Understanding Circular Economy from a Mining and Manufacturing Perspective

And I'll also make you the host. There you go. All right, so you're still good. You're still on video and on sound. Okay, perfect. So, um, good morning, good afternoon, and good evening. We have people on the webinar from all over the world today. So I would like to welcome you all to our webinar today. The topic is understanding circular economy from a mining and manufacturing perspective. My name is Jacomin Lantonder. I'm the project coordinator for MiddleTech Alley. We're a marketing strategy for the Lower Columbia Initiatives Corporation, and we're situated in Trail, British Columbia, in Canada. We have Teck Metals' Trail operations in our community, one of the world's largest fully integrated zinc and lead melting and refining complexes. We also have two large recycling facilities, Casey Recycling and Retrieve Technologies. They recycle batteries, car batteries, as well as lithium-ion batteries, and the lead and acid that comes from the recycling process goes back to Teck for processing at the smelter. So what starts as a linear economy then closes the loop into a circular economy, and that's just one example of what we do in this area for a circular economy, and we do it on an industrial scale. We are hosting the first-ever Industrial Circular Economy Conference next year in Trail from June of this year, from June 8th to 10th, and we hope to see you there. You can see the information here behind me. Um, interesting fact: lead is the most recycled product in the world, and 99% of a car battery gets recycled. That is just amazing when you think about it.

So why I have Jillian here today is we're going to focus on sustainable mining and manufacturing. And can you even use that in the same sentence? Is mining and manufacturing can it even be sustainable? So with us today, we have Jillian Leonards. She's the Manager of Sustainability Reporting for Teck Resources Limited. Jillian is an international sustainability leader, a former chemist, and climate scientist with experience in USGS and NASA-funded research in natural carbon feedback mechanisms. She writes and speaks widely about the role of technology in achieving sustainable development and the function of business in the adoption of triple bottom line economics. I have to tell you the story. So I am, I have a 13-year-old son, and he's a gamer. So he was asking me this morning, "What am I doing today?" I said, "I have a webinar, and I have Jillian on the webinar today." And you know what? Jillian is a gamer. She's got a headset, she's got the headphones. I can see it behind me here. I think, "Well, I don't know, it's black and white." And he says, "It must be a [inaudible] cheer." He's so excited. I said, "But that's nothing. She's also a researcher for NASA." This is the space agency, NASA. I said, "Yes, that is so cool." So Jillian, I just want to tell you, you are officially really cool in the eyes of a 13-year-old. Perfect. I have that street cred going for me. You have to. So welcome, Jillian, and thank you for joining us today. So my first question to you is, if you are in a primary resource sector, how do you extend that to a circular economy model to be sustainable?

Yeah, that one's, it's an interesting one, and I get asked it a lot. And it's, it, it's such an interesting thing to talk about because if you think about, well, I guess for our listeners, we should explain what a circular economy is first and foremost. So in a traditional economic model, and I'll talk with my hands, we have the age of video, so I can do that. Um, you, you take, you make, you dispose. So it's a linear model. The circular economy seeks to bend that back. So any waste that's generated or left over at the end of product use gets bent back into a feedstock to then be made into new products and generate additional value. So when you're disposing of those products at the end of its life, you very much lose the value of those products. It just goes away. If you bend it back into feedstock in a circular economy, you maintain the value of all of your products, all of your materials, and it creates new potential streams for products to be made. So the reason I get asked this as someone who works for a raw materials company is, what is the point of a raw materials company if you have this circular economy where everything just stays within it? Well, our population isn't staying steady. We have more people every day. We have people that, in, uh, in developing countries, we have, uh, historically disenfranchised groups. So that economy cannot stagnate. It needs to continue to grow in order to make sure that everyone has jobs, in order to make sure that everyone has the opportunity to prosper and thrive. So what I like, and I'm, I'm going to be old school. I'm not going to, you know, flex my nerd cred. I have paper that I printed out. So, what I talked about is this bit of the circular economy. And now, you know, if, if you stay here, it stays very stagnant, very circular, very, you know, no growth possible. There's an additional feed that can go into this. So that, that circle keeps growing as you go. So we're not wasting anything into the environment. We're not having landfills. We're not potentially releasing pollutants into the environment, but we still have an economy that grows. So I, I think the way that we feed into this is, first of all, responsible exploration. There, there's a circle at the beginning of that cycle, which is seeking out new opportunities in a way that's responsible and that leaves very little trace afterwards. So reclamation of sites. And then once we do have those natural resources, responsible feed into that circular economy, which is at Teck Trail. Yeah, do you want to expand on any part of that? I'm happy to talk more.

