Circular (Economy) Reasoning Newsletter #021 - John Smeija interviews Circle Co-Founder Dave Ford

An Interview with Dave Ford, Co-Founder of Ocean Plastics Leadership Network
I'm trying something new this week... an interview! I'm incredibly lucky to know a bunch of really smart and inspiring people doing work in the circular economy space, so instead of you hearing my thoughts every week, I decided it was time to start inserting some of theirs.

This week I interviewed my good friend Dave Ford, Co-Founder of Ocean Plastics Leadership Network (OPLN). We talked about the origins of OPLN, their work since its founding, and the new and exciting direction the organization is taking now. You can check out OPLN's new Legislator's Guide for Circular Policy at www.circlenetwork.co

The transcript below has been edited for brevity and clarity, but you can also check out the video of the full conversation if you're a listener/watcher, not a reader.

https://youtu.be/M3vfB2_H_ZI?si=1HpDAiMkZwxn-cgl

Full Interview Transcript
Jon Smieja: I'm excited to be joined today by my good friend Dave Ford, co-founder of the Ocean Plastics Leadership Network, aka OPLN. Dave, welcome to the newsletter, and welcome to my basement.

Dave Ford: Hey Jon, absolutely honored. Welcome to my basement right back at you. Really excited to be your first video. This is a big deal. So good to be here. Thanks for the invite.

Jon Smieja: I guess well find out if its a big deal or not when I post it, right?

Last week, I was lucky enough to listen in as OPLN, or Circle by OPLN, kicked off your new legislator guide for circularity policy and EPR. I'd love it if you could give a quick flavor of that before we get into all the questions I have for you today.

Dave Ford: Yeah. Well, thanks, Jon—and thanks for coming last week.

We launched what we believe could be an incredibly useful tool, not only for legislators but for the entire ecosystem trying to dive into the complexity of EPR and circular policy more broadly. We’ve built a repository that brings together key stakeholder perspectives across the packaging ecosystem—from waste management, to material producers like plastics, glass, and aluminum, to packaging converters, consumer packaged goods companies, other obligated producers under EPR, and experts and NGOs, including environmental NGOs.

All of them gave us feedback for legislators in states considering future legislation: what are the top three things legislators should consider? Because this stuff is incredibly complicated.

We were really lucky to have Representative @Sydney Jordan from Minnesota, who wrote the state’s packaging EPR bill, as a core legislative voice guiding the work. We asked, “What would you have wanted four years ago when you started this journey?” That became our North Star. There’s a whole backstory to how it came together, but that’s the high-level version.

Jon Smieja: Awesome. We’ll come back to that as we loop back to the present. But let’s start almost seven years ago now. You founded OPLN after a trip to the North Atlantic Garbage Patch (one of the five global ocean gyres). Tell us about the founding of OPLN, your background, and how you got into this work in the first place.

Dave Ford: Yeah, it was completely accidental.

My co-founder and I had a business where we took C-suite executives to immerse them directly in big, sticky world challenges. This was around 2015–2016, leading up to 2019. We did work in Antarctica, taking executives to see climate change firsthand, and ran workshops along the way. We also worked on human–wildlife conflict in Africa and southern India. For example, looking at the role of the tiger as an apex predator and what happens if it’s removed from the ecosystem, similar to wolves in Yellowstone.

At the same time, every other headline was about the plastics crisis. It was still early days; people knew it was an issue, but there wasn’t widespread understanding, especially on the industry side, and there was a lot of confusion.

Because we were already doing work tied to Antarctica, we chartered a ship and stopped in Bermuda, near one of the five global ocean gyres: the North Atlantic gyre in the Sargasso Sea. There’s a lot of seaweed there, which makes the plastic incredibly visible because it gets trapped in it.

We brought 165 executives, including people from the petrochemical sector and the environmental NGO community. Outside magazine even wrote an article about the expedition.

It was there, in the Bermuda Triangle, that the Ocean Plastics Leadership Network was born. There were 24 companies on the expedition, 17 of which became our first members.

From the beginning, we were also working closely with the environmental community, and we were essentially “gifted, ”and I use that word intentionally, a neutral convening status. It wasn’t part of any business model, but it became the heartbeat of what we do today: bringing people together.

