 is likely to drive greenhouse gas emissions. So we need much more. So the first point was using the green recovery efficiently to drive circularity. The second point is that we have to reform economic and financial systems, because they are the way they are the ones that give us the mortgages that use virgin materials. They are the ones that can help shift together with government regulations. So let us think about how to reform economic and financial systems. We're seeing good movements in this front, but no debt and equity instruments related to the circular economy existed in 2017, and by mid 2020, 10 public equity funds on circular economy have been launched. According to Ellen MacArthur Foundation, assets managed through such funds grew from under $100 billion to $2 billion in the first half of 2020, outperforming many other funds in the same category. Other financiers are seeing the way the market is moving since 2019. At least 10 corporate bonds to finance circularity have been issued. And since 2016, there have been about a 10-fold increase in the number of private market funds investing in circular activities in the economy. So the trend we're also seeing in bank lending and product finance and insurance, but we need to have the government guardrails alongside of this, because it is the consumption of you and I, the clothes we buy, the vehicles we drive, the houses we own, etc. And this part of the issues of pointing fingers is at an industry is not enough. Recent research from UNEP's finance initiative does tell us that the finance sector need to do three things to speed up reform. We need to take transition to circularity into the organization's strategy and identify risks and opportunities to that linear business model versus a circular one and disclose the level of financing for circularity that they have on the balance sheet. It's important because the banks of course are supporting economic activities in the real sectors, but the banks do not necessarily control this without government regulations. So businesses and investors are essential to drive this and yesterday with Mark Carney and John Kerry we launched a new alliance precisely to help drive this. The major impediment to sustainable design practices is that sustainable products and services are often more expensive. Businesses offering repairs and refurbished products struggle to compete with newly manufactured products with labor cost rendering their margins to slim so we need to ensure that incentives and taxes drive businesses and consumers to adopt circular solutions. That starts with putting a price on carbon, facing up harmful subsidies and redirecting subsidies towards supporting solutions that contribute to circularity and to regenerative economics. So shifting taxation from production and labor to to resource use and waste is one way of doing it. So the third point that you can be used as a disincentive, for example by applying a tax to products that do not include every cycle content. So that was my second point, shifting the economy but the third point here is to improve the ability of small and medium size enterprises to deal with these external shocks by helping them move to circularity. And so we know that across the OECD SMEs account for 99% of all businesses so how to do that and here we're working with Kenya, South Africa, Tunisia and many other industry countries to support industries to do just that. There are financial barriers. There is a lack of government support. There is a lack of technical skills. So this is what we have to drive and ensure. And my fourth point is that we need to manage the shift to support industries and people to in in resource producing countries, because if we want to transition to circularity. And if we wanted to stick and to be fair, it has to create decent jobs in the world's poor countries in the world's most vulnerable countries, and they are often the resource exporting countries. So that's an important dimension that the wealthier countries need to take into account as they move forward on circularity. Because there will be certain losses and certain sectors will wind down countries can build on the experience of managing transitions for workers. For example, in the Netherlands, when the cold mines closed, well, it did affect about 50,000 workers. So putting that social safety net and retraining and redirecting economic activities become key. All the more important for the poorest countries, the resource exporters, when we need to ensure through trade and through investments that we can help them prosper. So for friends, shifting to circularity is a complicated task, and it is one that needs a whole of society approach today. We've assessed the role of governments, the private sector and financial institutions, but we should not forget that labor organizations, scientific and educational bodies, media households, academic organizations and universities civil society groups are also very conditioned to initiate to demand the transformation to circularity. They should all be empowered to voice and to be part of the solution. A carefully managed transition to circularity and sustainable consumption and production will be absolutely critical as we seek to deliver on the sustainable development goals to deliver on a world that is in accord with Paris and to deliver ambitious biodiversity and pollution agendas. It's essential to recover from the pandemic in a way that does not give us back to the old group. It does not store up more problems for the future because let us remember the pandemic stimulus is not money that was sitting in our accounts. It is monies that we are borrowing from future generations. Let us not leave that next generation with a broken planet as well as an insurmountable debt. This is within our reach. It will be essential for resilience of our economies and with all of society approach and a global approach. We can do this. Thank you very much. Thank you very much indeed, Executive Director Anderson. There's a lot, there's a lot for thought there. I must say that that almost final remark that you make about how these these assets which have grown in bank accounts are borrowings from the future is a very telling. I think it's very clear from your remarks the radical nature of the transition that is that is involved and the opportunities which present themselves in coming out of the this awful experience. There are quite a few questions so perhaps if I might turn to some of these. Well, let me, let me start off with one. How can we best address in built obsolescence, which is particularly prevalent perhaps in digital products. Is there a global standard that could be applied. So the question of obsolescence and maybe particularly that group of products. I think there is no global standard that could be applied. I think we are, you know, we have a stick and we have a large initiative that works precisely on e-waste, which, which has, as we know, very detrimental especially when we see open, open burning of the plastics that often in case the electronics are indeed open melting of the metals that are within this electronics. A number of companies are working on setting up assembly and reassembly. But I will invite most of the participants here to open a drawer with their old cell phones. Just to consider how we are use and how we're using our electronics in an inappropriate way and how we when we upgrade simply either throw it away or leave it in a drawer. Just to understand that there are fantastic materials in these products and rather than going to other countries and continuing as I said, Gording, we need to set up these, these recyclability, which means that the design it comes from the very design of products. And here electronics is a good, good example, but packaging is another. When we double layer a paper with a plastic we've already prevented recycling in a, in a, in an easy form. So we need to think about for every product, how we do this and this is where governments based on the science and people like ourselves in unit bring in based on the kind of global agreements that we underpin can help support. At this point there are no broader global agreements, although many electronic companies and each speaking to this point. Thank you. As it happens, just as you were speaking a question came in which is quite closely related but it's interesting because it's from Garrett Blaney who is chair of our communications regulator in Ireland. He thanks you firstly for an inspiring talk, but asks, do you have any thoughts on what actions could be taken by the telecommunications sector to improve the circular economy and how we should encourage these actions. So you've, you started to address those questions. Okay, so there is a site for the regular for the regulatory arm at the national or any other way, or and there is a site for the individual