Well, it makes me think about donut economics because you have the circle in the middle, which is your social responsibility, and you have the circle on the end, which is your ecological ceiling, and we have to work within that parameters. Um, otherwise, we'll never be sustainable with what we do. So how does that pretend to Teck and what Teck is doing?

Yeah, so it's really interesting. There are various ways of looking at the economy, and two of the newer ones that are getting a lot of press are the circular economy, um, and then also, as you mentioned, donut economics. So I feel the two are certainly related. Um, you have that, and I guess you described it a bit, but I'll elaborate on it for everyone listening. Uh, so donut economics is a way to visualize the limits of our economy to create a floor where if we, if we don't go below it, um, we avoid things like joblessness, we avoid things like widespread poverty or, uh, resource unavailability. So there's a safe ring or a doughnut between this floor and this, the ceiling, that represents the comfortable and just range for us as a society to live in. And defining the center of that ring is that social foundation that Jacomin mentioned. It defines the bare minimum for people to thrive, and it includes minimums for things like health, housing, jobs, energy, water, food, all the things that we need to live. Cannot go below that floor because it means disaster for us as, as a people. Um, and then on the outside of that ring is that environmental ceiling, and it defines the upper limits for resource use and pollution before we start to hurt ourselves and our environment. So possible consequences to overshooting that are things like ocean acidification, species extinction, lack of fresh water and food, as we, we go beyond the carrying capacity of our world. So the concept of a circular economy seeks to curve, uh, our, our impacts to stay within that ecological ceiling, um, but it also seeks to grow the economy so that we don't end up going below that, that floor. Um, so I, I like the expanded economic model that I showed because it better accounts for that social foundation. Just looking at, uh, and I, I mentioned it when we had our last topic, just looking at the circular economy, it does seek to define that outside, but if we think about feeding more resources into this economy in a responsible way, it ends up supporting that floor as well. So the, the short answer is, yeah, they're very much related. Uh, the, the circular economy models, including the expanded model, are models of production that seek to support that donut economics. Just to mention to the attendees, if you have a question, you're welcome to put it in the question and answer, um, button or in the chat, and we will answer it at some point before we are finished today. Um, the other thing that you do, or that you're busy with, Jillian, is you're busy with a traceability pilot. And I have to tell you, I did a radio interview yesterday about MiddleTech Alley, and they asked me, "So, what, what's the future of circular economy?" and "What are we looking at in five to ten years?" And I said to them, "We're going to have a traceability app for every single thing that you buy." For me, that's the future of, of this whole exercise. So please tell us about what you're doing because I feel it's revolutionary what you're doing, and the idea thereof is perfect.

Yeah, so that's an interesting one. And before I go into what we're doing at Teck, again, I like to set the stage, get everyone up to speed, so that when we go forward, you know, we all move forward with the same sort of understanding. Um, so where to start with this one? Um, I think most people are likely familiar with something called the Rainforest Alliance. If you've bought coffee or chocolate, you've seen the little logo with the little frog on it. Um, that is an example of a traceability and responsible production certification, and that's something that has expanded outward. So another thing you might be familiar with is the concept of conflict diamonds and tracing a diamond back to the mine site to ensure that there's no slave labor or child labor that has supported the generation of that. Um, or in the electronics industry, total nerd, uh, there's the 3T, tin, tungsten, tantalum, and gold, and that is very similar to the conflict diamonds in terms of, uh, potential human rights abuses in the supply chain. And so the Dodd-Frank Act in the U.S. has required traceability of these things through to the mine site. So traceability is a concept that companies have been tackling for a long time. Sometimes it goes to the consumer in the form of those certifications, um, or, so a good example is, uh, The North Face. On their corporate website, you can say, "I, I bought a ThermoBall Eco Hoodie," and it will have a map of where all those various things came from. So these are concepts that businesses have adopted, whether through regulation or voluntarily, because they want to have that transparency in their supply chain. So in base metals, we haven't really seen this just yet, but we know it's on the horizon. If anyone's familiar with something called Responsible Steel, it's very similar to that Rainforest Alliance certification, but it's for steel, and they have this new standard that says all of their steel manufacturers need to go into their supply chain to map it within three years of signing on, saying they want the certification, and then identify whether there are any red flags or any potential issues or risks in their supply chain. So at Teck, we're not exactly there yet. We, we aren't being required by anyone to look at our supply chain, but it's something that we know is happening, and we know that as a responsible producer, we have a new sustainability strategy with responsible goals. We want to develop, and we publicly said that we are developing something called a product passport. Now, last year, we announced our sustainability strategy, and this product passport was one of our public goals. Um, right now, we're in the process of figuring out how exactly to do that. What are our options? What sort of technologies could we examine for this? We have, as I said, no immediate pressing need to, to enact something like this, but we're looking to be a leader in this space. And so our initial step is looking at something called blockchain. So for those of you who are listening in, you've probably heard of blockchain, had it explained in, in some way that's a little much. Uh, the way I like to describe blockchain is, um, it's a distributed ledger. So if you've ever used Google Docs or shared a document on T, on Microsoft Teams, you're working on that document, and you can see what everyone else is doing in real time. And it's the same concept, uh, for, for information sharing. So you have this one centralized truth of whatever this data set is, and there's a real-time refresh so that you can see exactly what's changed, by who, where, and, and you can certify that that is true for everyone who has access to that. So that, that's the really simple way of explaining it.

