Ministerial Group Unveils Circular Economy Report

Professor John Thwaites AM, CEMAG Chair: We're handing to the Minister at the Circular Economy Ministerial Advisory Group report. This is our final report with 14 core recommendations to help Australia transition to a circular economy.…and I can formally hand to you The Circular Advantage, which is our report to you and I look forward to your implementation. So, thank you Minister.

Tanya Plibersek, Minister for Environment and Water: Thank you so much. I'm really excited to be announcing the Australian Government's Circular Economy Framework. This is a framework that will guide business and government investment to make sure that we're getting the most out of our raw materials.

Instead of digging up raw materials, using them for a while and then seeing them end up in landfill, what we want to do is extract maximum value from those valuable raw materials by recycling, repairing, reusing and repurposing the goods that we use.

Anthony Karam, CEO Sircel: One of the things that's very different about how we view this whole space is that we don't really view anything as waste. We actually see everything potentially as a commodity, not a waste stream. Hence our commitment to diverting up to 100% from landfill, which in and of itself is a huge commitment. We've been very mindful of trying to develop something in country as well. So, we can do the whole solution in Australia, which has its own benefits.

Lisa McLean, CEO and Managing Director, Circular Australia (CEMAG member): There are so many fantastic opportunities for Australian businesses and for Australians and new jobs, and they go way beyond recycling. For example, we start with lithium. We've got mobility batteries that are really critical. They're full of lots of critical minerals. They're essential for our renewable energy transition. There's a $3 billion opportunity to keep those batteries onshore and recycle and process them and extract that value for export and use domestically.

Claire Kneller, General Manager, Leading Harvest (CEMAG member): So, heaps of our recommendations actually speak to just that, one is encouraging place-based transformation. So really collating around an area, finding champions and bringing businesses together who are complimentary. But the second one is really leveraging the ESG reporting that businesses are doing today and in future and encouraging particularly brands and retailers to work with their supply chains to co-implement and critically measure the impact of circular economy practices.

Paul Klymenko, Co-founder, Planet Ark (CEMAG member): Moving from awareness to actual action and that's going to take everyone adopting circular economy principles in their everyday life. And the other thing that's going to be necessary is moving from pilots to wide-scale adoption as quickly as possible most important thing is to realise when it comes to behaviour change and moving to a circular economy is a societal behaviour change, is that you have to have a long-term strategy and you have to have powerful collaboration partners.

Romilly Madew, CEO Engineers Australia (CEMAG member): Engineers have been involved in circularity for decades and are at the forefront of innovation in circularity. Just think about recycled content in roads, the great recycling and diversion to landfill we've seen, in the built environment. So engineers are our problem solvers and innovators. They're at the forefront of design and also building our massive infrastructure pipeline that is coming.

Tanya Plibersek, Minister for Environment and Water: What we know about a more circular economy is we get more value out of those raw materials like those precious metals. We also create more jobs because there's three jobs in recycling for every job in landfill and of course it's much better for the environment. It means less stuff ending up in landfill but it also means that all of the raw materials we use get used to their maximum value.