produce the individual purveyor of telecommunications. So buybacks are happening in a number of places when you get your new phone you can get a reduction if it's like your old car right, you get a reduction if you sell if you sell back. Then what happens then once you have sold it back it's out of your, your desk draw, but what happens to it. There's no source where and I won't mention specific companies but some companies are beginning to and any, any listener can Google and find out which companies which large electronic companies are beginning to, to have a disassembly and then reuse. There would be more of that. And we could also imagine a situation where there would be incentivized by, by the public side to, if you, if your device has got a degree of reassembly within it. There would be some incentives to buying this, just like we're doing now with vehicles, etc. We want to shift public behavior or consumer behavior to that to that level. On the one hand the regulatory side from governments and certainly on the other hand industry setting up buybacks and and easy disassembly today the way these items are constructed makes it quite hard to disassemble and to get the end of it but but this is this is a solvable engineering electronic engineering issue that can be addressed. And your point about connecting so the right incentives are in place, which underlines your point about the holistic approach to this so that several sectors need to collaborate to deliver the the intended result. There's a question here was, is the 2015 people in cyclical Laudato si on the environment, having an impact in tackling an environmental degradation. A question from Esneli. I absolutely think that when his holiness Pope Francis came out with the encyclical and made it so clear that the duty we have to our one and only us is one that we cannot possibly take lightly that that brought into outside the environment bubble in which I live, and it brought into faith communities, a deeper understanding and reflection. We are doing that we're very proud we have an initiative that we call faith for us, which combines many many faiths including obviously Christianity and obviously the Catholic church bringing voices of faith leaders to the table to the science and speaking to the care that we have to take for our common home. So I do think that this that the encyclical of 2015 coming at the time when we when we also agreed on Paris when we also agreed and sustainable development goals was a very important move by the Catholic church. Thank you. A student at our largest university at UCD Dublin, Jonas Paulson asks, what is hindering us from holding individuals or corporations responsible in the same way as we hold individuals or nations responsible for crimes against humanity. I mean, Jonas is right and he's asking a good question and he should keep asking that, because it's only our own level of lack of ambition, if you like. We need to, frankly, use all the voices we have including the voice at the ballot box to ensure that those we elect and it is not a left or right issue. It is an environmental and intergenerational issue that those we put in positions of making determinations for the future do so based on the science available environmental science. But each one of us in our consumption and production have a responsibility to and many times people feel like, especially when you live with wealth which we all do in the West when we compare to poorer countries. So turning off that light or walking instead of taking the car or recycling or whatever it is or not purchasing more stuff that we are just going to put in the cupboard. We may not understand that each of these actually have an impact. And then there are the bigger picture ensuring that our overarching climate goals are set with the level of ambition that we need to see. And maybe I saw that Seamus McGartney had a question here so maybe I just pick that up because today we have the climate leaders summit and we do need to see today that level of ambition, especially obviously and we are hearing that that will come out from the US, which is back in the climate accord and we will understood this morning that there will be very ambitious announcements coming out of the summit, which we agreed with great appreciation. We also very much appreciate and like to see the collaboration. It may be that there are different competition in other areas, but large emitters must agree and lead, and that includes China, and it's very good that there's some US conversations on this, because it's only this way by the large emitters putting their foot forward that we can actually make it. Thank you. There's a quite specific question from Harold Kingston in the Irish Farmers Association. He says that livestock manure is rightly classified as a fertilizer instead of waste. What place can the nutrients in human and industrial waste have in the circular economy or in safe food production. Thank you. I mean, first of all, as we speak about climate change, as we speak about biodiversity, this is a point I always make, the farmer is the friend, not the enemy. These are people across the world doing a critical job that ensure that you and I get food on our table. We need to help farmers shift to climate positive, biodiversity positive production, but never ever vilify the farming industry. That's sort of a point that I always have to make here. And the point here is that the kind of nutrients that we do have in our waste streams can be converted to either biogas, as we see in a number of places, or to other materials that we can use to enhance our soil health and soil fertility. And so the more we look into research in this area, the more we look into again, helping that process so that these are not just wastes that go into the landfill and then emit methane in their decomposition, but rather that they are in biogas digesters or indeed converted to fertilizer or to other products is critical. And it is remarkable that with all the human ingenuity that we haven't really invested in this and it is still a thing when you have a biogas digester in your local community. I mean, I just can't even believe that it should be a news item, but in my little community in Denmark. That's, that's a conversation piece that they have a biogas digester. It should be every community should have this because they would be able to generate energy or generate heat from some of these materials. Our audience is keeping up the diversity of the range of topics that they're posing for you. And the next question I have here is from someone whom you may well have met. Ambassador David Donohue, who was co-chair of the SDG negotiations at the UN. He asks, the circular economy is a compelling model, but can more be done to bring out its benefits for the poorest countries and peoples, the social dimension, and not just the economic and environmental. I mean, let's think about it. Today, where some of these resources are extracted, either from the original material or recycled, it is the dirtiest, most demeaning, most dangerous, most polluting jobs possible. If anyone has been to an e-waste place in Africa or elsewhere, you will know what I'm talking about. There are often children, often people barefooted, often there are smoking fires from plastics, etc. So you paint this picture. This is not decent work. This is not human dignity. But it is a day's living. And so what we need to do is to help those economies make shifts so that they're not necessarily dependent. And this, yes, we may need to disassemble, but let it be done in more factory like clean conditions where there is decent work. So we can demand this if we set the guardrails again for the degree of recyclability, recycled materials that we would like to see in the materials that we buy. If we could, just like when we used to have sweatshops and then we began to demand that we would not buy things that were produced by pseudo slave labor. So I think we as consumers, we do have a role to play here. But the awareness is low about we buy the new phone and we don't necessarily think about where the old one went, or the computer, what have you. But I do think that that's a dimension. And of course, in terms of industrial scale mining of new materials, we need to be mindful that these countries are dependent, as I said in my talk, on these exports. But we also need to be mindful of their finite, finite, of the finite nature of these resources. So finding other ways of supporting countries in making some of those shifts towards longer term sustainability has to be part and parcel of it, which is why in the sustainable development goal, we speak about leaving no one behind and we speak about equity and justice. And climate justice is a key dimension, as well as environmental justice at the global level. We have a question from a parliamentarian, our former