James George

Circular economy and sustainability strategist

Isle of Wight, United Kingdom

English

More than €200 / hour

As part of the UK Governments (DEFRA) preparation for INC-4 in Ottawa, Canada (23-29th April) the UK plastics industry was convened over five sessions to discuss the draft treaty and put its perspectives across to inform the negotiating team of the UK ahead of INC-4. Members from Upstream, Midstream, Downstream, and NGO/Academia were hosted in constructed dialogues to capture all elements of the conversation. I facilitated and led these conversations with industry, and hosted each of the sessions through the draft text and discussion boards to ensure all the voices were represented. This created a briefing document for UK Gov to inform their thinking ahead of the current negotiations.

Working with a well-know camera manufacturer to look at their options when creating a systemic approach for material capture and re-manufacture of the instant film Cartridges. Currently the cartridge is not commercially recyclable, due to the type of material blend required to protect and deliver the instant film to the customer. I was the project lead, working with the Internal operations, comms, innovation, and ESG teams to design and create a UK take back programme utilising three stores in London, Manchester, and Birmingham. Including setting up a nationwide mail back system so that we could collect enough post-consumer material to then build and conduct technical material innovation studies to find a commercial solution.

Working with the EU Music industry  to create a strategic roadmap for their business lines associated with merchandise and touring. Having signed up to a 62% reduction in scope 3 emission by 2032, they are trying to work out how they make those changes. What are the challenges with current supply chains, and where can they find new partnerships and innovations to maintain the economics of the process while also reducing their impact and ensure ethical business practices in their supply chain. My role was to help them operationalize their ambition. Identify a list of areas to focus on, create some new quantitative KPIs, identify who internally, and externally would need to be part to the conversation and also point to new business models and processes that exist in other industries that they could leverage.

Working with a large US retailer on how they use their stores and status in the communities which they operate to drive environmentally linked social impact. Rather than focusing on material flows, what are the geographically focused circular interventions that can support traditionally marginalised black and brown communities.  My role is multi-faceted but in short; helping the business to link the research findings to the business strategy, ensuring that they keep sight of the circular economic opportunity rather than just the social one, “provocate” their thinking and conversations with internal stakeholders, and work with the team to design and implement the pilot.

Working with a EU based consultancy to create a tool for the Private equity community who are looking to invest in climate positive technologies. designed to bring clarity and operational data to the complexity across the circular value chain. It is designed to support investors with the deal identification, impact due diligence, monitoring and steering the performance of their investment portfolios.  and assist both investment institutions, and individual portfolio companies to develop and implement their circular strategy.  My role in working with the CEO to define, design, and test what the tool should do. This included supporting the team to test and market the tool to the PE investor industry, take their feedback and iterate the methodology to create a value proposition that answered an existing gap for PE (Impact) investors. This also included hosting and supporting a series of round tables with key industry stakeholders.