but I would like to welcome everybody to this side event of the World Circular Economy Forum. Good morning to you all, first of all, and welcome. My name is Martin Porter. I'm Executive Chair of CRCL Europe, and it's my pleasure to moderate and facilitate this event with you all today. I'm checking with my colleagues that everything is working, and I think I can see faces that tell me the technology is now enabling me to be seen and heard. That's correct, I think. Yes. In which case, I hope that we can also begin by sharing an outline of the agenda that we have today, which, as I hope everyone will already be aware, includes a number of excellent speakers who will be able to give us perspectives of how this agenda has developed over the past five years at EU level, the latest of the scientific evidence about what we need to do at EU level to respond more effectively to it, and then ideas from businesses and those companies at the forefront of trying to work on this issue, particularly those who are involved in the task force on circular materials and products that we have set up as part of the Corporate Leaders Group Europe, where we have a number of representatives who will be able to give us examples and perspectives from their side. With that, I hope there is an agenda that we can share. I can't see it yet, but once we have that, I think we can hopefully proceed. In the meantime, let me just, just so everybody is fully aware, obviously that means that you need to be aware the content will be available for public consumption, and you should be aware of that obviously in any comments that you make, that they will be published online and indeed accessible for others. I will ensure that with my colleagues, I'm keeping an eye on the chat, and when we come to the question and answer sessions, we will be able to include as many of those comments or questions that we see online in the interaction that we have with our colleagues and our speakers. So if you do have ideas or perspectives that you want to share, then please do your best to let us know, and I will endeavour to ensure that some of you will be able to make those comments directly as well. I do know that one of our first speakers is going to have to leave before the end, and therefore I'll make sure that we're able to give him the opportunity to respond to questions before he has to do so, and I hope that that covers the rest of the administrative side, let's say, of this meeting. Just a couple of bits of background in addition, while hopefully the slides will appear before us. The work that we do as CISL Europe is in particular to facilitate discussions and dialogue between the university and our network, businesses and policymakers, and as part of that the corporate leaders group Europe has been set up over a decade ago to provide a platform for progressively-minded active companies working at the interface of climate change and business and sustainability to advance these agendas with policymakers and a task force that we have set up, the companies members of which you see indicated on the screen before you are active in pursuing particularly the link between the circular economy and these agendas. The task force obviously therefore is looking at how to generate ideas that are going to be helpful to policymakers but informed by practical experience and perspectives of leading companies who have a lot to offer in terms of ideas, experience and indeed capacity to help advance this agenda, and in doing that obviously now we're coming together at a time where we're able to take stock of what we have been doing both in the task force but also in the wider European and indeed global context over the last five-year institutional cycle for the European Union level and to take stock of that and to look forward to what the next five years offers once we have had the European elections and we're clear what the composition of the new European Parliament will be but also obviously what that means for the European Union's agenda, the way the European Commission advances that and how that will therefore look as of the end of this year and for five years to come. So we hope that this discussion is obviously timely from that perspective and we're very pleased to therefore be able to welcome you all to join it with us. If we can can we quickly move to the agenda again now and we'll quickly see what the format if you want that we're going to run through this morning will be. My colleague Diana Potromchina will give us a quick overview of the past five years a sort of mini stock take so we're all on the same page before hearing from Peter Willem Lemons who's kindly joined us from the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change who've done an excellent report on this which he will summarize and present to us after which we will have a short Q&A because he will need to leave us before the end of the session. We will then move to hearing from three members of the task force that I mentioned from Ball, Sangoba and Rockwell and we're very lucky to have the three people that you see mentioned here, Claudio Birth, Céline Carré and Caterina Roca who will set out ideas and perspectives from their companies on this and then we'll conclude that session with Eduardo Bodo from Reuse, our Reuse, an NGO working on this issue and who will give us another perspective on it as well. After that we'll obviously go to the question and answer session and we'll be sure that we conclude by 11.30 so that we're within time and my job will be to make sure therefore that we run all of that with that perspective in mind. So with no further ado I'd like to pass over to my colleague Diana who can give us a perspective on what we have seen for the last five years, a stock take. So Diana, welcome and the floor is yours. Thank you so much Martin, good morning everyone. My name is Diana Puttyomkin, I'm project manager for the materials and products task force also working on a new research project which aims to set the political agenda for the next five years for the UN institutions on circular economy. Could you please share the next slide? So this event is actually coming early on in this process of developing our research project as a task force aiming to provide a business perspective, progressive business perspective on action and ambition concerning the development of circular economy in the EU. We have just started the work so for us this is also a very valuable opportunity to hear from you, hear from our speakers and hear from our participants and take on board your comments and ideas. So any comments and ideas are very welcome. You can put them in the chat and I will also share my email address afterwards if you would like to get in touch and discuss the research project. But yes, so we are thinking to take stock of different dimensions which can serve as either neighbors or obstacles for circular economy development in the European Union. So as you see on the slide governance implementation including demand for example for circular products financing and investment social dimension jobs, social justice and the international dimension and we aim to provide as I mentioned a business perspective on the side of the task force. There have been some very interesting invaluable events, sorry publications coming out lately for example report by Eunomia Zero Waste and others or the European Environmental Agency report on accelerating circular economy in the EU. In this case our strengths as a task force is convening businesses who are in their daily operations working on materials and products and our added value is also providing this business view. Next slide please. So the importance of circular economy in the EU, we are all no doubt aware of this but I think it is also important to recap a bit to set the scene also for this discussion for this research project. So these are all aspects which appear in the European Union's own policy documents and these are all aspects which on materials and products task force has highlighted in different publications which we have released. There are absolutely imperative reasons for developing circular economy and accelerating its uptake in the EU resilience in the context especially of international growing competition for raw materials. Here I would mention materials and products task force 2023 report on circular raw materials act which highlights the circularity is very important strategy in particular also for ensuring security of supply and relying less on imports and relying more on using and reusing materials inside the European Union itself. Climate objectives as per famous Ellen MacArthur Foundation statistics energy efficiency only accounts for 55% of the emissions and it is not possible to address the other 45% if we do not deal with decarbonization of product services and systems and as we now know the European Union is actually looking at decreasing emissions for around 90% by 2040 which means that circular economy is absolutely essential for reaching our climate goals. Broader environmental impact including biodiversity because extraction of raw materials has also broader impacts and this can be minimized if we decrease the demand for primary materials and rely more on circularity instead. Creation of jobs there is famous statistics in the circular economy action plan of 2020 that circular economy can help create 700 000 new jobs across the EU by 2030 sustainable macroeconomic growth and long-term competitiveness so the circular economy action plan mentioned that we could increase the GDP by 0.5% by 2030 and we also found ourselves in the global race to net zero in which competitiveness is increasingly in the context of global race towards sustainability and they're tightly linked and microeconomic benefits of course for individual companies it can mean increased profitability it can mean uptake of new business models and our task force members will also be talking about that later. Next slide please. So if you look at the general timeline of circular economy in the EU again well known facts but I think it could be interesting to recap obviously work on circularity has started already before 2015 but we have seen some good uptake in the recent years. Circular economy in 2019 has been mentioned as a priority in the european green deal even though in fact as european environmental agency wrote the same year it was still in its infancy in the european union. We have seen the adoption of the second circular economy action plan in 2020 and by the way our research report is also with a view to potentially the next circular economy action plan in 2025. We have seen also that as european court of auditors has pointed out european commission is systematically mainstreaming now circular economy and its various legislative proposals and I will mention some of them a bit later. We also see progress on the national level because in 2015 none of the EU member states had the circular economy strategies and by 2022 this number has increased to 23. This is the date of the european environmental agency. At the same time circular economy while there are increasing attempts to regulate it on the european level and there are some policy initiatives which are binding or will become binding. Much of it still depends on the individual member states and what we see here is that the situation is still quite different in the member states and as the european court of auditors highlighted in their special report in 2023 there are there is quite weak uptake in many EU member states. So the next slide please. So the overall trend I would say from my perspective again this is not a definitive stock take and we are still working on this. This is more my personal how to say conclusions on this matter. We have seen some positive trends in the european union but the progress is still patchy. We see increasing interest by both national and EU