Minister for Communications Climate Action and Environment, Richard Bruton, and he asks, does the focus of Paris on the production side to inventory of the greenhouse gas emissions. Can you interpret the examination of the entire supply chain, which is at the heart of circularity. And how can that be addressed. You know, I mean, Paris is a is an agreement negotiated by 193 nations and agreed to by all. The last thing I will do is to criticize this agreement. But you know, other things I would have liked to have in it, of course there are right. I would have liked to have a closer link with biodiversity and so on I would have liked to have had a clear price on target pertaining to Article 6 and accurate language around circularity but look, it is what it is. So no, it doesn't hamper I would say, but it doesn't explicitly pronounce itself on the opportunities for CO2 reductions by bringing about a circular economy, and by looking at the entire supply chain. And that is what but what you could say that there are many other dimensions here that the Paris agreement doesn't doesn't deal with. And it is for science then to raise to raise this and it is for science and to say well look in renewables are these and these and these opportunities, and to bring them to the four because the Paris agreement also doesn't tell you which renewable sector, etc. No one doesn't tell you about which which recycle which circularity sec which sector to if we were to bring it into circularity will be give you the biggest bang for the buck. I think we need to take the Paris as the as the line of sight for where we have to reach and then it is for us then to analyze and look at the entire economy and say for this country for that sector, these are the kind of commitments that we need to make. I have quite a specific question from Deirdre Lane. She asks, where do you see wool as a non plastic solution in fashion in insulation and reviving rural economies. It's currently being wasted globally. So wool wool and cotton and other materials. So, I mean, obviously, we should not be wasting textiles. And this is clear and we should not be mixing synthetics with cottons and we really need to think about just like we recycling paper and plastic we need to think about this. So I don't know enough about wool to have a specific point here but what I can say is that we should really once things are in the economy we're doing today is we're taking stuff out of the environment. We're putting into the economy that is a good thing it creates jobs opportunities makes wheels go around. And when we're done with it we just got it as waste back into the environment that is no longer an option. It needs to stay in the economy. And that's sort of the bottom line here that we need to think about and textiles play an important role as to a number of other raw materials as to another number of materials. In your talk you did emphasize the importance does the impact of the textiles industry indeed. The industry that is my where my own background lies the construction industry, you mean you refer to that as well. It's responsible of course for a very substantial part of the raw materials extracted from from the trust of our Earth. And yet it's really seems internationally quite an early stage in even even having the necessary information let alone take then moving on to take the necessary decisions, but in the information on, for instance, the life cycle of the of the impacts of the materials being used. So that designers and constructors and so on could take the necessary decisions.  We are you know, we've done a number of studies through the IRP the international resources panel that we're proud to host and here we emphasize the sort of weight of cities I mean what is that there was actually the communication we came out with that discusses a weight of cities in terms of climate and resource impact and and the weight of industry and the more we can construct with such a with with with with the with a circularity in mind obviously the much better we will be off as a global community. I have a question from a postgraduate student in India, Mar Braav. He says thank you for your insightful talk. I'm interested to know your thoughts on whether you think that the circular economy is conceived the same way in developed and developing countries. Can we have a global uniform approach across economies, or is circular economy to be viewed as a privilege. I'm glad that that my brother asks this question, because it is a question to be responded to. I think in a number of countries there's greater comfort with speaking with sustainable consumption and production, which is the title of the SDG 12, as opposed to circularity because in a number of countries we have distinct under consumption. We have 800 million people going to Hungary, we have 1.3 billion people live in abject poverty. And so the sense that the growth model that in the West was sort of take, make and waste might still be the linear model might still be the best way it is not however the best way, because the job opportunities that are available in circularity, the opportunities for long term competitiveness that are available from circularity are very real, but we need to understand that poorer countries have an opportunity maybe to leapfrog across a polluting age and not to have to go through that cost of the cleanup that wealthy countries have had to do to do.  So the option of just wasting and living with our waste and assuming that we can be healthy is a mirage. And so it is a conversation because global equity has to be part of it and that means also global trade rules, understanding the full cost, price on carbon, these dimensions need to be part and parcel of it because otherwise, and obviously living up to the promise of climate finance, $100 billion per year by 2020. These are part and parcel of the solution that need to be part of the global equity question. I think it probably has to be our last question, but it seems to me to be a really key issue raised by a professor at Trinity College Dublin, Claire Laude. She asks, how do you convince individuals that their individual personal actions, for example, not switching your engine off when waiting for your kids to come out of school, have a global impact. The message does not seem to get through Claire says.  The world is made up of these seven point what have you billion people. And each one of us has a footprint and you and I, we have a footprint that is massively bigger than that person in Bhutan. And so, or in Kenya, so, and, and we want to, we want to understand that we want to arrive at 1.5. The kind of footprint that we have truly matters. I think what what we have understood is that just conveying the numbers, just conveying the facts and the science is not enough we need to hit with the heart. Maybe, you know, your children will probably tell you before you do it, because kids get it, or maybe the faith communities will tell you about sustainability so it is that people like myself who are in this environmental community need to understand that it is when others often you hear the truth comes from the child or the truth comes, or the persuasion comes from communities, the arts, the music industry, or, or, or elsewhere. I think it's very hard. We are now heading into COP 26. That means that it's more than a quarter of a century, where we have not agreed to do what we know we needed to do. And the science was clear 26 years ago and actually it's 27 because we skipped 2020. The science was clear 27 years ago, and it is clearer every year, and yet we have not done it. It is not about the science. It is about ensuring that there is political leadership that this is that the communication is consistent, and that it is not taking hostage by political posturing. This is the only, the only path we can walk in terms of the future, circularity, sustainability, climate action, and protecting nature, preventing pollution through, through sustainable consumption and production is the only way forward. This is the only way that we can ensure intergenerational equity. And so I'll stop here but very much thinking for for that last question, which sort of allowed me to wrap it up here. Really, I think you have brought things together and it really strikes home when, in our own experience, certainly here we've seen this how the the schools, the school children coming back from projects and from exposures that they've experienced in schools can be the drivers for change in in the family in in shaming the parents in. So you've tackled an enormous topic today, and you've tackled in a really elegant fashion. We are very much in your in your debt to Inger Anderson. So on behalf of the IIA and I think the EPA as well, and of the several hundred people who have been party to this discussion. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you.


