How can we rethink, rework and retell plastics? "Anyone who is getting active in this field has to go into uncharted territory basically. Do stuff that's not been done before. And fail of course."
Fridolin from HolyPoly joins us for an in-depth conversation around the circular economy and its challenges and the sustainability transformation that companies will have to tackle in the future. How does HolyPoly as an agency and boutique consulting firm and design & manufacturing partner help their clients in their sustainable efforts? Tune in for all the details.
How can we rethink, rework and retell plastics? "Anyone who is getting active in this field has to go into uncharted territory basically. Do stuff that's not been done before. And fail of course."
Fridolin from HolyPoly joins us for an in-depth conversation around the circular economy and its challenges and the sustainability transformation that companies will have to tackle in the future. How does HolyPoly as an agency and boutique consulting firm and design & manufacturing partner help their clients in their sustainable efforts? Tune in for all the details.
Frido: (00:02)
This is an industrial revolution, I would say. So most of the rules that we know and take for granted can't be applied anymore and, the rules are not yet written. That's very important. Anyone who is getting active in this field has to go into uncharted territory basically. Do stuff that's not been done before. And failed of course, and try again, and find out things, set precedences, and all that. And, this is very crucial and you have to, first of all, get ready for that.
Christine: (00:36)
Welcome to the Lost in Transformation podcast series dedicated to the complex world of Digital Transformation. We feature guests from large corporations, start-ups, consultancies and more, to shed light on the success factors around Innovation, Transformation, and adjacent topics.
We share first-hand insights and inspiration from experts for all the intrapreneurs, entrepreneurs, and anyone curious about Digital Transformation.
Christine: (01:05)
Fridolin Pflueger is the Co-Founder and Managing Director at HolyPoly, an agency, and boutique consulting firm, as well as a design & manufacturing partner, that rethinks, reworks and retells plastics. We wanted to know more about his view on the circular economy and its challenges, and which sustainability transformation companies will have to tackle in the future. We hope you enjoy this episode.
Christine: (01:32)
Hi Frido. I'm really excited to have you on the podcast today on Lost in Transformation and thank you so much for taking the time and you are the co-founder at HolyPoly where you're also responsible for business development and sales as well. And I'm very excited to hear more about your work with HolyPoly today in the field of sustainability and with plastics and the circular economy and so on. And, let's jump right in. I'm curious to hear more about yourself first to kind of get to know you a bit better. Can you share more about your background and your experience to help me understand more about you and your work in general?
Frido: (02:10)
Sure. Well, thanks for having me first of all. I think it's a great podcast and a great opportunity to share our approach. My background is - I've always been venturing sort-of, but more in the fields of sustainability in the nonprofit realm and also in the fields of culture and like neighborhood communities sort of the non-profit activities, but it was always new activities, always innovative stuff. So some of the projects I did before was educational things like in the Maker Scene or in Fab labs, but also climate activism and also some parts of city development and how this could be more of an inclusive and participatory process, integrating more perspectives, and like a more inclusive design approach, always very different things. And for like five, six years, we've been in this workshop in this Makerspace, been playing around with plastics and trying out how to produce in a fully circular manner.
Frido: (03:19)
And that wasn't hard. It was really easy to basically collect, separate, reprocess, and then design from that secondary material and then produce from it. We were able to do it with like self-made machines in the, in like a garage sort of situation. And we're looking at the industry at the same time, wondering why they don't get it done. Like there's this German machine-building, German production, German industry, how come they still implement less than 10% of recycled materials in their production. It just didn't make sense to us. And our team was, and now is of HolyPoly, very interdisciplinary. I would say some people coming from the design side, some people coming from the sustainability side, some people from mechanical engineering, and then always this marketing or campaigning approach that then comes in and combines everything to do a story that makes sense. And that's compelling to people in the neighborhood or in any space. And with all of these competencies basically combined, we decided that we want to get into the industry or help them or hack them. I don't know something in between to make sustainability or circularity happened in the fields of serious industrial plastics processing.
Christine: (04:44)
Wow. That's a really interesting journey how you're saying you were actually already active in the field of climate activism and all of the things surrounding that and how you actually found the way than to HolyPoly. So for the listeners who are not familiar with HolyPoly could you let us know what is the purpose that is driving HolyPoly's journey? Or could you let us know more about the company in general?