I love that analogy. And so we, we saw this as a potential opportunity. There's this technology. We want to examine this as a potential way that, that distributed ledger can be our passport from mine site through transportation, through wharves, onto trains, over to Trail, and then out to customers and beyond. And we have this pilot program. We're in the process of scoping right now, uh, to, to examine this technology as a potential, uh, way of moving forward with this. Now, at Teck, we have this program called Ideas at Work. It's this fund with money set aside so that we can look at newer, uh, newer technologies, newer ideas that are very experimental. They, they may be wild successes, they may not be, but we want to examine them, and we want to explore if, if there's something that can help us on our journey forward. So we got funding through Ideas at Work to work with an outside provider to then look at this blockchain technology. Now, come in as you know, uh, the technology can be a bit much. There's so much you can do with it. So you need to start with this little box. And we said, "Okay, what can we use as our initial product to trace through the supply chain? What do we mine ourselves? What goes through to Trail? What is the use case beyond Trail? What other feeds do we have going into this at Trail?" Trail is really the node that we ended up working around. Um, and we decided, we lost that. I'll be honest, the first, the first conversation I had about this project when we tried to, to sort of define our users, our permission sets, our data sets, was with Trail. You know, we started in the middle of the chain and worked outward because it is that nexus of everything. So, where was I? Right. So the product that we were looking to, uh, to use in this pilot is something called Germanium, which is an element that is a byproduct of zinc smelting. Um, it is, it is coexistent with zinc and zinc concentrate in the ground. Uh, and we are one of the largest, uh, providers of Germanium in the world, and we control the supply chain from the mine site through to the smelter. So there are a few feeds that go in and one or two end users afterward. So we thought it would be a really good project to, to look at because it's a simple supply chain. We know all the key players, and it's a few outside people that we can, we can work with to sort of test these permission sets and test, uh, giving data into and out of the system, uh, so that's what we're in the process of scoping right now. Very excited about it. Don't know if it's going to be a wild success, but of course, the sky's the limit. To expand out blockchain, once you have the backbone created, you can expand it out to other products, you can expand it out to other participants, other locations. Uh, so, yeah, I'm, I'm, if you can't tell, I'm pretty jazzed up about it.

Well, I am clear. Okay, let's talk about it. The whole idea is exactly what we want with this, you know, with circular economy, we need to show people that we are doing it, and we are serious about it because, at the end of the day, that will make us a resilient, low-carbon economy, and that's what we are thriving for at this point, you know, that ecological ceiling. That's the way that we're going to achieve that.

Yeah, and, and that's one thing. Um, you mentioned carbon. That's one thing we're looking at potentially attaching to the product along the supply chain. Um, and how cool would it be? I have a cousin who's really into environmental stuff, so he talks to me about this all the time, and he said, "How cool would it be if you bought a product and it told you what the carbon footprint of that was? How would that impact your buying?" Yeah. And I mean, we're not there yet as, um, as in terms of technology, in terms of, uh, just, I, I would say narrative, and, and, well, public interest certainly is there. But in general, I feel like that's where, uh, businesses are moving toward. And I say that not as, you know, a tech person, but as a climate scientist who likes learning out about these things.

Thank you for that, uh, great explanation. Um, I want to talk about the uses of zinc and copper with carbonating in mind, specifically. We, we saw in the news that Teck has this project where they put, is it on the SkyTrain? They put their copper. It is. And I actually live above the, uh, the SkyTrain that has that. So on occasion, I'll, on it. It's really interesting because people like me don't know that copper has got that antimicrobial. We don't know that. So tell us, first of all, the zinc and the copper, what are you doing with it, and what can be done with it?