on then. Okay, good morning. This is a meeting of the screening subcommittee of the for the IEB director. It is meeting number two. And because we are conducting this meeting virtually, I will acknowledge each of the subcommittee members by roll call. Starting with Commissioner Hill. I am here. Good morning. Good morning. Chief Muldrew. I am here. Good morning. And we have joining us today for presentations. Troup de Banda, who is our human resources manager. Here. Thank you. And we also have council from Anderson and Krieger. Nina McCary is good morning, Nina. Good morning, Commissioner Skinner. Okay, so we will start with item number two on the agenda, the meeting minutes from our very first meeting, October 17, 2023. Chief Muldrew, Commissioner Hill, have you had a chance to review those? Okay. Any comments, questions, edits on those? No. Good to go, Commissioner Hill. You're muted if you're speaking. I think you are. I am. I'm just want to do one thing before I make a motion. So bear with me one second and I apologize. No worries. Are you gearing up to make some suggested edits to the minutes? No, I'm having, I don't have them in front of me, but I did read them. What was the date for them? So I can, I have to put that in the motion. October 17. Thank you. You're welcome. And I think, I think I can use my old secretary. Sorry, I thought I'd be better prepared than this. No worries. We have council here. Attorney McCary, do you want to, okay? Yeah, Madam Chair, I move that the commission approve the minutes from the October 17th meeting that are included in the commissioners pack, included in our packet, subject to any necessary corrections for typographic layers or non-material matters. Nice second motion. Thank you. Chief Muldrew. Okay. I will do a roll call vote. Commissioner Hill? Aye. Chief Muldrew? Aye. And I am also an aye. Thank you. All right. So moving on to item number three, before I turn it over to Attorney McCary, I just want to note that the IEB director position is posted as of November 8th. Slightly delayed from when we were shooting for November 3rd, but I think considering still pretty good timing. So that's posted. We'll have a troupe later in the meeting discuss the hiring process, the recruitment process. But just want to acknowledge that right now, as far as I can tell, the job is posted on the commission's website. And it is also posted in one of the, I believe it's a government publication master list. So looking forward to hearing more about the efforts of our human resources division and getting that word out on that posting. All right. Attorney McCary. Yes. Good morning, everyone. I'll be brief. You've heard me say a lot of this in open session already. But I think the goal for the starting point was to just provide a few reminders about some of the options available to you as you go into the screening process. I want to, I guess reiterate the first major point here is that there is great flexibility in how you do this job. And it is an often an iterative process. As you see the pool of candidates as you cut as you start going through them, etc. The purpose of the screening committee, the only sort of real boundaries that come in from the really come in from the opening law in this case. And that is that you limit your discussion of the process you will use to open session. So that's why I want an open session today. You may go into executive session to discuss the process, excuse me, the individual candidates. The purpose for the exemption is really to protect both the identity of the candidates, some of whom may not be ready to let the public at large know that they're looking for new employment or employment with the commission if they're not currently employed. And also to protect in the same vein, the commission's ability to attract top quality candidates who aren't worried about that, who might not otherwise put their name in there. Once you're in executive session, you may talk about, and I know you don't have any planned today, you may talk about the candidates, you may talk about whether the pool is sufficient as you have it. We will continue to be part of those sessions. We are somebody from legal and most for any session and to help answer questions about when it's appropriate to stay in executive session or where a topic may need to be picked back up in public session. An individual question about how to approach a particular portion of someone's background or resume is fine to discuss an executive session, and that's not sort of general process, but to the extent we come back to bigger process questions, you may end up wanting to reconvene more open sessions like this. As the other kind of big piece that the Attorney General's Office has made clear for screening committees is that it is not your job and you may not pick a finalist or a recommended finalist. You can't recommend and you are expected to typically pick up with at least two or more folks who would then be interviewed publicly by the whole commission. In the event that as you go through your screening, you decide it might make sense to interview folks within the screening committee first, let's say you have a really big list of people who might make the cut and you would like to talk to some of them. You may be able to, we'd like, depending on the particulars of where you are in the process, but you normally would be able to interview for that preliminary screening in executive session as well. Again, to protect the identity of somebody who may not make that final cut for the commission interviews that are public. What's the contingency there? He said we may be able to do in the executive session. What is that? It's a little bit of a judgment call at the moment of it, but it is whether you're really getting, if you're at a point where there's close to essentially a group of finalists, whether you may have to make the decision, it doesn't make more sense to have all of them sent to the commission for interviews versus having them here or if it's already public knowledge that somebody is interviewing, that's unlikely to be the case here. The only reason I'm hedging is doggedness of legal training stuck in my brain that there's always something you haven't thought of today, but that might come up, but there really is unlikely to be a reason if you're still in a pre-finalist stage not to be able to interview. Okay, thank you for that clarification. Sorry to interrupt you. No problem. The last point I was going to make, because I know it comes up sometimes for screening committees like this, I guess I'll make two last points. One is about the process and one's about interactions outside of this. For the screening committee process, one question that often comes up is, what information can you consider about candidates as you're doing the screening? Are you allowed to take your own personal knowledge of a person that might put their name forward or what's publicly available information? That is something that as you start your discussions in the executive session, we certainly can provide more guidance on individual circumstances. There's certainly, I'm sure, Shruti and Dave have sort of HR best practices on that. However, just as a legal matter, there's nothing preventing you from using that information. This is not a procurement process. It's not a competitive bid or licensing process where you might otherwise have limitations. It's really like any hiring you have other due diligence that's been done, you can incorporate that. The last thing I'll just mention briefly and I think everybody who's a member of this body has dealt with this now in one form or another are the interactions outside of this. There are only three of you, so it does make things difficult to convey any information certainly without at least worrying about the open meeting law. Staff can convey information to all three of you being Dave, Dave, Commissioner Skinner and Commissioner Hill. So can counsel. However, we also have to be careful about not inadvertently carrying the opinion of one person to another. Should questions arise, Shruti and I have talked about this. We'll make sure we're communicating to be on the safe side of that. But again, to reiterate, we will take issues and questions as they come up and I think we'll all get through this as efficient as a manner as possible. That's all I have unless there are questions. So I have just an observation, I guess. It appears that you've really only laid out one major decision point for the subcommittee and that is whether or not to interview candidates for advancement to the full commission for consideration, right? That's that's that's really your your purview. Now, obviously, there are some decisions of that. For instance, is the pool sufficiently large? Do you want to ask the search firms to, you know, beat the hedges for more folks and get more folks in the pool? Is the process going at the right pace, etc. Those kinds of so. But otherwise, yeah, at the end of the day, that is your the purview of this body, as opposed to decisions about the the role, etc. Now that the job description is posted, there really isn't much, you know, just a difference on that. In our first meeting, we talked about reserving the option to utilize the search firms that the commission is already engaged with in connection with the ED search. So I just want to remind us all of that option. It's way too early to even revisit that just given that we are not sure where we will become sure very shortly when troop D is up, but we're not sure where the postings can be found now, aside from the two places I just mentioned at the beginning of the meeting. So if there are no other questions, Commissioner Hale, Chief Muldrew and troop D, you're ready. I have one question. Excuse me. I'm sorry. Okay. Sorry. No, my question is to make sure I this is a little different role than my other role screening. So for me to understand all candidates referred to the screening committee will flow through troop D to three of us. Is that correct? That's correct. Yeah, I think that makes sense. In this case, they would give it given your role on the committee. All right. All right. Let's not say that you may not have other kind of HR functions you're performing. I understand. Right. Yeah. That's important. I just want to make sure I want to make sure I had a clear understanding of that. Okay. Yeah. And Chief Muldrew, I apologize. That was a decision that I made, but I couldn't talk to you about it. You know, given what Attorney Macarius laid out in terms of the OML parameters. So troop D. Okay. So as it was mentioned, the position was posted with the salary based on the structure that we have within grade eight. Just to kind of give everyone up to speed, the salary range is from 130,000 to 172 grade eight. And that's where we're at. The position is posted on the Commonwealth employment opportunity, which is where we post all of our positions. And in addition to that, it aggregates into, you know, other positions, other job boards as well. In addition to that posting, we have posted it on the master list. And then we also have compiled other associations and groupings where we're going to extend the his posting out to. And from a process perspective, I do have a list of that, which I can share with everyone in terms of where the places are, what the costs associated with it.  