The Power of Neutral Convening With Dave Ford

In this episode, Cory Connors welcomes Dave Ford, founder and partner of Circle by OPLN, to discuss how neutral convening is transforming collaboration around the plastic crisis. Dave shares the origin of the Circle Program, the launch of the Legislator Guide for Circular Policy, and how bringing policymakers, industry, and NGOs together has shaped national conversations on EPR, DRS, and circularity. He reflects on the early days of OPLN, the pivotal expeditions that exposed leaders firsthand to plastic pollution, and how these experiences built a foundation for trust, shared understanding, and meaningful systems‑level change.

Key Topics Discussed:

• Launch of the Legislator Guide for Circular Policy and how it simplifies complex EPR/DRS concepts for elected officials.
• Circle Program origins: taking legislators and cross‑value‑chain stakeholders to locations with implemented EPR and deposit‑return systems worldwide.
• See Change Sessions outcomes, including cross‑sector collaboration and the decision to build the guide as a living digital resource.
• The importance of neutral convening—bringing petrochemical leaders, NGOs, policymakers, and brands together without an advocacy agenda.
• OPLN’s origin story, including expeditions to the Atlantic Garbage Patch that united 165 participants across the plastics ecosystem.
• The increasing need for education, readiness, and implementation support for companies navigating new EPR laws.
• How messaging around circularity shifts between regions, including emerging momentum for circular policy in Southern states.

Resources Mentioned:

• Circle by OPLN – circlenetwork.co
• Legislator Guide for Circular Policy
• The Recycling Partnership
• Ocean Conservancy
• Atlantic Packaging & A New Earth Project

Contact:
Dave Ford on LinkedIn
OPLN on LinkedIn: OPLN

Closing Thoughts:
Cory and Dave emphasize the transformative power of bringing all stakeholders—industry, government, and NGOs—into one room, with neutrality, transparency, and shared learning as the foundation. They highlight the importance of experiential education, cross‑sector collaboration, and the continued evolution of circular policy work as states and companies prepare for the future of EPR.

Thank you for tuning in to Sustainable Packaging with Cory Connors!

https://www.linkedin.com/in/cory-connors/

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This podcast is an independent production and the podcast production is an original work of the author. All rights of ownership and reproduction are retained—copyright 2022.