policy makers in circular economy as well as from investors, individual businesses and consumers. We have had quite a lot of positive examples also highlighted in materials and products task force research reports positive case studies from individual businesses which help both meeting climate goals, generate employment and secure business operations and improve profitability. So we see also rising consciousness around the board of the importance of circular economy. We have seen some important policy advancements on the european level and if you look at circular economy what is important is to address emissions across the entire product life cycle so before use during use and after use and we have seen that the european union has been addressing all of these stages with some very important cross legislations with cross sectoral impact for example ecodesign requirements for sustainable products which also includes digital product passport which was the subject of another materials and products task force report. Green claims and right to repair all of these are almost finalized at the moment and there have also been some sectoral advancements for example in packaging waste and so these initiatives most of them have not been quite finalized yet and so we do not really see practical impact yet in real life but we will see it hopefully in the coming years and also several independent reports have highlighted that they use leadership on circular economy policy wise could be acknowledged positively. We also see increasing number of policy actions targeting higher steps in the waste hierarchy originally there was criticism that we focus more on waste management and not so much on for example the user prevention but we see increasing attempts on to address that and what we also see in the EU is relative decoupling of economic growth from waste generation which shows that transition to circular economy and reducing waste does not mean that we need to compromise on also our economic objectives but next slide so there are also some challenges which the EU is facing and other speakers will be speaking about those as well but what we see is still largely a linear economic model in the European Union so we need much more radical change in our consumption patterns and in our economic model we also see growing consumption levels overall we see that circular material use rate is growing much more slowly than what is needed to reach their use own goals by 2030 to double the circular material use rate I know this is also the subject mentioned in the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change report we have quite large discrepancies among the member states as has been mentioned before one issue which has been highlighted in various reports is insufficient demand side measures to generate demand for circular materials and products and in particular green procurement and circular procurement have not been harnessed enough to unlock this potential of purchasing more circular materials and products and what we see also politically at the moment with all the discussions in the EU is that there is a tendency to decouple competitiveness from climate action and from circularity for example even though these two are actually inextricably linked we have a certain risk that circularity might be at some point deprioritized and what we also need is more ambitious targets also on the national level to maintain this ongoing progress the more circular economy finally also the need to get citizens and consumers more fully on board address possible societal disruptions also materials and products task force has published a report on the impact of circularity on jobs and as the European Environmental Agency has mentioned in its latest report the likelihood of reaching the EU's 2030 targets is either low or moderate so these were some sorts to set the scene about the tendencies in the EU's circular economy as I mentioned before next slide please I would be very happy to hear your opinions and considerations concerning this topic I will also leave my email address in the chat and yeah thank you so much everyone and I look forward to the discussion and all the outcomes of the discussion will be very valuable for our research project as well thank you wonderful thank you indeed very much for that it's a great tour d'horizon I think of the circular economy from a European Union in perspective in particular and I would underline what you said Diana about our keenness to have everyone's input on this the process is underway and the report that we produce will no doubt be much stronger than more that we incorporate perspectives ideas details and facts and so on that you share with us so please do get in touch with us afterwards let us now hear from another expert who has been at the heart of the the recent research and study that the European Scientific Advisory Board on Climate Change has produced so Peter Willem Kehlens we are very happy to welcome you I hope that you are able to see us and we can move to the next slide but um uh there we go everyone can see who you are um and um the floor I hope is now yours assuming that you're able to um uh let us know you're there yes good evening good morning Martin good morning everybody well I can hear you and I can see you and I hope for the same goes the other direction that you can see and hear me yes perfect thank you okay great well good morning to everyone here and thank you so much for the invitation the opportunity for me to present the European Scientific Advisory Boards on Climate Change work of the recent years what I would like to do today is just give a very brief overview of the advisory boards main reports published since it was established three years ago with a specific focus on circular economy um as you will hear throughout my presentation which will be quite brief my message is basically the same as what Diana has just told if I can sum it up in four points it is that circular economy can make a major contribution to achieving climate objectives that's one point second point is progress so far has been very limited a third point would be that steps have been taken in the right direction at least on paper but then a four point would be that now it of course all comes down to putting those paper improvements into practice and to implement what we intend to implement if I can sum it up I think that resonates quite well with the overview that Diana has just given us so if we can go to the next slides my presentation today will be based on two major reports of the advisory boards um as you all know the EU is currently at the crossroads of two important policy cycles we have seen a lot of movement on the fit for 55 package and the broader european green deal to put the EU on track towards 55 by 2030 but at the same time we also see that the policy cycle on the objective for after 2030 is starting now especially since the commission has proposed its 2040 or put forward is recommended 2040 objective and in this context the advisory board has published two main reports one was published in june last year where we gave advice on a 2040 objective and that report is really about targets where should we go and then the second report was published earlier this year in January and that's about progress and policy consistency so it's more on how do we need what do we need to do to get there so those will be the two reports which will be the the source of my presentation today I will keep it very brief but if you are interested there is a lot more detail in these two um let's start with the first one if we can go to the next slides very briefly the first report on a recommended 2040 objective what has the advisory board found and recommended well if you take into account both feasibility and fairness then the advisory board has recommended to reuse greenhouse gas emissions by 90 to 95 percent by 2040 compared to 1990 and even this that's the maximum feasible range even this would not be fully uh sufficient to address fairness so on top of that the EU should also support action outside the EU and aim for net negative emissions after 2050 to bridge this gap just as a scene setter this is what the advisory board recommended and we see now that the commission has largely followed this recommendation by recommending a 90 percent reduction objective now if we go to the next slide and this is where it becomes a bit more relevant for the agenda today in this report the advisory board has also assessed different pathways to get there and they took in particular a close look at three iconic pathways so three differentiated approaches to get there one is very much focused on the demand side measures which focuses on a less resource intensive approach to get there and that can be achieved both through circular economy but also through lifestyle changes they've also looked at a high renewable energy pathway so with a high emphasis on not addressing demand that much but more putting the focus on supply and cleaning up energy supply and then one mixed option pathway which would be a combination of both and what has the assessment found well I think this is quite consistent with what previous assessments has have found a pathway which focuses on demand side measures as much higher co-benefits and a much lower risk of tradeoffs compared to some of the other pathways so this is a clear indication if the EU would go this way and put a high emphasis on the man side measures then it could achieve its objectives with higher co-benefits and lower tradeoffs compared to an approach which is primarily focused on supply side without addressing the man side the report doesn't go much further into what policies would be needed to achieve this that's for the second report which will be which I will present in the next slide so it's a very comprehensive report so I will keep it very brief but overall the advisory board has identified 13 key recommendations to keep the EU on track towards its climate objectives there are things that should be done now in the near future to keep the EU on track towards the 2030 objective there are things to be done already in the short term or can be done already in the short term to put it to keep the EU on track towards 2050 and there are things that might need some more preparation to implement to keep the to achieve the more ambitious objectives after 2030 and one of these key recommendations which is closely linked to circular economy is the needs to better address energy and material demand very shortly summarized but it's a high-level recommendation to say so far the EU has or EU policies have mainly been focusing supply side improvements but the man side improvements have been under addressed and also progress on that area has been more limited and this is what is shown in the next slide we have assessed progress over a wide range of indicators both greenhouse gas emissions but also things that are more detailed diverse or you could say the underlying drivers of greenhouse gas emissions and what is noticeable when you look at this progress assessment is that in particular on the man side indicators progress is either considerably off track or even heading in the wrong direction and this is something that we found to occur quite consistent across different sectors and here as Diana has also flagged already in industry where we looked at the circular material use rates we see that this has been improving only very marginally in the last 10 years and we really need a step change here if we want to achieve the objectives for 2030 and remain on track for 2050 so this is a bit the underlying rationale of why the advisory board saw it fits to put this need to reuse energy and material demand up to the level of one of the 13 key recommendations and and they really believe that this is essential to keep the EU on track towards its climate objectives now what does