As an affiliated partner of the G20 Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion (GPFI), the World Business Angels Investment Forum invites you to an important panel discussion at the Bank of Ireland. Business owners, entrepreneurs and students are booking their seats to join activists, scientists and policymakers to discuss the single-use plastics crisis, hoping to find alternatives and a path to transitioning to a circular bio-economy.The sad truth is that global plastic production is expected to triple by 2050.
(Dublin) Leslie Maliepaard, WBAF Senator for Ireland is holding a panel discussion with four other environmentalists to explore ways to tackle the production and use of plastics and to outline the role of bio-economy in cultivating a circular plastics economy at 6 p.m. on 27 June at the Bank of Ireland Grand Canal.
Single-use plastics and plastic bottles take only five seconds to produce but 500 years to decompose. Recycling isn’t the solution. Our “take-make-waste” mindset leads to two-thirds of our kitchen plastic not being recycled.
Business owners, entrepreneurs and students are booking their seats to join activists, scientists and policymakers to discuss the single-use plastics crisis, hoping to find alternatives and a path to transitioning to a circular bioeconomy.
Maliepaard was recently appointed as a Senator of the World Business Angels Investment Forum (WBAF) – an affiliated partner of G20 Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion (GPFI). The online platform “The Planet Calls” is her initiative to attract both startups and established businesses whose missions are aligned with the cause of finding solutions to the upstream problem of plastic production.
Maliepaard says, “We need a significant boost in the Irish bioeconomy to help develop innovative bio-based solutions, and we need to support top-class innovators, startups, small companies and researchers if we are going to replace fossil resources. We need to radically transform existing products, services and business models in the food supply chain and reduce the plastic footprint of packaging applications.”
Maliepaard also believes that pushing back on plastics is everybody’s business, so to encourage accountability on the part of participants during the event, she will ask the audience to sign a pledge not to use plastics, which will further support her mission.
Tickets for the 27 June event are available on both Eventbrite and MeetUp (note that numbers are limited). The organisers have planned the following keynotes:
- “A Reality Check on Plastic Pollution” by Leslie Maliepaard.
- “Back to Basics” by Orla Moran.
- “Sustainable Design” by Evanna Lyons.
- “Circular Economy is Everybody’s Business” by Marcin Kulik.
- “Clean Coasts and Plans for the Future” by Richard Curren.
- Q&A and Plastic-Free Pledge.
About Leslie Maliepaard
Leslie Maliepaard‘s mission is to bring back clean water in Ireland by 2025 by advocating for healthy and accessible beaches, clean water, and plastic-free coastlines. As a serial entrepreneur, she is initiating campaigns to ban throwaway plastics and to stimulate innovation in the search for bio-based and circular plastic solutions that will curb the supply of plastic and keep it out of the environment.
With Maliepaard’s WBAF appointment, Ireland is joining the world’s equity investment markets forum, and she anticipates that local investors, accelerators, incubators and aspiring entrepreneurs will create opportunities to connect with global leaders from now on.
The inclusion of Ireland in WBAF brings a wide range of possibilities for Ireland’s startups, scaleups and high-growth businesses, opening new doors for economic development.
About The Planet Calls
Production of plastic packaging is expected to reach 300 million tons this year. Eight million tons will end up in the ocean to join the estimated 150 million tons of plastic already there.
The sad truth is that global plastic production is expected to triple by 2050.
The open debate on 27 June will argue for the elimination of throwaway plastics in Ireland by 2025 by rejecting plastic items we don’t need and circulating everything we use to keep it in the economy and out of the environment.
About the World Business Angels Investment Forum (WBAF)
An affiliated partner of the G20 Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion (GPFI), the World Business Angels Investment Forum (WBAF) is an international organisation aiming to ease access to finance for businesses from start-up to scale-up, with the ultimate goal of generating more jobs and more social justice worldwide. It is committed to collaborating globally to empower world economic development by creating innovative financial instruments for innovators, start-ups, and SMEs. The Forum interacts with leaders in all areas of society, first and foremost in business and political spheres, to help assess needs and establish goals, bearing in mind that the public interest is of paramount importance. WBAF engages a wide range of institutions, both public and private, local and international, commercial and academic, to help shape the global agenda.
Read more at www.wbaforum.org
About GPFI
The Global Partnership for Financial Inclusion (GPFI) is an inclusive platform for all G20 countries, interested non-G20 countries, and relevant stakeholders to carry forward work on financial inclusion, including implementation of the G20 Financial Inclusion Action Plan endorsed at the G20 Summit in Seoul. Queen Maxima of the Netherlands is the Honorary Patron of the GPFI.
Read more at www.gpfi.org