Frido: (05:12)
The situation of general challenge that industry is facing when it comes to circularity, is that basically all the rules, all the habits that are learned for, since we've been using plastics, don't fully apply anymore because you're not working in a linear manner. So you can't just tell the next link or the next entity in the value chain, exactly what you need and they will then pass it on in this linear way. But you have to look more at different actors. You have to deal with inconsistencies. You have to really come to different design principles in the end. And to get there means challenging many departments, ways of doing things, many ways products are designed and supply chains are working. So our idea is to become an external partner, basically an agency, consultancy boutique type of firm that is ready to deal with anyways that these challenges can play out. So we're like your external partner that will guide you through this transformation process where consultancy basically, but with strong ties to production and to the scaling up and the supply chain part of it. And also the marketing side.
Christine: (06:34)
Super interesting, I think, depending on whatever project you take on, this can probably be quite challenging. And you were already touching a bit on the challenges that are out there and how you can help tackle and kind of hack these things. What would you say was the catalyst for change for you to then to fund HolyPoly, like you were seeing all of these struggles from companies and clients, was there a certain problem with the status quo that made you want to act on it and fund HolyPoly?
Frido: (07:08)
Definitely, the challenge we're facing is huge and it's super exciting. That's why we founded it because it's complex. It's complex and it's hard manual work that has to be done because everybody's waiting for the next person or the next entity in this entire system of manufacturing or plastics industry. Because of our international value chains, everybody's just doing this super small step along the way from their supplier to their customer. And they don't have lots of leeways to maneuver around or change anything about the way things are going. So this leads to basically a chicken and egg problem, and we were seeing this more and more clear. In our garage, it was super easy. We had everything, we had a hundred percent vertical integration basically, and we were able to just do it circular. But if you look at the complex and global ways things are produced, then why would I build a new plan to recycle some sort of plastic, if I can't be sure that this brand is going to implement it in their products, or if this specification or norm will allow this material to be used.
Frido: (08:22)
But on the other hand, if I'm a plastics converter and I can't find the material, why would I build a mold that fits the recycled content? If I can't even be sure if I can find the material next year. So like that, it's blocking itself, but something has changed in the past few years. Like in general, now there is the will to make sustainability happen. And obviously, there's the need to reach our climate goals and plastics. And especially circular plastics can really play a role here. So now everybody wants to do it. And also the legal framework or the regulations are changing, but mainly consumers are just demanding it. If you are a brand, you have to act sustainably to be relevant in 10 years, and you have to do it for real and not do some greenwashing.
Frido: (09:11)
And this entire mix of things that in the end don't make it happen yet anyway, is super interesting. And we were seeing this from the outside and we were thinking of why, where to place ourselves. Should we become our own brand that makes sustainable products for example, or should we become an educator or stuff like that? Then, in the end, we thought, no, it's the brand owner that needs help, that is already producing all the shoes, all the building materials, all the fashion, all the, you name it, anything in your room that's made of plastics. Probably a lot of the electronics, everything it's all there, and there's always a brand behind it or in many cases, and this brand feels the pressure. And it's also the one that really sets the tone of everything that happens down the line. So our approach is to really be a boutique for brands, but also a full-service provider that gives them everything. As soon as the will is there, we can provide know-how, we can provide network and make it happen step by step. So that's a massive challenge. It's not an easy business model because it doesn't scale well, but it has to be done. So that's why we're doing it.
Christine: (10:30)
I feel like it sounds quite exciting that you're actually tackling the problem that you seeing. And you're trying to help the people who, you know, kind of get lost in the whole complexity of everything that is out there. Like obviously a lot of companies and a lot of people know that you know, this is an important and a very relevant topic and then need to be at the forefront, but they don't really know-how. So you're kind of stepping in as you know, as you said, like the agency and to help find a way out of this complexity. And as you said, you experienced firsthand that there is a way to produce those 100% circular products. So now we just want to share the know-how and help other people out. I think that's really exciting, but I think it's still a difference between knowing that you can actually produce those products and then really, you know, funding a company to help clients out with this. So I'm also curious to hear more about the very start of the whole journey for HolyPoly. Could you guide us through the first steps of how you at HolyPoly try to make sustainability and the circular economy kind of less complex for your clients? Any first approaches that you did?