this mean for the different sectors if we go to the next slide what we have done is we looked at different sectors for which we developed an assessment framework to see what are all the changes that need to occur to keep that sector on track and then what does this mean in terms of policies well first of all if we look at the industry sector there the advisory board has identified an overall need to lower demand for greenhouse gas intensive materials as you can see in the flow chart here on the left and there are several ways to do this you could either reduce demand for these materials by reducing overall product demand for example by product sharing instead of individual ownership that's one example you could also look into material efficiency and substitution so use less materials to produce same products that deliver the same functionalities and finally you could also make materials more circular so that at the end of life of product you could reuse the materials to make new products and on all three of these progress so far has been quite limited based on the data that we found what are the key policy recommendations that the advisory board has identified here well first of all and I think this is again quite consistent Diana has told before me the advisory board has seen that the circular economy action plan of 2020 is a step in the right direction mainly because it takes a broader view on circularity and not just recycling at the end of a product's lifetime but more also upstream looking at how to design for circularity how to design for repairability durability these things so it is a step in the right direction but of course it is still at the time that the report was written it was still very much just an overarching strategy with a lot of the legislation still to be adopted and then even more so to be implemented at the national level so one key recommendation here is to operationalize the good elements of this circular economy action plan and put it into practice a second major recommendation here is to phase out free allocation under the EU ETS there were several reasons for the advisory board to recommend this but one of the reasons that they included in the report is that because of this approach a free allocation to address carbon leakage you undermine the price signal downstream the value chain for operators to be more efficient with these materials so that was one of the arguments they put forward to phase out free allocation to develop alternative measures to address the issue of carbon leakage if we go to the next slide on the building sector here again one of the key outcomes deemed necessary to decarbonize a building stock is to reduce overall energy and material demand which can be done by a range of levers and one of the key recommendations of the advice board here is that the EU should take a broader perspective at buildings energy use so far it has been really about reducing the energy the final energy need per square meter here the advice board has said you need to take a broader approach you need to take a life cycle approach reduce buildings energy and material demand over buildings lifetime and also address the overall square meters basically that you need there are ways to incentivize more compact buildings more multifunctional buildings which could also be considered as a circular economy measure if you interpret it in a broader sense and the report then puts forward a range of policy tools that could be put to use to achieve this from spatial planning to building codes but also pricing those for example the raise the issue of land value taxes to incentivize more compact housing and more multifunctional buildings and I'm finally one last slide that I wanted to show is on the transport sector where again I think a lot of things can still be done or the report states that a lot of things can still be done on reducing demand for energy intensive transport in terms of moderating overall transport demand but also shifting to more efficient transport modes but also on the supply side there one of the key findings of the assessment was that current legislation actually incentivizes we have legislation in place that incentivizes the uptake of zero emission vehicles and in particular electric vehicles which is a good thing but how the current legislation works is that it mainly incentivizes the uptake of heavier vehicles with larger battery packs which are much more resource intensive and so that was also one of the key recommendations of the report these policies that the US put into place towards zero emission vehicles are good but they should be adjusted to ensure that they don't only incentivize zero emission vehicles but also resource and energy efficient zero emission vehicles which is currently not the case. I think in a nutshell these are the main messages that have come out of the advice board so far with with respect to the circular economy and now I would be happy to take any questions for clarification yeah so with that being said thanks again for your attention and looking forward to to answer any questions you might have. Many thanks Peter Willem that is extremely useful and I think indicative of the quality of work that the advisory board has produced and continues to do so and if I understand reflects a broadly based set of expertise as well which is one reason that it's obviously very comprehensive and thorough so thank you very much. I know we don't have a huge amount of time but if I just pick up a couple of points from the from the chat I don't know whether there is anything from your work that would help in terms of principle to try to reduce the fragmentation between the different areas under consideration because obviously there are many elements that that need to be considered comprehensively for this to work. Is there anything that the advisory board has done that in in terms of principles that would help let's say coordinate or harmonize the approach in a better way than is done at the moment maybe we just start with that question to begin with. Very good question specifically on circular economy I think the work so far has not gone into that level of detail but from a broader climate perspective the advice board has recommended that according to the European climate law which also found the advisory board there is an obligation for the commission to assess the climate consistency of every measure they propose and there we have found that this has been done quite effectively for what you could say primary legislations or regulations and directives but when it comes to delegated and implementing X it's not being done whereas these are often very important even if they are only secondary legislation they often determine very important details and we see that the commission there is not doing this consistency check so this is one area where the advice board has seen needs to improve the procedure that has been put in place to ensure coherence but that's mainly on the climate aspect it's not that much focused on circular economy but I think it could serve as a general principle not just for for climate but also for circular economy objectives. Great thank you and just another sort of question of clarification almost you mentioned in your four points at the outset that circular economy can help achieve climate objectives does your work not suggest actually something more strong than that that it is essential in order to reach climate objectives that we're much more effective at becoming more circular can it be reinterpreted in those terms if you want this is a a sine qua non if you want to be able to reach our objectives is that fair? I would have to check the exact phrasing of how it was phrased but at least in the spirits of the reports and based on the discussions that were had I think it can be confirmed that indeed it will become very difficult to achieve climate objectives if we don't do this very very difficult I don't know if they have gone so far as to say it's impossible without it but it would be very very difficult and with a lot of trade-offs and negative side effects that I can confirm. Thank you well obviously there's a lot on demand side measures that we're going to be considering as well and you've obviously spoken about that too is there anything specifically with regards to let's say businesses that you would draw attention to being you know a priority from from that perspective from your from your report? Could you rephrase a question of it because it's not 100%? In terms of what we should what should businesses in this context with regard to demand side leave us if you want that we need to consider? No no well the report is the reports are primarily aimed at at policy makers so it's more really about what should policy makers do to incentivize businesses to to to leverage these demand side measures. One of the things that are in there which was also mentioned before is the role the important role of green public procurement which is not yet being done or used as it could be used. Another one which is very prominent throughout the report is price signals making price signals consistent so that for businesses it makes sense to do what needs to be done to to to reach objectives and then the report also points to other non-price barriers such as permitting product standards those kind of things but I think that the main the main message throughout the report is that it should make sense for businesses to do this and policy makers need to make sure that the framework is as such that it makes economic sense for businesses to do this and that's their role. We cannot expect businesses to to act against their own interests. Wonderful well we're about to turn to some businesses to hear their perspectives on this as well so you're very welcome to stay I know you said you needed to leave before we conclude but thank you for that and just before you go then is there anything forthcoming that you mentioned that you are working on that we should have in mind in terms of dates or when publications will be coming out that we should be particularly interested in following from from the board's activities? Yes so for this year there are two major reports on the agenda one is on carbon dioxide removal and then another one will be on agriculture which are two hot topics at the moment so it's a bit less linked to circular economy but then looking beyond that the board is aware that agriculture is a big challenge but also industry and material demand is a big challenge so I it's not been decided yet but I wouldn't be surprised if in 2025 the advice board would turn to how to decarbonize energy intensive industries and that could also include a big role for for circularity. Very good thank you for flagging that and we will hopefully remain in close contact with you share ideas and information obviously between ourselves so I will let you go now but as I said you're very welcome to stay and listen to the next session until you have to leave but maybe we can pass over to our next speaker who I think is Claudia from Bohr, Claudia Bief. So we're now going to hear from three members of the task force and I'd like to welcome Claudia first of all great to have you with us again, thank you for joining and the floor is yours to tell us your perspectives on this so over to you. Thank you Martin, good morning everyone and thanks for giving me the opportunity to share my views here, just a little bit of an introduction. I work for Ball Corporation which is the leading manufacturer of aluminium packaging and the largest part of our business is aluminium beverage cans and we also produce aluminium bottles and air salts. We've heard already on the impact of the circular economy action plan and other key circular economy initiatives. I'd like to point out the most important legislative and initiative for my company and industry the packaging and packaging