The Canada Plastics Pact’s origin story sheds light on what it takes to create the conditions for solving wicked challenges
There are some things that you just can’t do alone. Sometimes you can’t even know the full nature of the problem you’re trying to solve until you engage with others who have a deep understanding of different parts of the challenge.
David Hughes
President and CEO, Generate Canada
In 2019, Generate Canada (previously The Natural Step) didn’t have “re-tooling the country’s plastics supply chain” on its agenda, as a way to achieve ambitious sustainability goals and advance better economic outcomes.
But that’s exactly the challenge the team embraced, thanks to a confluence of factors.
The organization had recently begun advancing the idea of a circular economy: a waste-free system that emphasizes reuse, recycling and other regenerative processes to keep products in circulation and reduce the need for new raw materials. Many industry leaders and policy-makers were intrigued by the concept but struggled to see practical applications.
At the same time, Canadian companies and governments were facing pressure to address plastics pollution. Only nine per cent of the country’s plastic waste was getting recycled; the rest ended up in landfills or as litter. While a number of committees had sprung up to tackle their own piece of the system, siloed initiatives weren’t enough to create large-scale change.
“There are some things that you just can’t do alone,” explains Generate Canada’s president and CEO, David Hughes. “Sometimes you can’t even know the full nature of the problem you’re trying to solve until you engage with others who have a deep understanding of different parts of the challenge.”
Generate Canada saw an opportunity to harness circular approaches, systems thinking, and business and political will to tackle the plastics problem. The question was how.
There are some things that you just can’t do alone. Sometimes you can’t even know the full nature of the problem you’re trying to solve until you engage with others who have a deep understanding of different parts of the challenge.
David Hughes
President and CEO, Generate Canada
The organization already had a long track record of working with industry leaders to address wicked sustainability challenges. It had tested circular packaging solutions in a “rapid lab” funded by the Ontario government, which ultimately led to the development of Circular Economy Leadership Canada. A report commissioned from the Smart Prosperity Institute laid out policies and approaches to advance a circular plastics economy.
What followed were months of research, consultations and brainstorming with some of Canada’s most influential actors in the plastics value-chain. The best way forward, it was decided, was to join the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s recently established Global Plastics Pact Network and begin adapting the model for a Canadian context.
But convincing industry leaders to join fledgling the Pact proved challenging. Already busy trying to transform their internal systems and actively involved in other plastics initiatives, they had little appetite for another.
Two things changed their minds. One was recognizing the only way to overcome systemic barriers like the lack of appropriate recycling infrastructure or harmonized national standards was through collaboration. The other was the unique opportunity the Pact offered for plastic resin producers, packagers, food and consumer goods manufacturers, distributors, retailers, recyclers, policy-makers and academics to join forces to drive systems change.
As a result, buy-in steadily grew. In January 2021, the Canada Plastics Pact publicly launched, and tangible progress quickly followed. A foundational report on plastic flows within Canada. A national action plan to build a circular economy for packaging. Golden Design Rules for Plastics Packaging. A five-year roadmap to tackle the particularly thorny issue of flexible plastics.
Today, the Pact boasts almost a hundred partners, all taking meaningful steps to eliminate unnecessary and problematic plastics, redesign packaging and bolster their use of recycled material.
Creating “Solution Spaces” — like the Canada Plastics Pact — is core to Generate Canada’s value proposition. Part think tank, part living lab, Solution Spaces foster innovation across the entire value chain, leveraging collaboration, great research, best-in-class science, human-centered “design thinking” and a deep understanding of how systems work.
It’s a model that can be applied to all kinds of wicked challenges. Today, Generate Canada runs half a dozen Solution Spaces aimed at a spectrum of challenges, from lowering agricultural greenhouse gas emissions in ways that support farmers to attracting private investment for nature conservation.
The solutions that emerge can take many forms. In some cases, it might be innovative technologies. In other cases, it could be supply-chain improvements, harmonized business standards or policy recommendations for governments. In most cases, it is a combination of all of the above.
And while every Solution Space has its own particular design and focus, they all rely on convening people with the ambition to drive change and work collaboratively. “Those relationships are going to be critical to power the transformation that’s ahead,” says Hughes, citing the need for climate-smart and nature-positive solutions. “We can’t say enough about how important that will be in creating a future-fit economy.”
Tired of only hearing about wicked problems? Here’s your chance to get a healthy dose of solutions. No rainbows and unicorns. Just real people doing real work on tough challenges and making an impact. You’ll receive stories, news, event invites and other opportunities to dig deeper into the Solution Space.
Get Updates
