The Circular Future - A Quantum Lifecycle Partners podcast
Welcome to the Circular Future – a podcast that facetimes you with the challenges of e-waste and its impact on the world. Join Stephanie McLarty, Head of Sustainability at Quantum Lifecycle Partners, as she interviews industry thinktanks who share their insights on the trends in reuse and recycling of technology. This podcast is for you if you are responsible for managing your company’s electronics or are simply curious about all things e-waste, sustainability, carbon emissions, data security and more. Each episode finishes with actionable advice for business managers and leaders to do their part in helping build a circular future.
The Circular Future - A Quantum Lifecycle Partners podcast
38. Behind the Scenes at eSummit 2024
In this episode of The Circular Future podcast, host Stephanie McLarty discusses the recent acquisition of the eReuse conference by CERI with guests Corey Dehmey and Sarah Kim. They explore the mission of CERI in promoting electronics sustainability, the upcoming eSummit, and the importance of collaboration and networking within the industry. The conversation highlights trends in electronics sustainability, the structure of the eSummit, and advice for attendees on how to maximize their conference experience.
Takeaways
- SERI is a nonprofit focused on electronics sustainability.
- The eSummit will feature more pre-summit sessions than ever before.
- Collaboration is key to advancing sustainability in electronics.
- The conference aims to bring together all stakeholders in the electronics lifecycle.
- E-waste management is outdated; focus should be on circularity.
- Networking and learning from each other are essential at the conference.
- The eSummit will include diverse speakers and topics.
- Attendees should reflect on their objectives for the conference.
- SERI is developing an ESG reporting standard for the industry.
- The eSummit is an opportunity to celebrate successes in sustainability.
Learn more about SERI
Register for eSummit
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Want to be a guest on The Circular Future podcast? Email Sanjay Trivedi at strivedi@quantumlifecycle.com
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In February 2024, sari acquired the eReuse conference. So what's behind this and what's in store for the rebranded eSummit in October? Welcome to the circular future your access to thought leaders and innovations to help you be a business sustainability champion, even if it's not your core job. I'm your host. Stephanie McLarty, head of Sustainability at Quantum Lifecycle Partners. The announcement of the eReuse conference acquisition by Sari was big industry news Basically, a major industry conference and a major industry organization coming together in a new way to create something even greater. I know I'm curious to unpack this news and what's ahead, and I'm sure others are too. With me is Corey Demme, ceo of CERI, the nonprofit dedicated to electronics sustainability. He spends each day championing and driving the sustainable use, reuse and recycling of electronics sustainability. He spends each day championing and driving the sustainable use, reuse and recycling of electronics globally. So welcome to the podcast, corey.
Speaker 3:Thank you, stephanie, so glad to be here.
Speaker 2:And we're excited that you're here too. And we also have Sarah Kim, president of eReuse Services, which formerly ran the eReuse Conference. She is now Director of the eSummit and you've been on the podcast before, sarah, so welcome back. Thanks, yay. So let's start as we always do, and I'll start with you, corey. What would be two things that the world wouldn't necessarily know about? Sari?
Speaker 3:Well, sari is what we call in the United States, a charitable nonprofit, and what that means is that we don't have any members.
Speaker 3:There's no members paying Sari, and so we are purely about our mission, and that is to transition the world to circularity and a sustainable future with electronics.
Speaker 3:So that's first of all. So many people know CERI or the R2 standard that we house and develop and the R2 certification program that we oversee and run. But with that mission and with our status as a nonprofit, we have the awesome job of coming to work every day and working on a lot of programs that help to move the world towards a more sustainable future with electronics. So there's lots of things that we're doing as well as, for example, developing an ESG reporting standard for the industry. That's ongoing right now. We serve as the secretariat for the International E-Waste Management Network, which is a group of e-waste regulators from around the world that are collaborating. We're developing online training programs for workers and individuals and just many other things, including the conference that we're going to talk about today. So I think a lot of people just maybe know Syria as R2, and it's important to know that we are working towards our mission in many ways.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we had your colleague Roger Greigy on the podcast back in episode 16. And I remember being really surprised just how much Ceri does and also really the entrepreneurial lens at which Ceri looks at this whole space and what it does. So that's interesting.
Speaker 3:Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2:And Sarah, what about you? What would be something that the world might not know about the eSummit coming up?