And if there's anything that's missing, we can certainly add to that, or if anyone has a recommendation on that. So Madam Chair, Commissioner Hill, go ahead. So I would like to see that list so that we have it public. And so if anybody ever asks us, where did this go? We can answer them. And I believe, Madam Chair, that that question was asked of us at one meeting that we obviously had to put it out yet. Now that we have, now publicly we can say this is where it's gone. Are you okay with that? I am completely okay with that. And I think we all are. We would prefer that approach. And Truth D, I don't know if you're prepared to run through that list today. Okay, great. I am. I can actually share it if that's okay. Oh, sure. Do we see the list here? I see your screen. Could you make it bigger? Oh, okay. How about now? That's better. That's better. I'm sorry. Let me, how about this? Here we go. So this kind of, this breaks down the organizations, the costs associated where, where we are in terms of our notes. And we intend to keep this as a, you know, a reference sheet of where we posted the funds that we allocated to this particular posting and see where we yield in terms of candidates. The one thing I will share is our applicant tracking system, which is a Commonwealth Mass Careers. We're not able to see where, where the, from what posting we got this person through. Just want to make sure everyone's aware of that. But this will go to show that the efforts were made to cascade and widen that for the posting. True, do you? Yes. You referenced the Commonwealth's website for job postings. And you said that from there, the posting aggregates into other job boards. Such as MD. Outside of the ones you have listed here and correct. And do you know, do you know who those are? What? I don't know off top top hand, but I know for a fact, like Indeed is one of them, any that are unpaid in some instances, right? I've already seen it on Indeed. Yep. So Indeed aggregates from a variety of different postings. And their draw is to get other air, you know, other folks. We've also had the ability working with our communications department to post it on LinkedIn. So that's another one that we can add to this. And we'll go from here. And if there are any suggestions by this committee, certainly, please let me know. Or if there's any affinity groups or programs that you're associated with that you have connections with. We always work with the hiring manager or managers to kind of work through their connections as well. So I do have a suggestion, although I'm not sure if such a forum exists. Law enforcement association, you know, I don't know what, how it would be referenced. But if there's anything that exists along those lines, then I think that would be helpful. Commissioner Hale, do you? So my recommendation is that we reach out to the Mass Municipal Association. If you're talking about public safety, it's the Mass Chiefs Association, Massachusetts Police Chiefs Association. There is a Massachusetts Fire Chiefs Association. And Meena, I'm going by my municipal hat a few years back. I think that would hit the municipal groups. Commissioner Hale, yes. For public safety, the Mass Chiefs ones were the ones that come to mind. There is a Mass Municipal Lawyers Association as well that tend to be folks like myself. So that would be good to post there as well. So can you add it about five additional? Can you repeat that again, Meena? I'm sorry, Mass. So Commissioner Hale mentioned the Mass Police Chiefs and Mass Fire Chiefs Association. And then there's a Mass Municipal Lawyers Association, which is MMLA. Is that part of the Mass Municipal Association? No, they work closely together, but it used to be called the City Solicitor Town Council Association, but that was about it. Gotcha. Those would be the public safety ones, Nikesha. Yeah, I think that's a good list. If I may, sorry, Commissioner Skinner, if I may offer, I didn't see it on here, but as you probably know, a lot of the sort of defense and criminal prosecution bar may be more involved in the Mass Bar Association. So if that's not on here, that should be reached by Mass Lawyers Weekly, but in addition to Boston Bar, the MBA might be another place to post. MBA? Mass Bar Association. Mass Bar Association. That's helpful. And, Trudy, are you willing to accept any additional suggestions offline? So anyone of the three of us, Commissioner Hale and Chief Muldrew, can reach out to Trudy as we gain a better understanding of other organizations that we might want to post this position with. So what I will do after this meeting is, at the very least, update with the suggestions that were given today to this list. And I will send it to the committee as far as with a status update on the process. Nina, is that okay? I would suspect. Yes, that's fine. Yeah. That way, everyone's on the same page around where we are with some of these postings. Some of these do take a little while where we have to set up a challenge and different things like that, but we'll continue to update the list. And we'll send a link to this team so that way you can just click on it and then you can just go back to the same link every time and updates will be on there. How does that work for everybody? That's fine. Madam Chair, I have one more suggestion. State Police Association of Massachusetts. Excellent. So that covers all the police and fire. Nina, I have a question of you. Sure. I may. I had forwarded this morning again through Annie. I had forwarded a list of 20 candidates to be reviewed by Madam Chair and Commissioner Hill. I won't do that, but that has happened. So I wanted to make sure you were aware of that. But going forward, it will flow originate from troop D and HR. Yeah. Go ahead, Commissioner Skinner. Sorry. Sorry. So troop D is going to get into the process a little bit more. Okay. But that's exactly right. These postings, these resumes and applications should really at this point be flowing through troop D to each of us on the subcommittee. So if you would, Chief Muldrew, please provide troop D with whatever tools she needs to access these job post these applications, excuse me, directly. Yeah, I have them. So. Madam Chair, before troop D does that. So I'm looking forward to the process, but I'm going to throw out an idea after her presentation that I think we need to talk about. Okay. That sounds good. Just wrapping up, wrapping up the first piece of your presentation, troop D. I understand that you will be populating that spreadsheet with real-time information, essentially, as to when the job is posted with each of those organizations and outlets. And then will you circulate that to the committee? Will you create a SharePoint link for us to access whenever? Okay. I think the latter. You read my mind. You read my mind. So my intentions are to continue to update the existing list that I shared with you just now, just a few minutes ago. And then we'll create, put a SharePoint link and I will send it to this committee so everyone has access to it in real time as things change. Instead of sending multiple versions of it, you will have this link and you can just save it as, you know, IAB director resource, posting resources. Every time you go on there, any changes myself or Natasha will make when it comes updating the posting, getting the postings out there, whatever it may be, you have real-time information. How does that work for everybody? That sounds good. Okay. Super. So you'll tell us a little bit more about the process, but I understand that there are, Chief Muldrew just mentioned that there are 20 candidates already. Very exciting. It's been a week, a full week only. And so I think that's great. Yes. So what is your, what is the process that you envision for distributing those resumes to this group and going forward? So I'm going to basically first start out with what our typical process is for recruiting in general at this stage once we start to get resumes and then maybe it makes sense for us to discuss sort of what would be the most comfortable for this team to review the resumes with the sort of restrictions and guidelines that we have to follow from the public meeting loss. How does that sound? So typically what we do is once we start to get resumes, once or twice a week, we will go into the database, look at the resumes, download them and put them into a folder in SharePoint with the link. And I can share with you what that looks like right now just so that everyone's on the same page. We have a folder in SharePoint. We have all our positions here. And there's one noted