Yeah, so we have, uh, two programs. Teck has been very much involved in, uh, healthcare products, how, or projects, how we can assist healthcare both in Canada and internationally. The first one of those programs to start with zinc into health. So zinc is one of those micronutrients, and you may have heard, um, during the first stages of the pandemic, you know, "Everyone take your zinc, it really helps with your immune system." Um, I don't know if I would, uh, advocate for its use in terms of preventing getting sick, but it's true. It is a very essential micronutrient that is required for good immune function. Um, so what we have is a program that provides zinc tablets to developing countries where zinc enrichment in food sources isn't necessarily enough to maintain good immune function, good growth. It's also very important in bone density and bone formation. So we have this, this program that partners with, uh, healthcare providers, international healthcare providers, to, uh, contribute zinc tablets to developing and in-need environments. The one that you're mentioning, uh, with the SkyTrain, is copper and health. Which historically, where do I want to go with this one? So we've had this for many years now. Uh, historically, it's been focused on something called healthcare-acquired infections. And as, as we know, with public awareness programs during the pandemic, germs like viruses and bacteria can exist on, on surfaces. Touch them, then you touch yourself, and you can get sick. Um, in environments like hospitals, where there's a higher concentration of unwell people, there's a significant germ load, higher chances for infection transmission. As hospital workers provide care, they do hand wash. If, you know, you miss something, people can certainly get ill. So historically, uh, we've partnered with healthcare facilities and researchers over the past several years to examine the effectiveness and durability of copper surfaces because, as you mentioned, copper is antimicrobial. There have been some studies on virus loads where copper surfaces will inactivate, uh, things like viruses and bacteria within four hours, whereas on something like cardboard, it would take 24 hours. So it rapidly speeds up the process of disinfection on surfaces. So the work that we've done with healthcare groups historically has focused on these healthcare environments because that has been a huge concern. For example, we did a cross-Canada durability study that looked at various copper surfaces, copper-impregnated surfaces, copper alloys, and researchers swabbed them to see what the microbial and bacterial load was at various periods along, along the study. They were also sanitized according to hospital protocols. So part of the study was also seeing how well they held up to that sort of scrubbing and disinfecting and cleaning. And then in 2020, you mentioned the partnership with the SkyTrain. So as the pandemic ramped up, as we heard all of this messaging around, "Wash your hands, careful what you touch," all these things, we reached out to potential partners to see if copper surfaces might help prevent disease transmission in more public areas. So we partnered with TransLink and some other healthcare organizations to test three copper alloy surfaces on high-touch areas of transit, SkyTrains, and buses in Vancouver. So right now, there are two buses, two SkyTrain units that we're testing, and we expect results to be available, initial results next month, likely published before the end of the year. So the pilot study will test microbial reduction, the durability of the substances, maintenance costs, as well as whether riders are comfortable with the, the products and if they trust them. So if successful, the results could have wide-reaching impacts for the transit industry and other industries that rely on shared public spaces. Um, I will say that outside of, of that program, I have seen copper being applied to surfaces. So, for example, there's, uh, I live in New Westminster, and there's a River Market down on the quay. I went down there during the first lockdown to buy some, some groceries and get a little food. Um, and I noticed that on all of the push bars and all of the handles and all of the levers for hand sanitizer, they were covered in copper foil. And that was done without, without Teck really standing in and doing anything. So the, the acknowledgement and, and the general knowledge that copper is this antimicrobial surface is really becoming a little more mainstream. So I took pictures and sent that to our Copper and Health person. I was like, "Catherine, look at this. This is so cool."

So Jillian, you showed me your phone cover of the evidence. Yes. I'm sorry. So, uh, Jacomin is talking about my copper and health, uh, phone cover. Everyone who worked on the copper and health project, in, um, in the headquarters at Teck, got a copper and health, uh, phone case as sort of an ambassador thing. It's copper-impregnated resin. It's fairly new. You can still see it's all coppery, but you can see it's starting to tinge a little bit. It still works even if you get all those, those fingerprints all over your, your cover is now better than mine because it doesn't have the copper. So yours is actually cleaner than mine. It's antimicrobial for sure. Yeah.

So is there a market for that starting on a commercial scale? I don't know. I know that we, I, I don't think we have any additional. It's a business opportunity. There you go. I think that would be something to, to look for. See if there's any, any copper, maybe on Etsy. There's a local supplier making sort of copper resin covers. Interesting. Um, Jillian, there's a few questions, but I have questions too. So I'm going to ask you some questions, and then we'll go back to the question and answer questions. So, um, how is Teck dealing with your own waste? Like you have, you have the mines, and I, I know that they have these huge trucks with those, you know, the hauling trucks or the huge. How do you deal with that?