Speaker 1:Great question. I think maybe the thing that's most surprising, even to me, is that this year we're having even more pre-summit sessions and meetings put together by industry stakeholders than I've really ever seen at any industry event before. We've even, to the point, had to turn down a few people because we didn't have enough space, but the list is really impressive and I'm excited to talk about it a little bit more later on.
Speaker 2:Excellent and, yes, I will be there for one of those meetings.
Speaker 1:You will.
Speaker 2:Okay, so let's get into this and, corey, I'm going to come back to you. Talk to us about what you see from your vantage point around these, the bigger trends that are affecting this whole space of electronics, sustainability and, ultimately, what led you into the acquisition of the eReuse Conference.
Speaker 3:Sure, yeah. Well, let's start with what is electronic sustainability, which is the core of our existence? Right? And to me that means that we can have all this great technology that we've come to love and that is very useful for the entire world and connecting the world without the negative repercussions that come from that technology, so without the pollution, without the resource degradation, depletion and all the other things that come along with improper management of our electronics. So for years, we've been talking about e-waste management and we've been talking about pollution and transboundary movements, and that is all good, but that is the baseline.
Speaker 3:Now the world has moved on to bigger things. The world has moved on to circularity, creating a circular economy, and so it's not just about preventing pollution anymore. It's about recovering materials, and recovering materials to put back into new products, even when there's a cost to doing that, because we know that we're depleting precious natural resources in the world and we can't sustain that. But even beyond that, what we've learned in this process is that climate change has an impact from electronics as well, because we're producing more and more electronics that are providing great benefit. We're integrating them into all kinds of devices that would have never been electronic before, and we're doing this at such a fast pace and turning over new products so rapidly that we just can't keep up with that.
Speaker 3:And the reality is, every time we produce a new electronics, that's where the point carbon is generated in that product. It's not usually in the use of that product or in the energy it is in manufacturing more products. So how do we get to a sustainable world with electronics at this pace? And so the answer has to be around the first use, around the longevity of products and around reuse. So repair and reuse and returns. And how do we keep these products in use longer before we even get to the end of life and we get to recovering those materials? And that's where the fit is here with CERI, our mission, and with the acquisition of the eReuse Conference, because that is where we bring in the full lifecycle approach to looking at electronic sustainability.
Speaker 2:Right and from your lens. Sarah, why did you say yes to this? What did you see as the opportunity in this?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great question that actually a lot of people have been asking me. Certainly, I think it was the opportunity for me to grow the event while still being able to support a nonprofit that supports the growth of the industry, right? So it is about growing the event but also keeping it within our industry as support, and so my goal is still to create this space for everyone and, as I mentioned earlier, I think, the pre-summit lineup. You'll be able to see that, because we have industry meetings that are being hosted by REMA and ASCDI and CEP and GEC and IEMN and INEMI and OBATA and the Repair Association. We also have the R2 and ESG TAC meetings and, of course, a workshop from eStewards. So we're bringing back mobile repair day and iFixit is even hosting their design to repair workshop, which is only specifically for OEM. So we're really putting together a space where everyone can come and learn from each other and network with each other.
Speaker 2:Well, that sounds fabulous. So tell us a little bit more about the event. So that was just basically day one of the morning, day one, I know.
Speaker 1:So pretty exciting. So yeah, tuesday, october 22. We start the morning with our pre summit sessions and then at 3pm we kick off our main stage events with two pretty exciting keynotes. One you'll hear a little bit more about details later, but it's coming soon, we promise. And then we move into the welcome reception where we're going to host the annual repair off, which is always a super fun event. We're excited to announce that HMD is going to sponsor that this year, so their repairable phone will be what people will be repairing probably something that no one's repaired before. We're going to get some newbies in there, but it'll still be just as exciting, maybe even more, as previous years. And then Wednesday starts off with us gathered again on the main stage diving into panel topics and discussions. After lunch we host breakout sessions and end the day with a networking reception. And we close Thursday with our you know our wake up reception and some morning breakouts, and it then ends our kind of two and a half pack days of education and fun for everyone.
Speaker 2:And then you get to rest.
Speaker 1:And then I sleep.