for the IED director. You would receive a link for just the IED director. And if I click on it, here are all the resumes. And these are all the resumes that are downloaded. Can I just suggest, because we're still in public session, can we not have that screen share? Yeah, okay, sure. So thank you. So what we'll do is all the resumes will be in there. Now we can do one of two things. Typically for managers, what we do is indicate meets requirements or does not meet requirements in those two folders. But in this instance, the committee can take a look at all the resumes that they would like and make a determination at the next session with the names and all of the things that, you know, candidates that you want to move forward with. I can create a folder with the dates saying November 15, all the resumes that were last picked on November 15, November 27, which is the next Monday or whatever, I can say all the new resumes that came in as of then so that it might be easier for you to track which ones have been added. So there'd be a sub folder with the dates with when the resumes came in. And which ones, it'll be easier to track which ones have been reviewed by this committee as either meets or not meets. Should that be the desired approach? And yes, so you can review all of them within each of those weeks. But I think Nina will need to have you weigh in on sort of what the process is around. Then we can create another folder where we say meets or the committee selected or the committee rejected to kind of manage that process. So I think that's what that's for this subcommittee to discuss. So I think the first question that troop D has posed it for what I understand troop D is posed is do we as a subcommittee want to review all of the resume resumes received and then review in a public meeting with with preparation of course individual preparation and come to the meeting with a determination individual determination to be discussed among the three of us as to whether or not the candidate meets or does not meet the criteria. Yeah. So Madam chair. Can I show now? So here's where I'm going to I'm throwing it out there not because I agree or disagree with it but I want it for discussion purposes since we're talking about the process. In the town that I reside and and meaner I want you to help me out with this one because it's municipal. We have a process that has been used a few times called the masked screening process where the HR department will blackout names ages everything. All they look at is do they qualify under the job description. We leave it up to the HR to then forward to the subcommittee or whatever group is looking at it up to a 10 12 resumes that they feel qualify not knowing who they are what they are what they represent whatever the case may be and that has worked very well for our town in certain instances and I'm just wondering what you think about that process and more importantly Dave and Mina if you've heard of that process is it a good one and my only concern I'm bringing it up but I know it's used with a lot of companies as well is our DEI you know we care very deeply about the DEI piece of our hiring and I do too. Does that hurt us when it comes to the DEI part of our process? So throwing it out there for discussion purposes but I have seen it work very very well. Well my first question is to Troop D in response to your proposal Commissioner Hill has the commission utilized that kind of a process previously? We have not omitted the names or any of that information but we have the only thing we've done is taken a look at the job description and looked at the minimum entrance requirements for the position and ensure that the candidate had those and then there would be a folder create meets the requirements and we also have another folder that says does not meet the requirements and you know if we wanted to go look at those we still have the ability to do that so that was the extent of the screening that we do and then the managers reviews typically reviews the meets requirements and then make a decision there so that's been the process with us but you know we can work with what the committee is looking to do in the spirit of the direction they want to move with the search. Commissioner Hill it sounds like what you're proposing is an anonymized screening process and I think you know to your point about casting a wide net ensuring that we have diverse candidates in the pool I think you know that anonymized process would assist there in not inserting any biases as to name or gender for instance into that into that process I think the only way however because I think what you were suggesting is that HR screens those candidates after their name has been obliterated I think the only way for that to be effective is if the committee screens for meets or does not meet because if HR is eliminating those names I don't they've already seen the names right they've already seen the names the application the resume is going right into the HR process and so they have full access to all of that information particularly where it comes in through is it CEO the Commonwealth system okay opportunity okay so I don't know that there is a way for our HR team to fully review these for meets or does not meet in an anonymized way I do think I don't the HR the HR would not we would okay so the HR division would remove black out the names and then forward forward those resumes to the subcommittee and we would then review in an anonymized fashion yes and they would also say they qualify they don't qualify so that there's two things they're doing after this committee has already given its review of meets versus does not meet the HR would do the meets do not meets as well as black it out then it comes to us so we're only looking at resumes that in their opinion qualified but we're not going to know who they are because of the blackout process so the problem that I have with that just getting to your objective is it's not really anonymized if HR is blacking out the names but then also determining whether the candidate meets or does not meet HR isn't engaging in an anonymized process right so that's why I think there needs to be a separation there if if if so the way it worked in my town they would do both and then the subcommittee gets the resumes after they've already screened them we're asking HR to do the screening for us yeah no I get that I would I think it's a I think it's a fantastic proposal again given given the objective you're trying to to accomplish here but I would slightly revise that process and just have the committee the subcommittee review for meets or does not meet Madam Chair I'd like to add something to this speak more true I had a chance to speak with um but he's one who's on my team and currently his process is utilized which you have is that southwest and there's a packet of information she researched so I can send that out to everyone I found it interesting and it supports the EI where inherently you may think it doesn't but in reality it does so what I could do is ask what I could do is I could forward truthy I'll forward it to you for your review as a research or I'll better yet I'll have Denise will meet with you okay okay there is that okay Mina yeah that's that's certainly fine and it's also okay to share that it's not your opinions being shared it's information and it's being shared with everyone it might need to be if it's something that can be made public that's fine too um it it can be put if if requested so yeah to be clear I I like the approach I just if we can work out that team um I think you know if if because it sounds like Chief Muldrew you're also in favor of that kind of um yeah that's just yeah I am I but there are but yes it would like to nail it down but in theory I think it's fair yeah and so for me for it to be truly effective and anonymized I think that there needs to be a separation from individuals who are reviewing the applications and resumes and blacking out the names and making the initial determination as to whether the applicant needs or does not meet minimum criteria for the position so if we can get to a place where our HR division is receiving troop D in particular receiving those applications blacking out the names uploading them to SharePoint for the three of us to access and then the three of us doing our initial review individually as to who we feel meets and does not meet the criteria and to be prepared to come to our next meeting to just fly through those names so that we all understand where each of us are coming from and which candidates we have grouped in which bucket does that make sense yeah so just for the record here um you know the system that you know pulls all the resumes so it's myself and my team who has access to it Dave of course has access to it but doesn't typically go into it just so you know and for those purposes he won't um what we can do is pull the names anonymize them and put them into I'm just mentally thinking about like how am I going to categorize them with like a number or something you know um have to keep a little key I guess um and then then we can just put them into the folder and send the link I think that would work yeah sounds like it Mina Mina here the reason I'm bringing this up and I think it's because of human nature and I can only speak for myself here there's going to be a few names that I'm going to recognize and human nature says to me oh I like that person I like that person a lot so I'm going to put them in this pile right when they may or may not really be qualified and I'm trying to take that piece of this out of the process and when I see what's happened in my and I can only speak for it switch because I they just actually hired a new veteran service officer and they went through this process and in the eyes of most they hired a pretty good person they had no clue who that person was until the subcommittee agreed hey we like this resume we like what they have and then they