Yeah, there is quite a bit of waste that that is generated at mine sites. And there's, there's this guy at one of our sites, his name is Marco Telerico, and he has made it his life's mission. He's got a great story. He started out at Teck as a purchaser who purchased all those products that are used on site, and now his role is to find ways to turn our waste into useful products, which is another one of our sustainability goals to sort of track our waste streams and bend them back into ways that we can then use ourselves or contribute to a wider recycling and circular economy. Um, so he said that he was here when a lot of these things were purchased, and now he, before he retires, he wants to make sure that they don't have any lasting impact beyond his time here. And I think that's just, as, as a communicator now, as a scientist with social skills, I just find that beautiful. Um, and so he's, he's started some initial projects to, to look at our rubber waste. So, for example, the mud flaps that go on haul truck tires, a full set of those are 300 pounds. Those are, yeah. And, and just think of how many haul trucks are, are present at mine sites. That's a lot of, of rubber waste. So we have, um, the mud flaps, we have conveyor belting, steel-belted as well as, as well as non-steel-belted conveyor belting. All of that is rubber that, you know, you need to find somewhere for it to go because either they get stored on site or they get retired somewhere. And so what Marco has done is seen exactly what we can do with these things. Some are a little easier than others. So, for example, steel belting or belts that are not steel-belted are relatively easy to turn into things like mud flaps and reuse them. Other things like our very thick conveyor belting with steel belting in it was a little more challenging. He ended up finding an outside vendor that would take them, turn them into things like blast mats or haul truck mats, and then we could use them ourselves. Um, so the super interesting thing that I find is we're not only finding these waste streams and bending them back to stay within Teck, but if we can't find a way to do that, there are these outside communities of circular economists, recyclers, that we can provide our waste to, and they use that as feedstock for other groups. So some of our, um, some of our mud flaps come from forestry-grade conveyor belting. So there's another company that has contributed this into, sort of, the communal pool of, of waste materials, and then we use their products. If we don't need any more blast mats in a year or haul truck mats, our, uh, steel-belted conveyor belting can then go in to be made for covers for various applications, or one of the really cool things they can do with it is ground matting for work in waterlogged areas. So these, these mats made from our steel-belted conveyor belts then are used in construction areas that are a little waterlogged. Yeah, so they're probably really strong. They are very strong, for sure. Yeah. It's, it's, it's a really interesting, uh, endeavor. And, and there's another person within Teck, Chris Stroick, who I'm working with to, to map our full waste stream. So define what waste is at Teck, see what our waste streams are, and then once we do that, identify if there are any other opportunities to bend the waste back and, and turn it into a circular economy within Teck, or if it's something that's an opportunity to turn it into a useful product for use elsewhere, like those, those waterlogged mattings for construction sites.

I'm going to go through some of the questions on the question and answer. Can you open that? Can you see that? Yes, I can. I can. So the first one is, Jillian, um, it'd be interesting in your thoughts on recycling in a circular economy. Often, the circular economy experts seem to point to only refurbishment or reuse of electronics. For example, I understand that Teck is part of Canada's electronics recycling infrastructure, especially the repurposing of lead in CRD screens, which have a few other options.

Yeah, so that was an interesting one. And I feel like Teck is very well positioned to contribute to the circular economy because some, some products are more easily recycled than others. You may hear that plastic is not genuinely recyclable, which, as a former chemist, I can say is somewhat true. You have degradation over time. Whenever you melt something down, introduce more heat energy into, uh, that product, you have the breakdown of the long carbon chains, and so over time, it becomes less and less recyclable. Metal does not have that issue. Metal is 100% recyclable. You can keep melting it down and reusing it. It doesn't break down. It is, it is elemental. It is an element on the periodic table. There is no further breaking down of that product. So, uh, yeah, it, I feel like that's a really interesting, interesting question. Anywhere that we can identify metals, um, and get to it, if it's not integrated into a product in some way, um, I guess even if it is an alloy, it would still be easy. Yeah, I'm thinking out loud here. Um, yeah, man, do you have any, any thoughts on that one because you typically do have quite a few?

No, I'm actually cycling that do electronics recycling. Take the whole thing apart, back out the gold, like the glass also goes back to Teck operation. So, we are used doing it here at the moment at Casey Recycling, and of course, if we can go bigger, we would love to do that.

Thank you for that one. Next question is, Teck looking at opportunities to capture CO2 and reusing it or selling it as part of the circular economy?