Transcript

0:07

Welcome to Sustainable Packaging with Cory Connors presented by Atlantic Packaging. I'm your host, Cory Connors. In today's episode, I connected with founder and partner of Circle by OPLN, Mr. Dave Ford. After years of effort, we were finally able to connect and he has an exciting announcement to make. I'd also like to thank our sponsors, 3M, Specright and Lorax EPI. We couldn't do this show without you. I'm so excited to have my friend, Mr. Dave Ford on from Circle by OPLN. Dave, we've been trying for a very long time to get you on the show. And I'm so excited because today you've got some big announcements that you made yesterday and that we can finally share those with the sustainable world. Let's talk about it. Welcome. Cory, so excited to be here. I really appreciate it. And we have been talking about this for a very long time and it's about time. So I am excited. We got a lot of really powerful things to discuss. So yeah, let's do it. We met years ago. I don't even remember where we met, but uh we mean, yeah, it was at waste expo in Las Vegas. Um, I think, I don't even know how many years ago. was one of my first ever. Yeah. Five years ago, first ever speaking engagement. And, I got to listen to you and one of your partners speak and it was just incredible, but, um, let's talk about your, your background a little bit and, uh you know, what got you into this kind of a. uh So Dave, a big announcement yesterday. Can you, you can finally tell us about the details of this. We're excited. Let us know. Well, thanks, Cory. And thank you so much for being a part of that. uh Yesterday, we launched the Legislator Guide for Circular Policy, which is one of the core outputs that have come out of our Circle program. And for those of you who don't know what our Circle program is, at OPLN, three and a half years ago, we started taking legislators to visit implemented EPR and deposit return systems around the world. And we've been to British Columbia three times. We've been to Quebec twice. We've been to Oregon twice. We've been to Europe, to Germany and to Lithuania. And we're visiting these implemented systems. And we started taking the value chain initially. We started taking companies from across the packaging value chain. But our first legislator trip, we took Chief of Staff for Senator Ben Allen, who was the lead author for SB 54 on a trip to Europe. And it was just really, really powerful. And for all the different ecosystem actors to learn from her and vice versa. And then we took another five on the next trip and then we took 15 and then we took 25. And so three and a half years later, we've taken 75 elected officials to visit and learn firsthand, experientially from folks on the ground that have implemented these systems. So that's how the Circle program was born. And we did this huge event that was 1,000 % supported by Atlantic Packaging this last September at the Sea Change Conference in Burlington, Vermont. we brought 75, there was 26 elected officials and staff from all around the country. And then there's 75 total people and 50, 50, 50 people from across. Let me start that over or let me start that in the middle. And. And 50 executives in the packaging, the value chain and NGOs and experts were all together to do an exchange on EPR to help these legislators learn. we had five of the seven sponsors. from the first seven states that have implemented EPR or that have passed and are now implementing EPR there. And it was just really incredible exchange. And one of the key output, amazing event, and the key output that the legislators in states that are considering for EPR coming up in the future, They've come to us, the legislators, they were like, can you please create something for us that's like a 101? Like this is rocket science. Like we have these guys drinking from the fire hose from two days. And they basically intervened with us and asked us to simplify this and to help them understand where all the stakeholders in the ecosystem sit, you know, to give them a resource that we could then, that they could then use to educate other people, other elected officials in their caucuses. So that's what gave birth to this legislature. guide and for the last two and a half months we have been like head down sprinting and yesterday we presented it so super super excited. An excellent event yesterday, very impressive. And I think the issue we've talked about many, many times with EPR and with these laws that are coming out to create a more circular world, a more sustainable world, however you want to say it, have been getting people together that have influence to make a similar decision. And I think the problem is we've got so many varying directions and so many different types of thoughts. processes and what you and your group have done is said, hey, let's get together. Let's talk about this as a team and then communicate now before we get into the boardroom and the legislative offices to make these laws that that's oftentimes turn out so vastly differently. So I want to commend you and your team for really putting together something that's impressive. The issue with politicians is they don't understand packaging oftentimes, which is why our president from Atlantic Packaging, Wes Carter, is on the board for SB 54 so he can tell them, hey, this isn't a good idea. This will be more efficient, that kind of thing. So that's been very helpful. Yeah, totally. I think Wes and other leaders in the ecosystem is really leaning in and educating legislators is absolutely mission critical. And I mean, the thing to think about with legislators is in a lot of states, they're part time, right? a lot of states, have to have a second job because they just don't get paid enough to even like support their family. So the amount of time that legislators have to devote to any topic is minimal. know, for example, we have a legislator that we've worked with a lot that the same year she introduced EPR for packaging, she introduced 59 other bills, including a school lunch program and like Minnow protection in the northern part of her state, right? So they need to know so much. And I've been working in EPR, DRS, circular policy. US specific, like really deeply for the last three and a half years. And we've done a lot of global work as well. But I'm learning something new every day. The nuances are so vast. I mean, even if you get the most, you know, EPR experts, they're still learning every single day because these systems are still coming online in different ways. Even Europe, who's like light years, you know, years ahead of us, they're still, you know, tweaking and changing their systems, you know, and it's reflective. There are just new reflections that come consistently, right? It's an always learning situation. So how do you make sure legislators are understanding rocket science? Because these laws, if implemented the right way, can be really helpful. And if not implemented the right way, it could be really challenging. they need to work for them to, they absolutely need to work. They have to, and I think the issue is, like I said, they don't know packaging. They don't understand how packaging companies work and how consumers purchase items based on their packaging and how the recycling systems work. And I think your education efforts have proven to be so valuable. So I want to commend you for that. Do you want to talk about, go ahead. I was just going to say, I just also want to say like, have an incredible team that helped bring all this to life and that helped bring this guide to life. My co-founder and our, you know, our, we're