brought that person in for an interview there was no prejudices you know because they know somebody Mina that's what I'm trying to at least for me take out of the process because I know how I am and I and I know I'm going to see a couple of names and I'm going to be like oh isn't that nice yeah Commissioner Hill I think your approach is an excellent one I I really like it um again you know the anonymized review I think gets us to a point where we are not making decisions based on personal relationships or you know biases you know I just I think it enables us to truly review and evaluate what who we might think would be the best candidate now that's only that's only the first part of it we've got to you know eventually get to the interview process should be determined that that's necessary can't imagine why we wouldn't but I think it's it's a it's an excellent suggestion rookie you do you feel comfortable that this could be done if this is what we choose to do yeah yeah so I'm it'll what we'll do the process isn't all that different we'll have to just I think I'm just trying to think about some of them are in a PDF and how to remove the names and we'll have to kind of work that out but you know I'm sure we can do that and I guess while I have this team here um are we thinking that we put it all in one link and and have it there is that work for you do you want me to create it by week so you can manage which ones you've gone through and which ones are open for you I think if they're if they're anonymized I think you have to create multiple folders so that we can keep track of the ones that we've reviewed already yeah so I at least I'm thinking out loud right now but I would have a numbering system where it'd be one two three four five and then if I left off at five the next week I'll start with six seven eight and yes that's what I would envision so we could probably leave it in one folder um if that's by the way give Dave Mackey a call um he knows PDF stuff and he helped he helped me with something that we actually have a program at the mass gaming commission that um can help you edit a PDF okay and I just want to be clear that we don't need to but we don't need to call Dave Mackey exactly I think our IT department can give me a hand with that but yeah sure oh am I getting my I'm getting my names mixed up um from Dave from finance um I said Mackey okay thank you thank you okay I will definitely tap his shoulder I will definitely tap his shoulder if I may just two things one substantive one not the not first is I Dave Mackey my colleague has many good qualities uh tech support would not be one I put up there so I was just and I think he went to um the the the I think just to cover it I see no legal problems with anything that you mentioned um the as I mentioned at the outset from the iterative process as you get closer to deciding on finalists you may you know want to revisit whether at that point you want to look at the names one of the things that we have seen in screening processes that does matter um is for very public agencies like yours um sometimes at the very end you at least want to know the name in case there are sort of any red flags or credibility issues that uh may not appear in the resume may not be in the application materials but would be publicly you know so other than that I think you're you're in a clear legal yeah I think um yeah if I had my way um we we would be uh interviewing uh finalists to to pass on to the full commission and so in that case for sure we'd need to understand uh who they are by revealing their name at that point at that point we would I'm sorry David no go on I can wait I'm done I agree with yeah the process has human resources identifies those and is screening those what needs to be done to document those that have been screened out and why and what does that is that from a standpoint of from someone coming back saying well I applied I never heard from anyone or what is going to be what's our responsibility um I mean in regards to those who are not Washington can I respond to that uh Chief Maldrew um first um you know I think that our review of the applicants um at least where we are um separating them out into the two buckets meets does not meet that's a public process and while we don't need to get into great detail as to um why we screen them out I think it would be enough to have a brief discussion about each candidate with a short explanation as to why we've deemed them here or there um that being said I think that um if any one of us makes the case that someone meets the criteria um I would like to see uh us move forward by consensus um you know and and and have that individual advance sort of to the next step in the pool mind you will be receiving resumes throughout this process because what I don't think I want to do is wait until the application uh period closes before we start to meet to go through those candidates I want to do that on a somewhat rolling basis so I would imagine that there are um many there will be many uh rounds if you will right as you know we're getting these resumes uploaded weekly once or twice I think truth you said so um again we will have a somewhat public process about why each of us feels how we feel about a candidate um but again I just where there is at least one of us who thinks that that person should advance to sort of the next round and that next round might just be until we get the next set right they might be knocked out by that point by you know the additional pool um so does that help a little bit chief Maldrew in the way you're thinking of how we we're going to review this and what what we need to how we justify our decision-making now that's not speak that's on that's on the public meeting process I'll leave it to to Trukty um in large part I guess just based on how we've handled these um rejections if you will historically right in terms of commission communication back to them but just at least from my perspective the process that I just laid out is how I see us managing just that piece of the review is our process is typically to send an email indicating we've identified other candidates which in fact is um where we are in the process right um we meet closer in line with the position so we notify the candidates in that way uh it's a note so they it wouldn't be that they would never hear from us or um anything like that we what we do is we post the position the system sends out a note that you know your position has been submitted your application has been submitted uh and then if we decide to move forward we'd reach out to the candidate if we decided that we're not moving forward with this pool of candidate or a grouping of folks we would then send out a note from our system which would then document that we have notified them that we are not moving forward at this time yeah we're not proposing to do anything different right on the on the hr the back end hr side of things then we would typically do um in response to any other job posting um that any candidate has applied for attorney mccarries do you have any questions or take issue with the process as I've laid out no that's not at all no I think it's fine absolutely yeah that's yeah I have no problem yeah I just wanted to have a comfort level for this group to know that you know it's not that we're never gonna respond to these folks and let them know um so we do do that as part of our process for all positions and we do the same for this decision I have a question though um you know if if this committee is reviewing candidates for a determination whether they meet or do not meet the criteria um if there is can't imagine this would be the case but if there's a disagreement among the three of us that a candidate does not meet the criteria how should we handle that I say to you madam chair I move that and then there would be a second and then there would be a vote there we go and that's unless Mina do you tell me different that's the process now that's straightforward enough I think that that's perfectly fine or you know if there's really uh uncertainty you know there's nothing wrong with having somebody in a maybe pile um because remember at the end of the day you're only advancing folks and so if you end up with five yet five everybody agrees they qualify and four maybes the maybes may get weeded out that way you know you know I that's why I say it's an iterative process and you don't have to decide now how you decide that I can only speak for myself in a key show and I tell you this is probably my 10th hiring either through um the state or through municipality and when you start seeing these resumes the cream of the crops rises right to the top oh absolutely and I do have tons of experience hiring just not in such a public process as this so um a little bit of an adjustment there for sure and where I'm typically a solo decision maker that is not the case in this form so I have found that in all the committees I've been on agreement has been reached pretty easily and quickly good who wouldn't agree with you commissioner hell oh there's been many who have disagreed with me all right um truthy anything else so you should feel free Mina correct me if I'm wrong to communicate with the subcommittee members um as frequently as necessary right so when you develop your numbering system right your index so that you can keep track of you know who these anonymous candidates are um and you upload the resumes to the share point drive you should feel free to send us an email letting us know what your system is and that you've uploaded them and and that they're ready for us to review individually right yes um so I think my intentions are to send one email with the links of the items that you need to um you know where the resumes will be where the spreadsheet with the job postings um and the status will be and then you can continue to go back to it at any time um and if there's any you know uh Monday comes around and we've had a chance to get through