Oh, this is close to my climate scientist heart. [Laughter] I love this one. Um, so we are not actively looking at carbon capture for resale. We do have a carbon expert, and I wish he was on the line, Chris Adachi, who's very active in some of these, these conversations and seeing exactly what would be, uh, would be feasible, uh, for, for Teck to adopt. So right now, we're not actively pursuing carbon capture. We are, however, uh, looking at other ways of reducing our carbon footprint. There is, we, we have a very regimented approach to carbon reduction. First is avoiding emissions altogether. How can we improve our efficiency? How can we, uh, identify potential issues in inefficiency that we can reduce and end up ultimately not releasing as much carbon dioxide? The next one is, uh, finding other ways of doing what we're doing that doesn't, uh, release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. And then finally, once we've examined all potential opportunities, there's the offsets. Um, so finding ways that we can take carbon out of the atmosphere that we're putting in. So whether it be renewable energy credits or carbon offsets, that's kind of a last-ditch effort for us. In the past year, we have announced two power purchase agreements in Chile. So 50% of one of our Chilean operations and 100% of another are powered by renewables because of that agreement. Yeah, so we're actively looking to reduce our own carbon footprint. We've made a commitment to be a carbon-neutral operator by 2050. And beyond that, once we achieve that, one, get our own house in order, then we could look outside of that and say, "What else can we do?" And of course, we have all clean energy here in Trail because of all the dams around us. So, uh, that's a, a good thing for the area. Exactly.

How do you, Jillian, think we can promote and increase traceability outside of the consumer's control, for example, within government?

I love this one. I have a feeling that someone from the government of BC is listening and submitting that one. Well, I had a call with the government of BC yesterday, and several before that, to talk about blockchain, to talk about how we can use technology to improve traceability, and what government can do in order to assist in that. Um, so that one's, that could be an entire webinar in and of itself. Don't get any ideas. But, um, that one's an interesting one because there's information that's already in the public space that companies voluntarily release. So, for example, Teck has our GRI report. We report to the Carbon Disclosure Project on all sorts of carbon and water-related information. Um, and other companies do the same, release all this information publicly. There is a potential opportunity there. I don't know if it's government's place or if it's some sort of NGO to find a way to connect all of this information together, find a way to aggregate it all, and identify potential supply chains. Now, that would require cooperation from business. There's an issue with marketplace, with non-compete, with all sorts of things when it comes to disclosing who supplies to who. So that's a potential hurdle, but there is a potential opportunity for connecting all of these disparate systems and finding what's publicly available, finding what, uh, companies are willing to disclose publicly. In addition to that, or if you use blockchain, you have permission sets, you know, discreetly disclose this without having that information public. Um, and then having some sort of public-private partnership in order to, to, uh, illustrate these supply chains. So there, there's a potential opportunity there. Um, there, there's also, I mean, there's so many hurdles to overcome, but it's not impossible. Um, one of the conversations we've had internally around our own blockchain project is, "Okay, so we're going to have our own system, and we're going to ask our customers, downstream people, to log into this one particular system, one particular supply chain, and they have all of these other things leading into their product." So how do we, how do we make it easier? So it's not an additional burden to participate in this traceability. Um, and so those are just some, some conversations that we're having. We don't have any solutions. Um, but of course, you know, once we get our pilot project out of the way and see how it's worked for us, we'll have better understanding. But, it is, it is quite possible that eventually we're going to need all of these various people with various systems to connect up somehow.

Next question. Thank you for the opportunity to participate. In my view, the circular economy needs to acknowledge CO2 credits based on the LCA for PB. PB is lead. Is life cycle assessment? Yeah. At the moment, there are no CO2 credits in Canada. Is there any progress on CO2 credits in Canada for recycled lead?

I feel like that, unfortunately, I don't have the answer for that one. Um, it's not something that I've actively been speaking to the government of BC about, but it is something I think that is a fantastic question. Um, and I think that was Colin, yes? Um, yeah, if, if you want, you can email me, and we can find that one out together. Um, yeah, I think that is a very worthwhile question. I think that it's something we need to chat with, uh, the government of BC about and potentially my carbon expert at Teck. Um, so, yeah, that one, not that I'm inviting any additional work at this point, because it's reporting season, right? I'm just opening the floodgates here. Um, I think, I think it's worthwhile to have a better understanding of what exactly the carbon tax means, what carbon credits are available, and how we can better quantify some of these diverted emissions and diverted waste products. So, yeah, I think that's something that's worth talking about, and I, unfortunately, don't have an answer for you right off the bat. I apologize.

Thank you for that one. Isn't there a huge amount of work, you knowing who is in the Teck supply chain first and ensuring there is value for all parties before blockchain?