Speaker 2:yes, Sarah, I'm curious how you select the speakers or even the topics that go into the eSummit and ensure that you've got different viewpoints and different ideas that you're bringing to the table.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was a hybrid this year, which was really fun. We use the same design that we have used at eReuse Conference for the past I would say 10 or 12 years or so where we get session topic. We use the same design as we used for ERC for the past 10 years we requested topic suggestions from the community and then we asked the community to vote on those. We then have the tough job of going out and find qualified speakers for those topics. But also with the addition of Siri's team this year, we're lucky. We are lucky to have a bigger team with more contacts that attract different and more speakers. So it was a nice balance to be able and I'm sure Corey had a good time going through this long, tedious process, but I think we'll all agree at the end. It creates an agenda where we know that the community is invested in it and then also they know we do our best to make sure we're attracting the most qualified speakers to speak on stage.
Speaker 2:Now, Corey, is this the first time that Sari is doing an event at this level?
Speaker 3:At this scale. Yes, we do a smaller event in Europe, in Frankfurt, just with a track on sustainable electronics, but yeah, this is the first big dive into it.
Speaker 2:So I'm curious what do you think is going to be different from the eReuse conference, Especially, you know, especially with Sarah?
Speaker 3:I think Sarah gave you everything so much. I would classify it as more. It is more so. We are bringing in, hopefully, more content from a wider range, as well as more people, different people and creating more opportunities for everybody there.
Speaker 3:Our approach to this is a little different than what we traditionally see. There's a lot of conferences that focus on one vertical, one thing to be done, but with many product categories. Here we are focusing on one product category electronics and we are trying to bring together all the people who touch electronics throughout that entire lifecycle from a concept, design, manufacturing, logistics, retail, returns, repair, reuse, refurbishment, all the way to recycling at the end of life. And so our goal is really, by bringing everybody together who touches electronics throughout that whole product lifecycle. We want to cross-pollinate.
Speaker 3:We want people to see what's being done in other segments of this industry that maybe they don't have exposure to, and learn from one another and celebrate the success One of the things that this industry is making such a positive impact to the world through repair and reuse and recycling. There's so much good being done here, both environmentally and socially, and we need to celebrate that. We need to talk about all the good that's happening and all the progress we're making and encourage everyone to continue and do more, and that's one of the things I think we're going to be able to achieve here at the first eSummit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I completely agree. We need to celebrate our efforts, showcase what's working well, even, I'm sure, highlight the things that didn't work or maybe that we've quote unquote failed at. That's all part of this journey, but it sounds like, if you are in the space of electronics and sustainability basically at any point in the lifecycle or supply chain that this would be a conference that would be of interest.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and failures are learnings, right, they're opportunities for improvement. And so, finding all those opportunities for improvement, we like to say this isn't a black and white issue of sustainability, it's just more and it's better, you know, making better decisions throughout the life cycle.
Speaker 2:Very true, sarah. From your standpoint. How is this going to be? Perhaps the same as what attendees may have experienced in the past?
Speaker 1:I think the goal is actually the same, that it's been for the last 21 years of this conference, and that's to bring people together, for them to learn from each other, for them to network, to have a little bit of fun along the way that are in it. But it certainly is the same goal and we, the Siri team, are bringing that energy and that helpfulness, you know, to all of the attendees and are there to support people.
Speaker 2:Nice, and something that will be largely the same is that we're doing a live podcast recording of this podcast, the Circular Future, at the event, so stay tuned for that. I wanted to dig into some of the trends that you're seeing and some of the observations that are really occurring now in this industry and how the conference fits into that. So, sarah, I'm going to start with you what do you think the industry needs right now that, specifically, this conference will fulfill?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great question. I think there's a lot of things that are changing and there's a lot of disruptor in the industry and there are a lot of new things that are being looked at and problems that are being solved, and I think that this conference is going to give an opportunity for those people to all come together and learn from one another right, open each other's eyes a little bit, help inspire one another and really just be able to move the needle forward.
Speaker 2:Great answer, Corey. What do you think? What does the industry need right now that the conference will fulfill?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well it's. You know it's all about collaboration, right? We all have a role to play and you know, together, though, all these things, all the good that we're doing learning from one another, understanding one another, and the different roles that we play, the different jobs we've done, you know, is how we uplift everybody and we bring everybody along in the journey that we're all on. So, you know, this event is designed to bring people together to learn and to connect with other people and take that back and continue those conversations and continue that work.