the resume and there's been an updated folder I would just send an email that sent back to the subcommittee in the past please do not reply to all I want to let you know the resume's been updated please go ahead to your link and um that way you have some information as to if there's another folder added or something like that okay any sense on the timing of when you would post the position with those other organizations you have a healthy list now that's grown in just the past hour um any any sense of when you will be posting those or when you would have completed posting with those so um in some instances it depends on the job sites where they have to post for us once we go through the process of the payment and all of those things in some instances we're able to do it so I think that now that one of the things we were holding off on was uh you know sharing with this group the places that we've identified and the total cost associated with it um and wanted to make sure that the committee had a comfort level with it um before moving forward as well and then I'll go ahead and add these others so hoping I would say throughout this week an early part of next week um most of the stuff most of the the position will be posted at most sites sounds good to be honest I didn't even pay attention to the price tag um I mean I I I did but I didn't make that my focus um I want to say the total was about four thousand dollars is that right very good yeah okay there's one that was particularly expensive at 2500 for lawyers weekly yeah and that's standard yeah so I wanted to just make sure I flag that because it's outside of our typical you know range of postings um so I wanted to make sure everyone was aware of it and um you know comfortable with moving forward I'm certainly okay with it as long as we have budgeted for it Brad you shaking your head you know how I am uh Madam Chair so with that said Madam Chair we now have 20 resumes already before us and we're going to be asking a lot of our HR department and I'm actually going to be a harsh in what I'm about to say uh I want to see that this process moves forward rather quickly I think we're a little behind the eight ball already it's been months since our IEB director left and I know we have an intern and they was doing a great job um but her contract if you will you know it's set to expire and although I'm sure she would not mind having us extend that we need to move this forward very quickly so I heard the word that we would be getting these weekly I need to see these daily and I'm asking you Madam Chair as we start processing these resumes we really do need to meet more frequently than maybe once a week uh because if we keep going at at the rate you know with 20 resumes and then we get another 20 we're not going to hire someone until February or March and I'm not keen on that so I'm asking the committee and HR can we almost meet every other day every third day and not weekly are people uncomfortable with that because it seems to me this process by no fault of our own by the way is taking a long time well so I have to say Commissioner Hill I take strong issue with your comments that we're behind the eight ball and the process is taking a long time I understand our interim IEB director has been in place for a couple of months a few months now you know but but in terms of this subcommittee's work we've just really gotten started and I think we are off to a good start I think we've gotten a lot of things done in a fairly short amount of time it's my commitment to keep this train moving I hear your desire and I share that desire to have this process wrapped up in served to the full commission sooner rather than later but I think that there are six of us and that means there are six schedules that we have to contend with we also have the matter of minute taking and review and public meetings and public meeting prep and so it's my intent to keep this process moving as much as is reasonable but I do think to your point we are asking a lot of HR and so I'll have truthy respond to you know to the request to have these resumes forwarded daily but just in terms of our meeting schedule yeah let's try to get a standing cadence so that you know we can we we will know that every Wednesday or can't be Wednesday on 10 because we have agenda setting but we will we will create a standing schedule standing meeting schedule from from here on out for a couple of weeks and and and if we don't need the meetings we can cancel them or not even post them but I do think that's the I think that's the challenge is coordinating all of our schedules we have a and k here so it might be a little bit difficult but I'm committed to to working through it in that way well again I appreciate your comments as I always do and as I said in my remarks you know make no mistake about it it's not the subcommittee that you know has caused a what I perceive to be a delay it's just the process itself yeah and I'm frustrated by it and I'm just putting it out there to you and to my fellow member uh Chief Maldrew that I hope we can move this a little quicker than in my opinion it has been moving not because of us yeah because of the process I hear you you might be surprised at first I'm going to predict it's going to be well before February before we're making a determination here but you might be pleasantly surprised in terms of how fast we can move through before I promise anything though truth he has to respond sure thing we'll make it happen so if you need us to get those on a daily basis we'll kind of fit that into our schedule and I think if we do manage on a daily basis um there'll be fewer numbers to come through so I think we've got to get over the first push of the 20 that we have and start redacting those names and information so that might take maybe a day or two so we'll get those to you and then we'll keep you posted and get the things out as soon as we can meanwhile commissioner hill I'm going to work with truthy to get our next meeting scheduled next week next week will be tough because we have the Thanksgiving holiday so um let's shoot for the week after that I I always push for the extreme truthy and when I say every day if it's every second or third day but I think once a week is too long okay okay so let me be clear it's just shorter than a week hey that's fair at least I know what you're looking for um sorry and I can you know sometimes managers don't have time to take a look at them so they ask for them in that way so we we try to work with like what their needs are so no problem we can make it happen I hate to say but I'm supposed to be at another meeting and I think that's what that phone call was no worries but thank you for your comments commissioner hill much appreciated um chief mildrew if there's nothing else are you ready to wrap up I am ready to wrap up then thank you everybody and thank you madam chair I think we need a to adjourn okay Nina are you all set okay I am thank you all right okay I'll take a motion to adjourn thank you so much truthy of course thank you move to adjourn by your second promotion thank you I'll do a roll call vote uh commissioner hill bye and chief mildrew and I am also an eye thank you everyone bye thanks bye bye


Hi, I'm Sungjum Lila Longkomer. I'm pursuing my BA with Sociology Honours at Thetso College and currently in the sixth semester. I've always been keen towards understanding humankind and its societies. I've been drawn to topics such as social change, social movement, social class, family dynamics and so on. My love for sociology has grown even more since I took up honours in it. It has helped me get familiar with issues such as gender issues, tribal issues, culture and tradition of different societies. At Thetso, beside our syllabus, we were also introduced to a myriad scope of sociology, such as sociology of religion and environmental sociology through web talks and podcasts, which sparked in me a greater interest in the subject because it helped me realise that these different aspects has their own areas of specialisation and can be studied likewise. While it is important to have an interest in a subject, it is so important that you choose the right institute which will nurture that interest of yours. And I'm glad I made the right choice three years ago when I chose Thetso College. Come be a part of the Thetso family.


Pentagon purchases Russian oil despite sanctions. Russian oil was reaching a Greek refinery through Turkey. From there the oil was being sold to the Pentagon despite international sanctions according to the Washington Post. Petroleum products that originated in Russia kept flowing to the motor oil Hellas refinery on the Argen Sea in Greece, the material states. It is noted that the supply route passed through a storage facility in Turkey allowing the ownership of the oil to be concealed as being from Russia. In essence the ownership rights to the products changed hands several times before reaching Greece. The article writes that the exact quantity of Russian origin fuel in the Pentagon's procurement could not be determined. These products are processed using numerous ingredients that are impossible to trace during production. It was also impossible to determine whether at any point in the route the Russian origin fuel was rebranded as originating from another country. Documents describing the origin of the oil batch, known as certificates of origin, are not publicly accessible. Regarding the Pentagon's stance they have signed new contracts worth nearly one billion dollars with the Greek refinery since the US ban came into effect in March of last year. According to shipping reports since February over one million barrels of aviation gasoline from motor oil Hellas were also sent to government and corporate buyers in Italy, France, Spain and the United Kingdom. Pentagon Defense Logistics Agency representative Joe Yosua stated that he was unaware of fuel from Russia heading to their Greek supplier.