Yup. So, uh, the, where do I start with this? Our initial plan was to start our blockchain pilot's end of last year. That has been delayed because the more we get into it, the more we realize this isn't just a technology activity. This is an engagement activity. We need to speak with every member along our, our supply chain, internally and externally, introduce them to the concept, provide them with information about the business case and the benefit of participation, and then identify what they want to get out of it, as well as what we want them to put into it. So it's very much turning into, or starting out as, an engagement activity, that then turns into, "Okay, once we have understanding of our concept of this moving forward, with then actually enacting it." So yes, you are correct that it does require a lot of interaction. Um, and, and I think part of our, our challenge is really finding, uh, exactly what the value is to everyone along the value chain and articulating that. Because I think we have a very good vision of what the value is, um, but making sure that others who are potentially not in the same space on their, uh, responsible production journey also understand that and appreciate it. Uh, there are some great examples of how this has already been implemented. So, for example, Walmart has their entire supply chain mapped out in a blockchain system. Yeah, which, as you can imagine, is massive, complex, and they have the benefit of having that clout, that that weight to kind of push around. "If you want to do business with us, you have to do this." And we are toward the beginning of the supply chain. We're not that, you know, mega-powered end customer. And so for us, it's a lot more about, you know, not just saying something and then forcing everyone to do it. It's, "Let's have a discussion. What is the value in it? How can we all benefit from this? What is the benefit for, for everyone?" And then how do we then move forward, you know, as, as a unit in this, in this endeavor.

Thank you. Um, I want to mention we have about 16 minutes left. We have a few more questions. Goodness. Um, yes, time goes by so fast. Do you believe circular economy will reduce costs and create new revenue streams?

Yeah, so I think new revenue streams would be especially important. Um, I mentioned our, our use of recycled forestry-grade belting on our mud flaps in, in some of our locations. Uh, interestingly enough, the demand for that has outweighed the supply. So we're having trouble getting, uh, recycled mud flaps for our, our, uh, haul trucks at this point. So it's, it's definitely becoming, uh, a situation where there is significant demand for these recycled products, for the circular economy products. Um, and I, I feel like that desire is just going to increase. I think part of, uh, the reason for that on our end, at least, is we found that the recycled mud flaps performed better than the raw materials created mud flaps. Yeah, they're not only, you know, recycled and a good story, but they perform very well. Yeah. Um, so that, that's one of those success stories, and perhaps, perhaps a bit of a victim of its own success. We're having trouble getting them. Um, so, yeah, I, I see that as a path forward. I think these, these are really not going to be diverted waste for the sake of diverted waste. I feel like it's realizing that there's this big pool of value that would otherwise just be thrown away. Um, there's one question which I will answer at the end. The demographics. Ah, yes. Could you speak a bit about the career opportunities in the field of climate change? Is there a demand for skilled individuals in the field, and how did you get involved or interested in climate science?

Yeah, so great, great thing. I absolutely adore, uh, doing a career consultation, mentorship for anyone wanting to get into this, this field. Uh, I got into it through the science side of things. So I started off as a chemist. I did environmental chemistry projects. I was looking at mercury, I was looking at arsenic, doing all sorts of stuff where I thought I was kind of, you know, cool kid working with all sorts of dangerous stuff. Yeah. And, and then, uh, when I got into graduate school, I, I came to the realization that there was a real need for people who could not only do the science but communicate. And I said, "Okay, I want to go into climate change." Um, so I ended up doing research. I invented an instrument looking at methane in subarctic wetlands, permafrost that's melting, all sorts of really cool stuff that I could, you know, go over, over a beer someday. Um, and I ended up going from there into just consulting. I worked for a company called ERM. I did sustainability consulting. I did contaminated site remediation. I did all sorts, whatever I could get my hands on, I did, uh, and then built up my skill set on the business side of things. Most other people who are in sustainability come from the business side and move into sustainability as a business structure. So I don't know if I can exactly advocate for one path over another. I feel like, at least in sustainability itself, it's, it's a bit of a, where you create value for yourself. Um, in terms of climate change, I highly recommend the sciences. Chemistry, environmental chemistry, ecology is another one. A lot of really good ecologists. If you're more into technology, remote sensing, so using satellites in order to detect, uh, things like CO2 emissions, in order to detect thermal information, also very cool. Had a little experience in that one. Um, so, yeah, unfortunately, that's a bit of a scattered response, but it's a bit of, uh, many paths come together sort of situation.

There's another question which forms part of this one. Where can we find your research, and do you have any resources to promote?

So I have a website that I made myself. It is sustainablejillian.com. On there, I don't, so I have the one peer-reviewed article that I have in my name is actually in the field of computational chemistry. Don't recommend it for nighttime read. Might, it might actually put you to sleep. You might be good. In terms of my other research that has been taken over by graduate students at the University of New Hampshire, so there's some information out there on stories of, you know, creating the product and, and putting it in the environment. Um, if there's peer-reviewed publications on it, at this point, I haven't been there for a decade, so I need to, I need to follow up with them on that one. Um, but yeah, you can certainly have a look at my website and shoot me an email based on that, and we can, we can talk.

Thank you. Is there any research into maintaining waste reduction during the pandemic? For example, most stores don't accept reusable bags, bulk buying groceries with reusable containers, etc. What's your opinion on that?