waste regulation. Can we move to the next slide please? So on the PPWR we have a provisional agreement now which is hopefully adopted by the end of the year. The PPWR provisional text is in our eyes a very good compromise because at least that's some key minimum requirements to make packaging more sustainable and also reusable including defining whether and to what degree packaging is recyclable, setting requirements for separate collection systems across the EU as well as introducing mandatory deposit return schemes for beverages. So for us mandatory DRS is the single most important outcome out of the PPWR because we really need to close the circularity gap which then substantially will help us with the decarbonisation of our products and that means first and foremost high collection rates and recycle content rates across Europe. Can we move to the next slide please? A ball is the largest manufacturer of aluminum beverage packaging and the vast majority of our emissions comes from the aluminum we purchased and since producing recycled aluminum generates 95% less emissions than producing primary aluminum the key lever in our climate transition plan is circularity as you can see on the slide here. For instance around 50% of our carbon reduction pathway by 2030 will come from reaching a recycle content of 85% and we can only achieve that with reaching above 90% recycling rates and for that we need a systemic change in Europe which DRS deposit return schemes will hopefully help us to achieve that. Also mentioning that to ensure that we have enough material going back into our cans that would be also important to reduce the leakage into other applications because right now a lot of used beverage cans are going into the construction and automotive sector and there's also around 10% still being land-filled which is of course a total waste of valuable resources so deposit return schemes offer a chance to close that gap. Can we move to the next slide please? So having kind of underlined how important circularity is for the decarbonization of our products I want to stress that so far the extent that circularity and circular economy have to contribute to reaching the EU climate targets hasn't been acknowledged sufficiently in our view. More than half of our greenhouse gas emissions come from our material use and the scale of the emissions reduction needed by 2040 is quite different for every sector of course but for aluminium alone the global capita per capita consumption must drop by around 17% by 2040. This is according to a European Environment Agency report so quite a lot. Despite the progress mentioned already by Diana especially in individual member states the EU single market and competitiveness report has recently confirmed that circularity is only slowly progressing in the EU. The resource productivity has somewhat improved but not the materials footprints and there's still quite a low use of secondary materials so acting sooner and more ambitiously on reducing material consumption is key to reduce the scale of the overall challenge to decarbonization so that we don't end up using our whole carbon budget while we're working towards the net zero targets. So this means of course moving much more rapidly from the very inefficient linear economy to a circular one. In a CLG Europe meeting recently in February, Kurt von den Berge the head of DJ climate pretty much acknowledged that and he also said that to reach the EU climate targets we need to close the circularity gap and that the next decade has to be about dematerialization. So maybe let's look at the next step. I already said that a circular economy is needed for decarbonization but it also will help to make the EU more secure and resilient and of course as acknowledged earlier by the speakers it also has a good potential to boost employment, expand resource productivity and also slash costs and reduce maintenance costs. So becoming the global leader in dematerialization will help ensure the EU's competitiveness but we need a really big-scale systemic transformation which requires a large-scale regulation. So how can this happen? Of course one thing we need to do is implement the existing and still soon to be adopted green deal legislation with circular economy tangents such as the PPWR and expand them. We need a far more clearer vision of a circular economy agenda that also outlines a clear materials and resource strategy. That also means we need to move away from a waste mindset to materials and resource mindsets that fully acknowledges the contribution of materials to tackle the climate crisis and in this contact I'd like to point out a recent report from UNOMIA. I think Deanna mentioned it's at the beginning, it's called Managing Materials for 1.5 degrees Celsius in a EU regulator framework for low-carbon material economy. This report makes a range of recommendations to foster prosperity in Europe and make it more competitive while reducing pressures from the consumption of our materials. I'm only picking a few policy examples here that I find very discussion worthy. So the first one is to replace the waste framework directive with a materials framework directive so moving the mindset to help managing the resources including waste more through a lens of resource efficiency and circularity that will then help make room for policies that drive decarbonization. For example, you could reduce material consumption through material taxation at a EU level and also member states could introduce a materials application hierarchy that helps then direct the use of more appropriate materials and specific applications to reduce the environmental impact. Another proposal is to redefine the waste hierarchy by introducing a more granular approach to recycling and residual waste hierarchies and distinguishing between dry materials and organic materials and ranking them based on avoided emissions. In terms of product policy, there are a few EU harmonized policy measures including a couple that Peter Willem just mentioned. So the first one being product taxation at EU level so to send price signals that incentivize producers then to offer more resource efficient sustainable and circular products and also encourage consumers then to choose them. Another one is using the EU's large spending power for public procurement to promote more circular products and circular business models and a last example is harmonizing EPR extended producer responsibility scheme designs across the EU, the scope of the products covered under them, the reporting requirements and also the criteria for the modulation of fees across the EU. Going forward, we need to have a far more integrated policy approach from the commission when it comes to circularity and EU climate targets and so to achieve that we need to have the people working at the different DG's, DG Envy and DG Klima actually talking to each other and collaborative work on design and implementation of legislation and given the current multiple crisis with raising and energy cost inflation and cost of living, we need to make a far better business case for industrial and economic innovation opportunities coming out of the circular economy and what that means for the EU or industrial strategy and how that translates into actual benefits and prosperity for people in form of jobs etc and yeah not just the urban elites as that's perceived nowadays so maybe one measure would be to engage much stronger with trade unions and get their support. Yeah that's about it from my side looking forward to any questions you have. Thank you. Yeah fantastic I mean so much food for thought there in terms of what can and maybe should be done so we're not short of ideas here already but thank you very much for that and we may if we have time obviously come back to some questions on it but I think we'll pass immediately over to our next speaker Katarina Roca from Saint-Gobain so Katarina welcome and over to you. I look forward to hearing what you have to say. Hi Martin, hi everyone can you hear me well? Yes Celine. Yes it's Celine from Saint-Gobain. Should I continue? Yes it's okay. Yes please continue. Yeah yeah thanks for thanks for having me very inspiring comments already made and I picked the continuation on the cooperation mentioned just now as something that resonates very strongly with what we are doing. Thanks, Celine Carri head of public affairs with Saint-Gobain. I'd like to reflect today a little bit on yeah what the EU has put in place in the past years not only the past five years a bit a bit longer but then I illustrate a little bit what we're doing in Saint-Gobain and how is that interacting with the policy context. I'll reflect and suggest a few a few way forward so you can move to the next slide. Yeah so our sector is yeah the first consumer of raw material and the first producer of solid waste this is something we have to address not only to use less virgin non-renewable resources to reduce dependence on raw materials to use landfills to increase recycling and reuse. In terms of global drivers its first scarcity we see it for for sand we see it for for gypsum but it's also the link that was mentioned was the climate challenge a recent study from the World Economic Forum says that circularity of materials in our sector can reduce up to 75 percent of emissions in construction materials so we also have the driver of policy but also the demand driver some of our market already asking for a circularity for reuse for recycled content for recyclability so things are moving but it's not very homogeneous. Can I move to the next slide? Yes and you can click one so here I'd like to pick a few item a few item that we see how moving have been put in place are developing but where more work is actually needed so the way from our directive we have this target for construction demolition waste but the challenge is that it's by weight so the driver is less relevant for lightweight materials such as gypsum mineral wool or other product that we have we struggle also with lack of harmonization regarding definitions recycled content or recyclability you can click once more then moving on the waste shipment regulation good thing it's been just revised but then implementation may take time and the question is whether it's enough to overcome some of the typical challenges that we face when shipping waste such as different classifications such as also authorization administrative burden linked to the simple acceptance of secondary materials in our processes so this is sometimes taking far too much time packaging, packaging waste just been mentioned there also challenge with implementation this is new all sector is super fragmented lots of I mean a majority of SMEs and micro enterprises and then yes visibility what is recyclable what is reusable packaging on the construction product regulation the famous CPR which is about to get the final vote I think it's in two days in the European Parliament yeah the aspiration is very high but it will take time so there we will need the full capacity in administration and in the whole sector to implement circularity elements are not necessarily going to be integrated first so the first requirements are on the global warming potential of materials so here again preparedness will be very important and some of the typical challenges such as with reuse so the legal framework and the insurance the market needs are not just sorted with a with a CPR and moving on with the two other items I'd like to flag here is levels the sustainability framework it's a very powerful driver also for uptake of circularity in the sector the question can be regarding the impact and the driving role and I would also raise the question of how it can better interact with other initiatives such as the new European barhouse sorry for the acronym him by the way the festival of the new European bar houses this week in Brussels and they're we're