Frido: (11:44)
We are convinced that it's a long journey and it's a marathon and it's about taking steps. And it's not about changing 180 degrees now because it's not going to be possible and you're not going to get there and you will fail and you will then probably not do anything at all. But our approach is to really go step by step and identify that step. That makes sense, now, like permanent piloting, basically of the next project that makes it more graspable that lets you learn more. That also positions you more. As I said, we're always thinking about the story and the marketing and the communication side of it too, because that's just the fact that we have to accept that sustainable production today will never be cheaper. It might be one day, but today with the externalities that we have, it's not going to be cheaper, probably it's going to be more expensive.
Frido: (12:43)
So why should we do it anyway? Well, everybody wants it. Okay. We have to be there someday because of regulations that might be next year, it might be in 10 years, then we'll have to be there. But we can really position our brand or our clients can, to be an industry leader and to show that they take this seriously and they're on the way to a sustainable future, that really scales. And when we think about this pilot project or this next step, it's always also about the story, what will be a story that makes sense that is compelling of course, emotionally, but also can be considered greenwashing, it has to be solid, of course. And like that we do this, we call the circularity scoping. It's like a quick process, three to six weeks where we basically analyze the situation, benchmark a bit what's out there and think about it from the different aspects, from the material side, from the design engineering side, from the production side, and also from the marketing communications side. And then after we gather lots of information, we synthesize and put together a few options for a pilot project, and then we're able to start immediately. And that's really when we think it's about starting. It's not about finishing because we're not going to get it done tomorrow anyway, but we really have to get going. That's what it's about.
Christine: (14:11)
So it's like a long journey, as you mentioned, and to kind of just do it in the first place and then see like one step at a time. And it's quite interesting also for me to just hear how you're doing this also with the circularity scoping that you just mentioned. And do you have maybe a concrete example of how you help the client specifically just to better understand how this works? Any problem or challenge that you encountered and how you approach it together with a client?
Frido: (14:40)
Sure. For example, everybody knows the big toy brand Mattel. They do Barbie and Hot Wheels and Mega Blocks and whatnot. A lot of very famous and very popular toy brands are Mattel brands in fact. And they set themselves at commitment to be 100% circular and they call it to use 100% sustainable materials by 2030. A lot of big corporates do this at the moment, they set goals for in 10 years or in 5 years in some cases. And then the question is how to get that. Obviously, they look for products that could be first like lighthouse projects, but looking at it, we always have to face the material questions. Where are you going to source your material? Because you can't just buy it from some oil major. You have to mine it somewhere in civilization, basically. And one source that they identified themselves is their own old toys.
Frido: (15:39)
They've been around for a while. So even though they last very long and there are high-quality products, at some point they are not used anymore, they break. And then they thought we should set up our own take-back stream, basically of old toys. And that also would give access to like toy grades, like plastics that children can put in their mouth. That's an important safety measure. And there is no, for example, ABS, which is a type of plastic around that fits that level of quality at the moment. So it would really be a new source for plastics also on the scaling side. But what we said let's now, first of all, try how this collection could work and what we can learn. If we really try to recycle the Barbies and mega blocks that we put on the market, I don't know, 30 years ago.
Frido: (16:32)
And what does this look like downstream for recycling and how can we learn from this to improve our product development? First of all, we did the scoping, of course, we want to use this as a communications measure as well. People should know that this is Mattel's strategy where we want to go. And so we thought about ways of implementing this in Germany, where the public is also very critical and a lot of things will be considered greenwashing that are actually well-intended. So we set up a custom or we mapped out a custom recycling process, a custom product that we make remit. We make a playground because it's just like an R&D project. It's not going back to Mattel toys at the moment, but it's going into a playground, that will be like a showcase product that we will use to deeply understand how the processes can work and can change.
Frido: (17:25)
And we will get this to schools as well. So in the first step, we have the mailing system. So people can just from home mailing the toys, but now we want to roll it out to both retail and schools because that's of course where the kids are and where we can really get a hold of this material. That's really the question. It's scouting, civilization for materials. So in case, it came out, we want to learn, basically do an R&D project and we want to be seen and we want to establish or start establishing a new waste stream. And that was the result of the scoping process. And then we started it and it's now running since in Germany.