We weren’t advocating for a specific solution. We brought together people who were often diametrically opposed, and that’s how it all started. And here we are, almost eight years later.

Jon Smieja: I’ve always been fascinated by that neutral convener status (an impartial organization that works to build consensus without advocating for specific solutions). That’s how we originally connected when I was at GreenBiz, and through your work on the Global Plastics Treaty. So you started in the patch and became this neutral convener. What have you been up to since the founding, and how has the organization evolved?

Dave Ford: Soon after that experiential founding, the pandemic hit—so there weren’t going to be any trips for a while. We got really good at Zoom, very quickly.

Our mutual friend Erin Simon from WWF asked whether we’d be interested in convening dialogues around the Global Plastics Treaty, given our ability to bring very different actors together. That led to a four-year program focused on treaty dialogues. My co-founder, Marta Fiscina, led much of that global work.

We worked with the United Kingdom to engage stakeholders, did work with the United Nations, and were involved around (Global Plastics Treaty negotiations) INC-1. We traveled to all five treaty negotiations, which became a major focus of our work.

At the same time, we did a lot of pre-competitive work on “sticky” topics including reuse and refill and advanced recycling, bringing stakeholders together to learn from one another.

About three-and-a-half or four years ago, we took our first group of legislators to see implemented EPR and deposit return systems. That trip planted the seed for what eventually became the Circle program, which is now central to what we do.

Jon Smieja: That brings us back to the legislator guide and the Circle program. It feels like a bit of a shift; still a neutral convener, but focused more directly on policy. Where do you see this work going?

Dave Ford: First, a big shout-out to our incredible team, who worked day and night to get this site live.

The Circle program started from the idea that there’s enormous complexity and confusion around EPR, deposit return, and reuse and refill. But there are places in the world where these systems are already implemented, and when you see them in action, it’s a lot like going out to the garbage patch; you just get it.

So we began taking companies, NGOs, and eventually legislators to see these systems firsthand and meet the people actually running them.

We connected with Senator Ben Allen, who authored California’s SB 54, and his chief of staff, Tina Andolina, who played a critical role in the bill. That first trip included five legislators and staff. The next had ten, then 25. As of today, we’ve taken 75 elected officials and key staff to see implemented systems.

We’ve visited British Columbia multiple times, they’re more than a decade ahead. We’ve been to Oregon, Quebec, and Europe, including reuse models in Germany.

Seeing these systems firsthand has helped close a major understanding gap. Many state legislators are part-time. One legislator we work with introduced EPR packaging legislation the same year she introduced sixty other bills. It’s a massive cognitive load, especially given how complex these systems are.

Those experiences directly led to the legislator guide. At an event in Burlington, Vermont, legislators asked us to build it, and that’s how it came together organically.

Jon Smieja: That’s exciting, especially with seven states having passed laws and another dozen considering them. When I looked at the guide, my first thought was that it could help with harmonization and avoiding past mistakes as new bills are written.

It’s also worth noting that contributions come from across the sector, not just legislators. Who else is involved?

Dave Ford: We have submissions from sponsors of the seven states with EPR laws, as well as from the material sector (plastics, glass, aluminum), CPG companies, other obligated producer groups, and across the broader ecosystem. Jenna Jambeck’s team at the University of Georgia also contributed.

We want this to be helpful for environmental NGOs and industry alike.

We also intentionally include opposing views. We can’t be a neutral convener and pretend everything is perfect. If there are serious concerns with these laws, those need to be reflected. That’s how everyone learns together.

Jon Smieja: Last question—and an easy one. How can someone new to this work get involved?

Dave Ford: We’re a membership network, and we do have some gates simply to manage relationships. We work with companies across the value chain and with many major NGOs.

Our North Star is helping everyone get smarter, faster.

We’re on LinkedIn, and we’d love for people to explore the guide and tell us whether it helps them better understand this complex ecosystem. If it helps you learn something new, then we’ve done our job. That’s our marching order every morning.

Jon Smieja: Since starting my new role and getting deeper into EPR, I can say there’s no shortage of confusion or complexity—so this guide will be incredibly helpful.

That’s all I have for you, Dave. Thanks so much for joining me. That’s Dave Ford, co-founder of the Ocean Plastics Leadership Network.

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