looking for more synergies between different initiatives last but not least EU taxonomy there we have criteria at the building level so this is relatively new here we will be tracking the impact how much is it actually driving for sustainable finance to incentivize circularity and then we could also reflect or where to put the incentive it is now at the building level could it be also at manufacturer level to incentivize circularity there so moving moving on so that's yeah the the drivers quickly yeah this is on what we do in in in Singapore I'll I'll send you the some of the format it updates slide but it's okay I can't I can't deal with it yeah so it's a very it's a completely integrated dimension circularity in our sustainability strategy you see here the main objective to reduce the pressure on natural raw material especially for exhaustible resources to optimize the use of resources to accelerate the transition to circular model and there it is a very powerful driver and it takes time but it's about creating the ecosystem it's about partnering with all the players it's very local so we need to deal with suppliers with the customers with the specifiers as well the end users and the public authorities the the objective are completely embedded into our sustainability 2030 objective and we would direct all of our actions towards those three levels accelerate improve the circular flows strengthen the circularity in operational performance so it can be the manufacturing processes it can be innovation on materials product solutions and then also managing waste in the in the value change reducing the waste generation increasing the recovery you can move to the next slide quickly illustrating that we would inject those three levels on all of the lifecycle stages of our products and materials and how they then evolve in buildings so what I'd like to point to here is that in all in all of those dimensions what we do is very strongly linked to the level of maturity of the local ecosystem so for example the incorporation of recycled content is very is very much linked to the our ability to collect secondary raw material which is then linked to also how mature the sorting and collecting ecosystem is same for modularity when we think flexibility of usage prolonging the lifetime of a building and repurposing this will also be linked to how local practice can adapt and also to the training of the people and then on the deconstruction side we note that more transparency will come with building logbook or digital product passport implemented via the the CPR but this will take time and for reuse much has still to be done if you move to the next lag and I'll be quick you can you can review the slide afterwards this is just illustrating in those three main areas what we do so incorporation of recycled content for glass for example there is a very strong link between decarbonization and incorporation of recycled content this has helped the innovation in oreille or low carbon glass I would flag also maybe in terms of usage the modular and adaptable solutions so for example we use we were able to use that for the olympic village in in Paris because much of these areas spaces created will have to be repurposed or changed in terms of used and deconstruction there we also work a lot with solutions towards the underfly but also with waste collection management services for installation for mortars for gypsum or for glass now back to yeah you can go to the next slide thanks yeah back to what can be done I think that a lot has already been said but we're aiming for continuity because continuity in the circular economy agenda will give us the the capacity and the capacity buildings in all the stakeholders it takes time to create those ecosystems and the impact is bit as if we had bits and pieces of the puzzle but they need to be placed in the in the right order and they need to be complemented by additional pieces of the of the puzzle so the economics has been mentioned none of what can be created in terms of regulatory driver can work if we don't work on the cost of landfilling then the collection ecosystem it's very important as well we need to mainstream deconstruction I mean demolition is not an option we need to think long term extended producer responsibility in our sector cannot come out of the sky in one day it takes five 10 15 years and it needs to be a material chain approach elements regarding clarifying definitions and lifting the administrative burden would be very important so in a nutshell we have those bits and pieces we need to link them better we need to complement and create impact thank you very much thank you Celine apologies again for the misintroduction but that's extremely clear and I think we can see even in different sort of business areas and value chains very similar themes emerging from what we should do better in the next agenda and with that let me now turn to Caterina hopefully the right Caterina this time so welcome to you as well and we look forward to hearing your perspective too so thank you Celine welcome Caterina don't worry we as me and Celine we are working together very much so of course you can so thanks for having me today I'm thanks for having Rocco to share some thoughts on how to create the economy and a better circular economy so going directly to the presentation without further ado just very quickly Rocco is the largest producer of stone wool which is mineral wool and we produce these products for insulation application we also use stone wool for growing media what's so called grodan that it's a horticulture substrate we also produce the same or we use the same material stone wool for rock panel which make exterior cladding then lapinous which make a special engineering fiber and then rock foam what are the sealing tiles and what we experience over circularity can be actually spread all over the different brands so we can go to the next slide okay so circularity is actually not new in the let's say in the Rocco DNA Rocco has been taking back stone wool from the market for more than two decades now and in fact our rock cycling system program essentially helps the construction sector to fully exploit stone wool recyclability thus avoiding it ending up in the landfill so as you can see we in 2023 we have expanded rock cycle to additional country like India China and Slovenia reaching a total of 21 countries and therefore getting very close to the target of having these take back system offered in 30 country in 2030 and I wanted to be very very let's say clear on what are the tipping points or how do we see that we should improve in the circularity in the legislation in creating conducive legislation to support those those manufacturers those industries that are committed to create circular program so we can go to the next slide so this one is a very basic scheme right in which you essentially see the problems divided in three different phases what you call the building side problems the logistic and then the end use or what could be the the results of of recycling or reusing the product right so either in the factory for being recycling or in the building to be reused so let's start from the very beginning it has been said many time and and of course one of the biggest problem is that we don't have the construction practices we actually look more or we we sorry we do demolition practices and we do not deconstruct how can that be solved well first of all like Claudia was reminding before also coming from the study that was mentioned we need to look into waste as a resource and not as something that you should get rid of we really need to shift the mentality another element that I will go back to later it's also to create very clear targets on recycling and reuse today the waste framework directive has merged target for both of them and for us that doesn't work you need to separate the waste stream to sorry to separate targets to be able to set requirements on each of them another important element to be able and to enable the manufacturer like Rockwell to go and pick up their own waste is to separate waste codes it's useless to say that today you have two waste code for all insulation product those that are containing asardus and those that are not containing asardus but all the insulation product are merged together regardless they are recyclable or not and that it's already creating a big issues we can give you the example of Denmark where our headquarter is I mean Rockwell is a Danish company but there is where we see one of the most successful waste bag sorry amount of waste coming back to Rockwell and that it's essentially because there is a very let's say exercise mentality on the fact that Stonewall needs to be separated by the other way source and it would be actually recovered by by Rockwell so that's very important I know that the waste codes essentially there's no intention to revise them but that would be instrumental then as my colleague Celine was saying before there's also the need of clear definition one of our efforts that the commission is doing is a guideline to the audit like at the building site hold it to sort different type of waste streams and what can be recycled and what can be reused but there is one practical problem to that how can you say if a product is recyclable or not you don't have a clear definition you don't have C label indicating whether the off cuts of that product that you are producing can be recycled or not and that for me it's another very important elements that the construction product regulation should solve there should be like on the C label wherever you want to put it some very explicit explicit essential characteristic telling you whether the product is recyclable and recyclable at scale really like if there is anything that can be offered to the customer to take back the product then if we move from the building site and and no sorry can you stay on the thank you if we move from the building site and we go through the logistic wider defined first of all to decide where my truck is going to take my product either to the landfill or back to the factory it's something that we really depends on the cost of landfill we talk about circular economy we need to talk about the economy behind circularity we need to create this economy by disincentivating the landfill of recyclable product which by the way is already part of the landfill directive which is establishing that by 2030 the member states shouldn't force this ban on landfilling but it's not actually implemented if not in very few a few countries and that's that I and as I said before we should also have separate targets for reuse and recycling not merged one if we want to create gain economy behind what is going to go in the landfill what needs to be diverted and what can be reused another example Germany is a successful country for taking back our mineral wool why because of course there is a high demand we have we've talked about that second there is a ban on landfill for recyclable product which is confronting practically the the construction company to us themselves and then what where I should bring it is there anything out there for me that I can use and then of course they found us and this can create also can create for Rockwell a steady production of waste which is also one of the biggest problem when you are manufacturing a product not to have a steady flow of waste coming to the factory because you need to program all your let's say production your recipe and if you don't know how much waste you can take back that of course will disencourage any type of use of waste again transport should be should be supported by some sort of fast tracking we are not we need to stop thinking that we are transporting waste we are transporting a resource we are transporting a secondary raw material so we should release specific waste stream or we should also try to