Christine: (18:04)
That's a really cool project and also good to see that actually plastic is not necessarily a bad thing. It's just like how you recycle it afterward, how you treat it in the life cycle.
Frido: (18:18)
This is super important. I have to jump in here because this is such a huge misconception in the way we see plastics. And it hurts me because it can become a real problem if we change everything to paper and to glass and to metal because they are heavier, they're more energy-intensive in production, and they have a higher temperature at which they melt. So it's again, more energy and all that means more CO2. And, of course, we don't want the plastic in the ocean. That's why we want to recycle it. That's no question asked, but if we have proper waste management infrastructures, which we have in most places around the world, and once we start designing products in a circular manner, that's where we come in. Then this is a great sustainable material that can be used many, many times. And it's just fitting for the challenge that we have with so many people on this tiny planet trying to get around for a while.
Christine: (19:15)
Yeah.
Frido: (19:16)
We really have to change our perception. That's always like swinging in the background of everything we do. And it's very counterintuitive because plastics are labeled or have this very bad image of them being bad for the environment. But in fact, if we use them right, they're not, they're the contrary.
Christine: (19:35)
I think that's a really good takeaway, a really good message that it's just about designing in a circular manner, as you just said, and like what we make of it. And I think this example was a nice way of like, you know, kind of making a tangible for us to understand how you're helping clients. I think that's a really cool example. And you are also already talking earlier about the transformation for corporates out there or the changes and the challenges that come with sustainability or the topic of sustainability in general. Could you help me understand the transformation that corporates or companies, in general, will face in terms of sustainability in the future that they might have to tackle?
Frido: (20:21)
This is an industrial revolution, I would say. So most of the rules that we know and take for granted can't be applied anymore and the rules are not yet written. That's very important. Anyone who is getting active in this field has to go into uncharted territory basically. Do stuff that's not been done before. And fail of course, and try again and find out things, set precedences, and know that you have to face that fact first of all. And be ready for that and be ready to change because everything is changing and you can't wait or it's not wise I think to wait until everything is rebuilt because a lot will change along the way. And I think that the most significant factors just that it also is conveyed in this linear kind of notion where you can plan everything and you just have the supply chain and it has an origin and you can scale it as you can mind more or less, but it will be the same and you can control it.
Frido: (21:30)
That's a thing of the past from now on, things are inconsistent. You don't know what people are going to put in what bin tomorrow and what material would be the base your work with and that, but that's all you can work with. And you have to figure out ways, for example, in the energy market, there's this thing called demand-side management. So meaning that not just supply the power stations are controlled, but also demand can be controlled. And maybe you would start some processes at times when less energy is consumed. And that I think is a paradigm shift that deals with quite the same issue where so many things have to be reinvented. New business models are coming into place and new technologies are as well. But under this, it's just a way of looking at things I would say. And that has to go first.
Frido: (22:21)
And then, of course, there are lots of questions when implementing it. There are compliance issues because some laws are not yet written, with laws that are not yet even implemented, those safety questions. Like what I just said, kids of course are going to put toys in their mouth and everything. That's like food grade or cosmetics and stuff. That's very important of course. Also the quality in mechanical terms. So you don't want your brake pedal to brake and that would be a problem. So that's just technical questions that are, but in the end, is also compliance a thing and there are solutions, but it's a lot of work to be done. I think once you start to change and face all these issues as a big organization, you will have for good reasons, lots of hesitancies all over your organization. So it's also why we take this step-by-step approach. So you can see this as a pilot that works. I can organize buy-in from there. And I think that's very important when restructuring organizations or approaching strategies or projects to think about which person has to hold the prototype in their hand or see what kind of background information. And it's all about that because it's not easy to change your habits, right. And that's, what's has to happen at scale. So think about this buy-in process that happens in your company.