Yeah, I mean, that's not something that Teck itself works in, but I'm happy to respond in my, in my own time. That one is something that I've noticed and been very discouraged by. Um, you know, a lot of, as you mentioned, a lot of grocery stores aren't allowing reusable bags. The one beneath me is, um, but some of the other ones that I, that I've been to do not. You see an increase in plastic waste because you have individual wrapping of a lot of things so that you can ensure that there's no cross-contamination, no potential for someone to have touched those things before it gets to you. Um, that one, oh, and of course, we have the disposable masks. I saw some of them in this shopping cart the other day, just lying there. You, uh, yeah, I see them on the side of the road. It's, it's difficult. Um, when it comes to single-use packaging, there are two schools of thought. One is it's the individual's responsibility. You know, "Why are you not recycling these things? Why are you not doing this?" And I don't, I don't fall into that camp. Um, a lot of, a lot of pressure has been placed on the individual, while I feel that packaging providers have gotten off a bit scot-free. Um, so I feel like our potential path forward is for the packaging itself to improve. So everything that we use that is disposable actually biodegrades naturally, not needing any sort of forced, uh, force processes. What if you have a reusable shopping bag that's like your cell phone with, cell phone cover with water in it? That is a possibility. I have not seen copper-infused fabrics before. I have seen silver-infused fabrics, which, uh, there's, there's a potential issue with that one because they use silver nanoparticles, which then get into the environment. Anytime we talk about nanoparticles, they don't have a lot of institute research on it, so that one's difficult. Um, yeah, I mean, these are, these are questions that need to be explored. I feel like, um, but with, with some amount of caution. Unfortunately, science takes time, and in a pandemic, if we're doing peer-reviewed studies, if we're doing, uh, test groups, control groups, yeah, it ends up, it ends up taking quite a bit of time. Not that I'm being pessimistic about it, um, but, yeah, in the short term, I'm not sure if we have any viable solutions, um, other than, you know, I have a bunch of reusable masks, cloth masks. Um, I feel like it's best to try and do the best we can as consumers, and, and really put our money where we want to see the progress.

Could you talk about hydrogen as a priority in electrifying your sites?

Yeah, so right now, we're not exploring the use of hydrogen in electrifying our sites, in part because the technology isn't there for for scaling up. So it's not, enough isn't available to do exactly what we need to be able to do. Um, yeah, I'm not, I'm not sure if there's too much else I can say about that one. It, it is potentially five to ten years until it's at the scale that would be viable in industrial applications at large scale. Um, but it's something that we do keep an eye on.

Colin sent you a message to say thank you for your answer. He will follow up with you. You got it in the chat, box. You will see these two messages for. Oh, yeah.

[Music] I think those might be good for you. Yeah, and for you, the second one at least. I will definitely look at the second one. And then I have one more question for you. In the area of circular economy, not just carbon, but also the energy used in the manufacturing should be considered in the design process of the product. How do you think these should affect the education of professionals and next generation and dissemination of the knowledge for the public?

Yeah, I want to answer that question. And that's something that, good, I was on a webinar, and there was a guy from Ford Motor Company on there, and he was talking about how, how they, how, how they design new products having in mind stuff that they, that's ways that they can use. So my question to him, as, and that's part of this question, how do you design new products with keeping in mind you have to recycle it afterwards or reuse it afterwards? Is there, is there something like that? Do people even do that?

Yeah, this one, so this goes back to, there was a previous question about LCAs. That's life cycle assessments. Um, that one, if you haven't heard about it before, it's an area of civil engineering and product design that takes the product life cycle, looks at it from raw materials to disposal, and all the inputs and outputs that are in the entire process of designing, manufacturing, and the use of that product, and determines what the mass balance is in terms of energy and materials in and energy and materials out. Um, so that one, I think, uh, kind of, kind of answers that. There, there is an entire school of, uh, of inputs into product design that is focused entirely on those, those, um, potential outputs from the system, whether it be waste or emissions or any, any other aspects. So LCA is something that I've seen on the increase. When I worked at ERM, there was a significant group of LCA professionals that would work with clients, and I've seen that, you know, both at other consulting companies and in-house at large manufacturers, that that's, you know, that's a function that they have.

Thank you. Um, here's a message from you, Wassim. You are very welcome, Wassim. Um, Jillian, I want to thank you for taking the time to do this webinar with us today. I know you're very busy with your reporting season, so we really appreciate that. Um, and then the audience for today's webinar, we had almost 50 people register. Lots of them federal employees, provincial employees. We have, of course, a few Teck employees from here, Vancouver, Toronto, and then we have people from the City of Toronto that's interested in what we're doing, and lots of other people. So, um, the, uh, sectors is very widespread in today's registration, and I would like to thank everybody for attending. This was really an exciting session. Thank you, Jillian.

You're very welcome.