facilitate the process for having harmonized and the waste criteria last but not least the EPR extended producer responsibility it's another important mechanism that can help us and it's even better like like Claudia was saying before harmonized throughout Europe the third more successful country in our take back scheme is France and it happens that they have the extended producer responsibility there to last point recycling of course when you are taking the waste to to the factory you are still recycling waste if again that requires a lot of let's say permitting burden and I think that the commission should commit itself to develop tools that can fast track the permitting yet keeping safety and exposure and anything that is important for the work is very high on the agenda but let's say diminishing the bureaucratical burden on the manufacturer there should be a very strong encouragement of the industrial symbiosis so what is your waste or what is your byproduct can be a resource for me and that should actually be very highly regulated today we are facing the situation in which when you are we are taking back slag from other for example industrial processes in one country it is defined as waste in another country is defined as by product there is no clarity and of course this also comes with the definition of recycled content this is on the side of the demand if if you set requirements on minimum recycled content you would essentially trigger the whole system to to produce these ways to be taken back to the manufacturer and last but not least reuse we are lacking harmonized standards on reuse so today if I want to reuse a slab of insulation or a ceiling tile I need to do it completely under my responsibility I need to choose what are the characteristics that I believe I should check to be able to tell my customers that the performance is still there there are no harmonization there is no way to to do it in a way that it's guaranteeing level of playing field and if you look at the situation Peter before was mentioning as a one of one very important element the life cycle focus on the life cycle of the building that would be perfect if we could only have a definition of durability of construction product because today we are also missing a durability a definition of durability on construction product which is also confronting the customer to ask themselves can I reuse the product is that meant to last 60 or 20 years 25 years so that's another element that should be introduced to give the customer and and whomever wants to launch a business on reuse a product to know well if this product is is essentially working it's still working next slide we just be quite brief now yeah yeah yeah well then then you can skip that because I think that this is summing up everything and then the last one is just to tell you that we have in our website the circularity dashboard in which you essentially see what are our indicators what are we taking into account when we are evaluating and where are we setting the targets for for our circularity let's say ambition thank you very much thank you very much indeed and sorry that we don't have more time because obviously we could go on much longer but again lots of really interesting detail as well as sort of strategic perspectives there and with no further ado because I know time is passing quickly I'd like to pass over to Eduardo so Eduardo if you are able to start immediately the floor is yours welcome and thank you for joining us sure thank you Martin for the invitation also yeah to Diana for organizing the event of course for Martina for making sure that everything runs smoothly hope you hear me well so we can indeed go on no presentation but I wanted to start by introducing myself and the reuse reuse is the circular is the European association representing more than 1000 individual social enterprises active in the circular economy and for example you can think of the mouse shops in France but also the Petirian the second and clothing stores in Brussels in Wallonia but also the many of some shops in the UK and Ireland as examples of what our members do so there are already two keywords in our definition which are social and circular and social because our members do work a lot with people distanced from the labour market and this can include the refugees people with mental or physical disabilities and so on but also circular because our members work on the reuse repair and recycling of about 25 waste streams which includes textiles electronics and furniture so by merging social and circular we like to say that we give both people and things a second chance and this has been at the heart of everything we do since 2010 the year 2001 actually the year where reuse was founded and this will also not change in the near future as I will explain in a moment so I'm here to talk about circular economy and I'm actually the person following circular economy legislation in reuse we do follow many fights because our members work on many areas but all of our advocacy efforts is driven by two main aims which are quite simple first one is increasing the alignment of circular economy with the waste hierarchy and the waste hierarchy is this principle that should be at the core of use circular economy legislation and in its most simple form we can think of the three R's reuse recycle and then the U actually has a more substantial definition in article 4 of the waste framework directive however we have seen that too often the focus has only been on recycling so acting once a product has already become waste and not enough on preventing the generation of waste in the first place we know that applying the waste hierarchy leads to the best environmental outcome as it guarantees maximum resource efficiency with a minimum impact of the environment but what we may not know what may not be self-evident is that the waste hierarchy also leads to the best social outcomes and this is actually our second priority which is raising the profile of social elements within the circular economy because sustainable development is not just about the environment it's also about the social and economic dimension and the waste hierarchy can help achieving true sustainable development in this case this is because reuse and repair compared to recycling and especially its generation and landfilling are more labor intensive which means that they have a higher job creation potential and in the case of social enterprises these are local and green jobs for people distance from the labor market so there is also something about inclusion here furthermore the value of reuse items is protected and kept within the community so once again social and circular are the true pillars of our advocacy and I think that we achieved some steps forward during the von der Leyen commission and the last mandate well this mandate that's about 20 so we have seen a lot of different legislation under the second circular economy action plan and as Diana was saying before we have seen legislation covering all stages of the life cycle of products so design phase use phase and end of life for the sake of brevity I decided to focus only on three initiatives so one for each stage on the design phase well we have to talk about the eco design for sustainable products regulation or SPR because we know that up to 80 percent of the environmental impact can be prevented through better design and we really think that extending the eco design framework from electronic goods to well virtually almost all products in the new market and setting specific parameters for well circularity but also establishing the digital product passport we all think that these things if they're implemented properly they will be really a game changer so this is something really important for us on the use phase we have mentioned it before the right to repair directive this will make products easier to repair both by well by removing software and hardware obstacles so for instance no more barriers to software or also there are provisions about availability of spare parts this is really positive but also by increasing the visibility of local repair and secondhand options for consumers so we think that this should make repair more attractive to uc design and so repair and reuse can be a real alternative to buying a new and replace which is something of course we think it's very positive finally there is the end of life so when products become waste because we have to delay this as much as possible but eventually products will become waste and in this regard there is the targeted revision of the waste framework directive which focused on textiles and food waste and for us the textile aspect is particularly important because many of our most visible members work on textile collection and resale and if you think about it charity shops have been the only actors involved in the circularity of textiles decades before the term circular economy was first invented so as social and circular enterprises we asked for this recognition of the role of social enterprises to be enshrined in this legislation and we think that we achieved some success because the term social economy was only mentioned two times in the previous revision it's now mentioned 11 times in the commission's proposal and 17 times in the parliament's position so we can finally see that reuse activities carried out by social enterprises are increasingly being recognized and this for a long time was not the case so we think this is a positive development so indeed there have been important step forwards in this mandate and we must acknowledge them but there is still a lot more to do because the transition to a circular economy is still not happening fast enough and this comes from official use sources not from NGOs again brevity time is short i will only give you three key demands first one is procurement procurement is 14 percent of the use GDP as we all know because we keep repeating this all the time but it's really a big a lot of money there and this public money coming from taxpayers so it makes sense for us that this money should be used to benefit society and to drive forward social and environmental goals not just procuring what is cheapest so this is why we need a revised public procurement directive second one is targets more specifically in use targets and i'm talking about both reuse products and preparation for reuse waste and in our experience you cannot increase reuse without separate targets separate from recycling because a target is a signal that gives enough incentives to stimulate the collaboration of involved stakeholders but also an instrument that's flexible enough to account for the different situation in member states so we do want to reuse targets and i'm specifically thinking about electronic waste here because we already have a clear obligation for member states to calculate and report on reuse rates according to a clear uniform methodology so we have the data and we also have plenty of examples where these targets have been implemented in several member states so we really think the time has come to have reuse targets at least for electronics and we hope to see them in the next mandate the third one is really a big one and it's sufficiency and this is a term that the IPCC defines as delivering human well-being for all within planetary boundaries concretely uh it's a big concept but about circular economy wise it's about reducing our use of natural resources because we consume way too much over our fair share and this is something that a lot of NGOs and civil society are really pushing for because we realize that there is a need now actually it may already be too late so it's really important to go on but sufficiency is the aim circular economy is how we get there it's the tool and we need both to meet the climate and environmental commitments of the EU but sufficiency can also rhyme with