Speaker 2:Let's get into our how to section. It was formerly called our rapid fire how to section, but nobody answered the questions quickly, so we're just calling it the how-to section now. So I'm hearing collaboration networking celebration, sarah, for someone who's approaching this conference and perhaps you know well this is the first time for all of us in this iteration of the conference how to get the most out of the conference. It can be daunting to look at the schedule and plan what to do. What would you say?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great question. We're all very busy people in our day-to-day lives. Going to an event or a conference is certainly an investment and I would urge people, in order to get the most out of the conference, to reflect on what are your objectives? Why are you there? How are you going to achieve those objectives and accomplish those objectives and then be open to other things, while, specifically, you are there to ensure that your time is best utilized, right? I think for me, that's always been, you know, the most important thing. Now it's easier said than done because there's not enough hours in the day, but, yeah, really reflecting on what your objectives are and making sure you accomplish those goals, I think are important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel too, if you write them down, you write down what your intentions are and then, even like throughout the conference, reflect back on what did I say I wanted to do? How many people did I want to meet? Yeah, that's important. Now, corey, it is really common that at these conferences we get excited, we meet new people, but how to keep that alive after the conference, how to keep those connections and those ideas going after the conference ends?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's tough, like Sarah said.
Speaker 3:I mean, yeah, we're all excited after coming out of a conference, also drained from a very busy conference, but you know, sarah's role here is to champion the ongoing engagement, is to champion the ongoing engagement and so all the things I talked about earlier.
Speaker 3:We're trying to help people embed this knowledge and this information and help them move forward in the journey and play their role. It's not just one of us, it's not just one thing, it's all of it, it's everything, and so I really encourage people it's not just this conference, it is the next event and to keep the conversation going throughout all of these industry events throughout the year, to getting involved. Get involved in the trade associations that are promoting this, get involved in the work that Surrey's doing, you know, to move it along. Everybody has a place. You know where they find value and they can contribute, and so that's what I would encourage. You know, moving forward is this, is the launching point, this is the turn right and after you know, coming to this conference and seeing the future, you know of where we're all headed. I hope you'll be inspired to keep going.
Speaker 2:I'm sure we will inspired to keep going. I'm sure we will. And, sarah, I would be remiss if I didn't ask you how to find out more information and, ultimately, how to register for this conference.
Speaker 1:Yes, you can visit our website, which is electronicssummitorg, and I'm sure at some point it will be included either in the show notes yes, it's actually in the show notes and maybe in a post or two, but also you can feel free to contact us at the Siri team and ask you know, we're here to help, we're here to make sure that you make the most out of the show nice.
Speaker 2:And as we wrap this up, we always come back to the one question, which is around one thing what would be one thing that we could do? So, corey, from your perspective, what would be one piece of advice you would leave listeners with in the context of this conversation, but also perhaps even bigger, around how to position themselves, like where to go from here.
Speaker 3:My one piece of advice is start changing your language that you're using. E-waste management is not the future. E-waste management is the past. If you're not talking about circularity and sustainability and transitioning the world and reuse and repair and longevity products and recovery of materials, then those are the things that are moving us forward and that's where you should be framing your conversations and your conversations with your customers and the things that we're doing. So time to leave e-waste management behind.
Speaker 2:That could be another podcast episode in itself. Right there, I love it. That is on point. Thank you, corey. Sarah, what about you? What would be? One piece of advice you'd leave listeners with.
Speaker 1:It would be to use Siri as a resource. We talked earlier about how many things Siri is doing, and that is for the industry and it's for everyone that is coming to the show, so use us as your guide. Let us know if you have questions, what sessions you should attend, et cetera.
Speaker 2:That's why we are here to help and I see you have the conference app again.
Speaker 1:We do yeah.
Speaker 2:Which is really helpful to be organized.
Speaker 1:Yes, and if you've been to previous eReuse conferences, you will notice that your connections are cumulative. So it'll give you a little cheat sheet to know where you had met people in the past and then it'll help you also meet some new friends.
Speaker 2:So yeah, yeah, and my piece of advice would be to come, attend and also connect with us, because I know there's a lot of listeners of our podcast who will be attending, and so we'd love to meet face to face and make sure you reach out. So thank you both for sharing your insights, but also about this conference, and congratulations on all the work that's been done today. So thank thank you both for for sharing your insights, but also about this conference, and and congratulations on on all the work that's been done today.
Speaker 2:I'm sure it's going to be a fabulous conference look forward to seeing you there and remember, if you are looking for a canadian partner to help you repair, reuse and recycle your electronics, we'd love to chat head on over to quantumlifecyclecom and contact us. This is a Quantum Lifecycle podcast and the producer is Sanjay Trivedi. Thank you for being a Circular Future Champion in your company and beyond. Logging on.