Christine: (23:49)
But I think that's a huge transformation that you're talking about that's ahead of a lot of companies. And as you said, like to kind of change the habits, that's never easy, but also companies can not really rely on what they already know, but they have to reinvent, you know, the business models and everything that they know to keep up with what's changing around them. So I think those are good takeaways for you and good tips that you see from your experience. And now that we've kind of talked about the challenges that you know, other companies are facing in the future, in terms of sustainability, looking back on the journey with HolyPoly so far, what would you say is your biggest challenge or has been your biggest challenge so far with all the work that you are doing?
Frido: (24:38)
Well, we have the challenges. Everybody has finding materials or communicating well or all that. But I think in general, in this very established industry of plastics manufacturing and the big brands doing big product lines, it's hard to get trust, to be trusted as an early-stage startup. That was a big challenge. We've been facing a lot. And then we always took the route through the marketing department and their goals to make their intentions hard, but then to really get into the real deal, the real production, that's also the buy-in that we have to organize. And that's not easy at times. And also it's people expect plastic products to be cheap, like sent articles that they can just buy off-the-shelf commodities basically. And if you have to invent everything from a spreadsheet, it's not going to be like that. So, that's also something that's hard to grasp for some.
Christine: (25:44)
Yeah. I can imagine. So I think it's probably the right way to look into the story that you're telling kind of making clear, okay, what is the bigger cost behind this? Why are you doing this to make others understand why it's so important? And also you have been working with HolyPoly and with the clients basically throughout the whole period of COVID that we're still in right now. I'm also curious to hear if you think if COVID has somehow influenced the work that you're doing or has anything changed because it does anything different because of the pandemic?
Frido: (26:24)
There's lots of polypropylene in masks, everywhere. There is a huge waste stream that nobody's dealing with. We're trying to get ahold of it at the moment, but that's from the material side. Well, I'm sitting at home, we have our development center where people are where the machines are, everything is being prototyped, but of course it's kind of a disconnect for people like me who are more on the consulting side. You heard my kids earlier. So the usual stuff I would say that everybody has to deal with, but nothing in particular, maybe it was a good moment to see with all the material, price, craziness that's been going on. Also influenced heavily by COVID that I think was a good eye-opening experience to many people to see that it's not forever going to stay the same, that we can't pretend we can mine things forever unlimitedly from wherever it comes from. I think something has changed. Some securities have been shattered during these times when the Suez Canal is blocked and everything, and the fragility of supply chains, I think became more clear than it was before. And I think that's good, but that's just an experience thing that doesn't have an immediate result coming from it.
Christine: (27:46)
Definitely. But I think, as you mentioned, there were quite some eye-opening experiences there. So I think there's probably some influence there and we can just, you know, see it or feel it in different levels. I think also really exciting to hear all about your journey, like how it started and where you're now, and looking at the future for you and for HolyPoly. Is there anything that you're especially looking forward to, or in general, anything that is next for HolyPoly that you're excited about?
Frido: (28:21)
Yeah. We're going to bring marble plastics into large series production. That's also not rocket science, nothing super special. It's basically the way plastics were produced 50 years ago, a different type of lower techie machinery that leads to the colors of the raw material, being transformed into a product in a way that marbles them instead of homogenizing them to one single color. And that means if you put waste in, it's not becoming great because usually, waste is mixed colors. And in the end, it becomes gray or brownish boring colors. But with this technique, you will get a nice marble unique coloring. So each product is unique and we've been doing this forever in ours, per small-scale realm, but now we figured it all out. And we have some products in the coming later this year at a scale that will put this at the industry level. And I think this is this super nice and comprehensible example of how design principles can change and how you can tell the story right in the product without having to print a huge booklet or produce expensive videos that explain why it's sustainable. But you can just look at it and see that this is material like reflowing in the second or third life into a new, meaningful purpose. And that's, I think very cool and has great potential and it's not being scaled yet. So that's cool. I'm very excited about that.
Christine: (29:55)
I think that's an exciting outlook for the future and for this year as well. Frido, thanks so much for sharing all about the journey of kind of, you know, trying to demystify sustainability at HolyPoly and about your work with plastics and in the circular economy. I think that's quite interesting. And also for sharing so openly any tips and challenges along the way. It's been amazing having you here on the show and thank you.
Frido: (30:23)
Thanks for having me. It's been a pleasure.
Christine: (30:26)
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