resilience resiliency in a way because circular economy can reduce demand for imported resources boost the strategic autonomy of our continents but also increase reindustrialization so this is something important and to conclude here a lot has happened indeed last last mandate this mandate here about circular economy but a lot more needs to happen the issue is that we are hearing that there is fatigue about environmental legislation and it's understandable there has been a lot of legislation here this fatigue is felt by businesses who have to comply with a lot of sustainability requirements by policy makers who are actually shaping legislation and most importantly according to a lot of polls and unfortunately by many EU citizens themselves because so here there is a challenge for civil society which is that saying that we must do something just because it's good for the environment probably will not be enough in this new political climate but this is not necessarily a bad thing this can also be an opportunity and a good reminder that environmental policies successful environmental policies cannot take place in a vacuum where there are no social and economic consideration because the transition to a circular economy just like the transition to decarbonization net zero and sustainable development has to be a just transition or quite simply that want to be a transition at all so this is something really important something that I felt yeah could be a good closure for this so thank you and I'll be very happy to take your questions thank you Eduardo a very helpful reminder about the importance I guess of the social dimension but also considering all of these issues together regrettably we are already brief sort of over time so I think we will have to not have our Q&A session but I would just underline that we're really keen to have input from everybody on this call and others into the report that Diana mentioned just heard the importance of the social dimension and and how that is essential to this agenda we've heard obviously from the scientific advisory board the underlying case the urgency and all of the possibilities that we have to do much much more and we have heard a clear set of business cases essentially for what needs to be changed in terms of policy for this to be an economic agenda that really makes sense and indeed something that is also highly relevant for the wider EU agenda how the EU is actually very well positioned from a competitive perspective here many of the companies who are leading exponents of the circular economy are European based in Europe and developing these ideas in the European Union potentially extending them internationally beyond as well so I think there's a strong competitiveness dimension to this if we get it right as well so with that let me just thank everyone all of our speakers for excellent presentations they will be available afterwards as we've indicated online they were so good I didn't want to cut them short and therefore we don't have a Q&A but as I underlined just now please do get in touch with us afterwards many thanks obviously therefore to all of them but also to all my colleagues who do all the hard work behind the scenes and to make everything that we've done today possible so thank you to all of you for that and obviously most importantly thank you to everyone for joining we hope this has been a really interesting session for you all look forward to remaining in touch with you and we hope that we'll be able to invite you back when we have the publication of our report later this year that we can continue this conversation and indeed make sure that we're implementing this agenda with even more vigor and effectiveness in due course so thank you to you all and with that I would just like to wish you all a very good rest of the day rest of the week and much success on this agenda in all of your activities so thank you and we'll see you again another time goodbye


Hi, it's Bridget. Welcome to Above Life Channel. The purpose here is to inspire your spirit and to fill you up with hope. This is a video where I'm going to chat a little bit about YouTube comments, and I'm going to respond to some of the reoccurring themes that I see in some of my video comments. So that's what this video is. It's not a channeling video, but I'm going to chat with you. And I'm in the kitchen.  I have to do mom's stuff. This morning. I'm very busy. I'm making some chili. You're going to hear the hamburger browning in the background. It's like 9 a.m. And I'm making chili because my daughter is participating in a fundraiser tonight for the community food shelf. And I've got to make some food to bring so that it can be part of the event. So I'm doing chili because she asked.  I just don't do that. Like, I don't have time for that. And usually I'll just buy something and bring it if I have to or give my kid money and she can take care of it. But today I'm making it. However, I neglected to plan ahead and I did not take out the hamburger yesterday. So this morning I have frozen hamburger. I'm trying to deep-daw. And I'm going to pop it in my new little crock pot and make some chili. So you're going to hear that in the background. And I'm sorry for my vegan friends. I know I have some vegan friends that watch. So I'm sorry. Yes, it's I am using meat. So anyway, I wanted to make sure that I was able to check in with you and connect with you and talk to you about some of the comments that the comment themes that I see reoccurring. And I know that this isn't the most ideal background. For you guys, because if I turn, if I move like this, You can see my spirit guy over my shoulder. No, no, no, no. There's a obviously a window in the front. And you guys, you know what? I am going to appreciate this light of the sun right now because we are getting like a major snowstorm blizzard and it's April. Yeah, I know. Remember I live in Minnesota. And so whatever it is, what it is. So All right. So as far as comments go I've had I'm going to try to focus on the comments that are like value added and positive and I'm going to try really hard not to get snarky about and sassy About the comments that are rude because for those of you who really Give me thoughtful questions or really ask things that are thought provoking. I really appreciate that. I think that's lovely and for those of you who've been binging on my videos, hey, thank you. I appreciate that too. That's a really big compliment because I do that too sometimes. I'll binge Especially when I need something else to focus on for a while, you know, change my energy I'll binge to an really positive podcast or things like that. So I totally think that's a compliment. So thank you But one of the things that I was asked recently probably in response to The fact that I've shared some Videos where you guys can actually to help facilitate you having an experience of connection with Prince in the afterlife and with Freddie Mercury in the afterlife And yes, I will continue to do a few more of those but I actually have recorded some meditations And shared them in a video format so that you can But so that I can help to maybe give you the opportunity to facilitate That connection experience for yourself because what it really takes is just practice Practices not practice to make perfect for connection, but practices reoccurring routines where you connect and I really want to provide you with the experience so that you know that you have access to intuition you have access to energy flow And thus connection. And so that's why I've done some of those a couple meditation videos You can find those right now At the time I'm doing this video you can find those at the Prince playlist For a connection with Prince And you can find it on the Freddie Mercury playlist for a connection with Freddie And I have a couple of more that I'll share in the future as well. All right, so The point of and so some of you that have watched Listened to the meditation to connect with Freddie Mercury Some of you have asked well, how does this work or how do I know if I connect? And the response that I have to that how do I know if it works or how do I know if it connects? I can tell you right away that there that natural question is It's indicative of a level of resistance where You're not sure if you should believe that you personally have the ability to connect And I tell you right now that you have a spirit you have a soul And because of that you have access to a language of energy and the language of energy forms a bridge and makes connection Spirit to spirit soul to soul energetic vibrations Now the heart chakra or the heart energy space It's how we sense and feel And that is the easiest way to interpret the language of energy. So Because you ask that question it's natural I think to have a little bit of doubt But do not allow yourself to get bogged down in old school old patterning old belief systems that limit you And that tell you what you're not and give yourself permission to recognize that you might have some resistance in that and so Release your expectations. Don't expect Perfection don't think that you're going to listen to something and magically all of a sudden it's going to work the first time It's like riding a bike. Okay. The first couple times you do it. You're not going to just naturally do it It's like learning how to walk. You don't Put a baby on the ground and say here walk walk, you know First they what develop the muscles then they start to crawl then they start to Pull themselves up then they start to gradually walk and then they run right. It's a process It's a learning process. So this isn't just something where you flip a switch and magic it happens And day to day it's going to be different. Some days you'll be able to connect easily readily Other days.  It doesn't always work And that is the same way for me to you guys That is the same way for me too when I do meditations if I do if I listen to guided visualizations or meditations That's the same way for me too Why because you're different every day. So it's okay It's not always going to work and it's not always going to be perfect and that's not the goal The goal is not perfection. It's practice And connection is the desired outcome and that is the experience that you have The fact that you're willing to try and that you're willing to show up And try it again and again try it every day for a week try it every day for three weeks just try Try and there's lots of different formats that you can use To connect besides a meditation or visualization. Okay, there's other ways to connect Which brings me to another question. I guess some of my advice on that would be don't give up You are so much more than you know that you are And you just got to be willing to be open to that Okay, and it's natural to have resistance. It's natural to have a little bit of doubt, but don't let that bury you. All right No no pun intended. Okay That was such a poor choice of words Bridget. I'm not going to edit that out either because this is just me talking to you like we're friends. Okay All right, so another question that comes in kind of related to that is a question about how to connect in writing related to A recent video that I shared where I actually I was so busy That I just grabbed my notebook and I wrote Instead of channeled out loud because it was a crazy busy night in my house and stuff And I was at the dinner table. I talked about it. That was actually a channeling that I did with freddy mercury So that's also in the freddy mercury playlist if you want to know what video she's talking about where she talked about writing what um So I wrote I wrote and while I was doing that I was so in the process of just writing grabbed a notebook and a pen and just was writing My husband was across the table from me and he You know, you always have your phones around right? He's grabbed his phone and recorded me. I'm