Sian Sutherland: "Innovating the Business of Plastics"
The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
Nate Hagens
4.8 • 553 Ratings
🗓️ 20 September 2023
⏱️ 76 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this episode, Nate is joined by Sian Sutherland, a leader in the movement towards reducing the overconsumption of plastic and its waste. The modern era is dependent on fossil fuels for many reasons - one of the most covertly ubiquitous ones being plastic. Everyday we are surrounded by it - encasing our food, woven in the threads of our clothes, and even permeating into the water that we drink. How do we begin to break off this addiction to the convenience and utility of plastics? How does this connect to the larger implications of a society embedded in a linear, consumption-based system dependent on growth? What role can industry, governments, and individuals each play in creating structural shifts to reduce our reliance on plastic - and ultimately return to a slower, more circular way of life?
About Sian Sutherland
Sian Sutherland is Co-founder of A Plastic Planet, one of the most recognised and respected organizations tackling the plastic crisis. More recently, she also co-founded PlasticFree, the first materials and systems solutions platform, empowering the 160m global creatives to design waste out at the source. Sian was awarded the Female Marketer of the Year, Entrepreneur of the Year, and British Inventor of the Year. In 2023 at the UN Plastics Treaty negotiations (INC2), in partnership with Plastic Soup Foundation, A Plastic Planet launched the Plastic Health Council, bringing expert scientists to the negotiating process with the irrefutable proof of plastic chemicals impact on human health. Passionately pro-business and solutions focused, Sian believes the plastic crisis gives mankind a rare gateway to change both materials and systems to create a different future for next generations.
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/jTs6KejhSg4
More Info & Show Notes: https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/89-sian-sutherland
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to The Great Simplification with Nate Higgins. |
| 0:06.3 | That's me. |
| 0:07.7 | On this show, we try to explore and simplify what's happening with energy, the economy, the environment, in our society. |
| 0:17.0 | Together with scientists, experts, and leaders, this show is about understanding the bird's eye view of how everything fits together, where we go from here and what we can do about it as a society and as individuals. |
| 0:32.6 | In addition to climate change and biodiversity loss, more and more people are understanding that |
| 0:38.4 | plastic is one of the most important threats to our natural ecosystems and to human health. |
| 0:44.4 | Today's guest, Sean Sutherland, is a leading industry activist in charge of a plastic planet, |
| 0:52.0 | where they were using a pro-business, pro-solutions approach with an ultimate goal of helping the world turn off the plastic tap. |
| 1:00.7 | A plastic planet uses a three-pronged framework of reduce, refill, and replace as a call to action for business, media, and global policymakers to pull the plug |
| 1:14.4 | on plastic production. |
| 1:17.2 | Sean and I take a deeper dive on what's going on with the growing awareness and response |
| 1:21.8 | to our plastics crisis. |
| 1:23.7 | I'm pleased to introduce Sean Sutherland. |
| 1:39.3 | Thank you. I'm pleased to introduce Sean Sutherland. Sean Sutherland. |
| 1:43.7 | Thank you so much. It's a real pleasure to be here. Thank you, |
| 1:46.7 | Nate. We have mutual friends working in the plastics endocrine-disrupting space, but this is the first time we've ever spoken. |
| 2:00.4 | I am told you have a long and diverse list of careers in your life before your current invocation. |
| 2:08.0 | Can you just introduce yourself by giving a bit of background of who you are and what you've done? |
| 2:15.1 | Yes, thank you. |
| 2:16.2 | I'll try and keep it brief because I'm pretty old, so it's actually quite a long |
| 2:20.3 | history now. So, Sean Sutherland, co-founder of a plastic planet and plastic free, what you |
| 2:27.7 | would probably call a serial entrepreneur. So my very first career was in advertising, but I left |
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