like what? so when I talked to him and told him that I was going to um Share this video of this channel by reading I I read The notes that I had and I was going to share it with you guys make a video and share it with you guys and this was several months after I actually did it right and actually did the writing And I told him about that and he said I have video of that and we can use that video piece and I can edit it in I can bring it right in if you want me to do that. I thought that is fantastic Yes, do that because I want to show you guys how There are so many ways to connect It's energy and it's energy is a language and the language is this sensory kind of experience and expression And it's connected to your intuition and your gut instincts and your feelings and emotions in the heart space And it's hard to explain in words because it's not a language that is recognizable by human words The closest thing to spirit connection soul to soul spirit to spirit connection is music Or vibration tones That's the closest thing I could compare to what it's like in energy. Okay and So The writing piece is an important Uh tool for you So, how do you do that? well, even if so, okay, so I don't know if You guys have this experience growing up, but writing in a journal wasn't really my thing I tried to do it off and on even though I was an avid writer I loved to write from like third grade on. I mean essay is all that stuff I loved writing and creative writing especially because it gave me an outlet to express myself It was really a channel so writing is a channel and it's available to all of us and the beautiful thing about writing when you want to connect in spirit Is that it provides the mind participation it allows the mind to utilize human words that It helps things make more sense The tricky part about writing is while it can be a wonderful flow state in a channel where you just write, write, write, write, write, write, write, write It can get it can clear your emotions. It can allow you to stop over thinking and not be have analysis paralysis but the tricky thing about writing is that You're not in it's not intended when you do spirit connection Whether you're trying to channel yourself and your own spirit in your body Or you're trying to channel or connect with someone one of your loved ones or a famous person to get advice or insight Or just a build relationship of connection You cannot write with the intent or the goal of the outcome to be Being able to reread process understand in your mind because that's not what's going to happen You cannot take spiritual context content information energy and understand it effectively with the mind you can Manipulate it with your mind. You can make it mean different things. You can emphasize words specific words that are chosen You can put the energy in the wrong spots. It's like putting an explanation part an explanation mark after the word with Instead of at the end of the sentence like it doesn't make sense to do that The mind can help to articulate the energy into a state where you can process it And the mind is included, but it's not the be all end all It's one t tiny piece And so after you do the writing the the point or the goal isn't to go back and reread it 15 times to really try to hone in on and pick out this specific Make meaning of things that you're with your mind You can reread it if you choose to do that, but I would recommend you wait You just write right right right right and if you want to go back and reread it you can But do it do so after you've had opportunity to allow the energy to flow and be clear so that when you're reading it You have a fresh mind a different perspective. You're not desperately Looking for answers and the writing and the exact words that you used and getting frustrated with the fact that you don't Feel them and so there's barriers and there's resistance and then Oh the spiritual stuff doesn't work Again, the writing takes practice. It's not a one-and-done kind of thing. This is not a McDonald's drive-thru spiritual connection is a practice and It's relationship. It's learning to understand what energy means for you. All right So writing is a great tool again clears energy helps to release stuff If you're worried about other people reading what you write You don't have to have a fancy journal. You can just have a notebook Then rip it up and throw it away. Throw it at the garbage at work.  You can throw it in the garbage. It's okay You can burn it if you want make it a whole ritual thing But writing is and it's much more effective too if you do pen to paper because it's the physical Movement and the flow and I'm not talking about automatic writing. That's different. It's almost the automatic writing is almost like a Trans channel kind of state. It's a little bit different. That's not what I'm talking about That's not what I'm talking about talking about building a relationship With spiritual connection for yourself where your mind is involved a little bit But it knows its place It knows its place your spirit is the one that will really give you the guidance and if you build a relationship It's like being pen pals Whether it's with the afterlife with a special guest That you invite in whether it's with your spirit guides or your archangels Or whether it's with your spirit You're building a relationship And you're forming and learning the language of that relationship through energy And you're utilizing words to do that and that helps your mind to be part of that process Okay, so I've probably over talked talked about all this but So those are two things that you can use for spiritual connection for yourself and the biggest advice again Is just to use it as a practice. You don't have to write like you're going to be graded You don't have to write like other people are going to read it. You don't have to worry about your punctuation or The capitals or lowercase letters or even if it's legible. That doesn't even matter So if you want more resources about writing There is a great resource Julia Cameron She wrote the book artist's way. I have not read the book I am familiar with Julia Cameron and her practice and she does a practice called morning pages morning pages Where she starts the day this way and clears the energy for herself by writing And so I'd recommend you check that out on google or youtube. You guys can check it out You can find it yourself Julia Cameron And it's the artist's way All right Okay, so those are two of the questions that I get and obviously now my My stuff is done here. So I'm going to pop it into the Let's grab a spoon here and just pop it into the crock pot. Crock pots are great I love that old school invention, right? I know now we've got like, you know Instapots and all that. I don't have one of those but I'm still old school. I guess Oh, there we go. This is hot too. Okay. This is good looking pretty good All right, so some of the other questions that you guys have asked me Are things that are just really based on your own experience? I think and over the course of your lifetime, we're all going to have different kinds of experience Which is what creates our values, right in our belief systems and There are it's natural to ask about like religion and how that fits and all the The messages you were given as a child or growing up or maybe even in the relationship that you're in now and it almost feels like you there's almost like this guilt or the fear that comes with trying to discern what fits for you and Who you are today and now Versus who you were who's you were growing up because you were under the guidelines of some adults that role models either parents grandparents older siblings church leaders maybe school where It really has an impact on you and so now today when you're exposed to some different things that are new or that seem Not as structure because spirit connection and intuition you guys and energy. There's not a lot of structure the structure is like nature and sacred geometry and the elements earth and fire and and the concepts of spirit guides or spiritual totem animals or It's there's so much that's available that it can be very overwhelming. Like do you want to study shamanism? Do you want to study? Connecting with angels.  Do you want to learn about life coaching? What and then do you want to do health or do you want to do? I mean, there's so much available so it can be very overwhelming. It seems disorganized It seems very to me anyway. It seems very disorganized And so because of that it makes you think well, is this really legit? Is this for real? It doesn't seem like there's a lot of buy-in in one particular swim lane here There's too many different choices and options. And so I'm not sure what to believe Well, that's the whole opportunity point here For you to open yourself up to discern for you and feeling what feels right for you Is the whole point for me. It's the whole experience for you to connect Is to connect within yourself first deep in your gut and your belly that gut instinct that you've had all your lifetime And to recognize that what's right for you now is different than what you did in the past And it will be different than what you do in the future You have to give yourself at least the freedom to Optimize the relationship within yourself with your own soul your own spirit and begin Just begin to start to trust yourself and your discernment. It doesn't matter what kind of mistakes you've made in the past And you're going to make mistakes in the future and that's part of life That's the learning and the growth process and we don't have to dig on ourselves all the time for that So it is natural to kind of have like this guilty feeling or this uncertainty and this Gosh, there's no structure here. It's not as clear cut. There's not rules in spirit contact and spirit connection there's only our personal levels of discernment and our personal choices as to how we how we Want to proceed how we want to value what we want to value and What we choose to participate in as we learn and grow And so that unknown can be scary because there's too much freedom almost too much freedom for you But that's the way it is you guys It's awesome It's like you finally get this freedom that you've wanted all your life and you have no idea how to proceed And so that's scary and there's really not a wrong way Give yourself the opportunity to have experiences and not Try not to look for the answer Because there's no answers. There are no answers There are only options Opportunities it's a buffet style living. That's what it is If something doesn't taste right, it doesn't feel right. It probably isn't so try something different But don't You have to be your own best advocate your own best cheerleader your own best. Hey girls, okay It's okay Let's just pick yourself up dust yourself off and let's try this or let's try this that kind of a thing Don't look for a quick fix or a quick answer This is about experiential learning and that's how you grow and the most important thing is a relationship with your spirit, that's what intuition is That's what channeling Helps you to do You get guidance you get inspiration and you connect For yourself because the purpose at above life channel Is to inspire your spirit to fill you with hope So that you can live your life because this This is your life. This is your life. It's such a gift.  Thank you so much for watching this commentary on comments Oh, yeah, yeah, I over talk I over talk uses us a binge video or something while you're doing your laundry I think mine's done actually in the background Or making your lunch or your dinner or whatever. It's great to see you guys It feels so good to be able to connect with you and I feel like literally You know, I'm just hanging out and talking and I love that. I love casual stuff like this. So it's wonderful Thank you so much for being part of the journey and for sharing it with me as well