a small team, but they uh absolutely just totally, we have leaned in in such a big way to bring this thing to life. And I think the really interesting thing, Cory, is just how many stakeholders there are. you know, across the ecosystem. You know, you have like, you have the legislators in the states that have already passed that like submitted to this guide. mean, basically what we build is a repository for positions to help, you know, the next legislators that are trying to understand this, just get their head around it. Whether they're in states that are, I've already, that are in the implementation process or whether they're states that are maybe considering putting something forward. Can I show you a screen real quick? Just uh let me. so if you're not, if you're not watching, Dave's going to pick up his, put up his website here, which is circle network.co. It is circlenetwork.co. Yes, sir. And it's the Legislator Guide for Circular Policy. You know, there's a there's an EPR 101 section that uh reps Sydney Jordan from Minnesota who uh passed the Minnesota law, who was the chief sponsor writer of the Minnesota EPR law, uh helped us exponentially with this. She um was really got into this, her personal story involved an incinerator in her neighborhood. That's what her constituents asked her to work on. And what that ended up being was the EPR law in Minnesota. So we wanted this guide to be through the lens of a legislator. And she had run through this gauntlet before, and we asked her, what tool can we build that would have been exponentially useful for you 40 years ago when you started on this journey? And so her guidance was incredibly helpful. And I think that's where it's helped land something that we feel like can be really useful for so many parties. But there's an EPR 101 section that goes through key terms. But the screen I wanted to show was this submission page. So we had 30 submissions ah so far, and we have another 10 to 12 coming in in the next week, from actors all across the ecosystem. So we have uh seven sponsors from the seven states that passed EPR. We have key environmental NGOs like Ocean Conservancy. We have uh circular policy experts like the Recycling Partnership, was also our technical partner. Atlantic Packaging gave us the submission. Very, very grateful there. Like the Association for Plastic Recyclers. So we have representatives from the consumer brand sector, multi-stakeholder coalitions, materials, so paper, glass, aluminum. We don't have paper yet, I should say. We do have glass, aluminum, and plenty of different stakeholders from the plastics ecosystem. But like the Alliance of Mission-based Recyclers, who's located in Eureka Recycling, they were very helpful with the Minnesota bill. ah So it's just been pretty cool. And this is the only repository of stakeholder positions. So I'll just show you like Washington State, just to give one example. So this is Liz Barry, Representative Liz Barry and McKenna Morgan. So the state representative uh from Washington that led this process. McKenna Morgan, is the lead bill writer. And her three recommendations were don't reinvent the wheel. You can learn from other states that have already gone through this process. And her second is have a partner. She worked with McKenna Morgan from the city of Seattle to help her navigate this, to help her write the bill. And then to be engaged. She's saying, if you're a legislator coming to this, you cannot just hand this off to a lobbyist. You have to be in all the meetings. You have to be front and center. um I'll give one other submission, uh like the recycling partnership. You know, there are three points are implementation of existing EPR programs in the U.S. the importance of timing and sequencing, meaning like there's a sequencing. You should do a needs assessment in your state to understand how much material is coming into your state, to understand what extended producer responsibility uh can do for you and kind of how to structure that, you know, and that materials should go through certified, responsible, markets. So that's like where they're actually uh criteria for where the end materials go before they're bought uh at the end of the process. And then policymakers should include a full range of packaging and printed paper material in the definition of covered material. basically, how can we harmonize the definitions across the board? I don't want to go too much deeper, but just wanted to give like a taste of uh kind of what this all looks like. I've had a lot of people ask me for this information and say, Hey, is there a spot where it is? Is there, you know, and the answer is always, well, not really, you know, there's, you know, the SPC has done some good things. They've put together some lists and things, but I think what you've done is just really consolidate everything and make it easy for people to see. And for, like you said, people that are looking to do this in their state, kind of give them that base to start on. Well done. Yeah, thank you my friend. feel like it's like as the opportunity to be the most useful thing we've done since we've started this this effort back in back in 2019. And you've done a lot since then. this is to say that this is the most useful is very impressive and exciting. Do you want to talk about C change some more or you want to, what do you want to talk about next? I'm so excited about all of these things. We have a lot of topics to cover. Yeah, well, I think I feel like that of sea change and this outcome that we just showed you is like beyond our wildest dreams of what could come out of sea change, like the usefulness. And again, was there was every ecosystem, pretty much every ecosystem actor was in that room at sea change. So they saw this happen organically. And then the feedback that we got around the cross the value chain, like one of the big pieces of feedback we were going to do a report. And we had a lot of companies come to us and say, this can't be a report. This has to be like a living, breathing document because things change so fast. So if you do a PDF report, a year from now, a legislator could pull it out of their inbox and it could have totally irrelevant information, which is why we decided to do a website. So it was just, the process has been just really interesting. And also just to make sure that this has been neutral across the board because There's varying opinions. You know, we want to make sure that even opinions that are not pro EPR uh should be a part of this as well. Right. Like it's because that's what the legislators need to consider. It's like, you know, not every actor out there is like a huge fan of EPR and we need to be able to communicate that across the board. We're also rolling out next year an anonymous feature for our members to be able to put anonymous feedback that legislators could read. Yeah. And we're not going to let them be state specific and like have like lots of negative feedback about specific states, but just to give likes, you know, lot of companies are, you know, need to be very protective about what they're going public out with. But like, there's a lot of insights that legislators would really like to have. so we're going to roll that out and then we're just going to be constant constantly iterating this tool. So C change was a home run and this being there was incredible. But like the fact that this is what was produced was like, Super exciting. Yeah. And for those of you listening that don't know what C-Change is, it's an event that's in Vermont. It will be September 15th through 17th again, next year or 2026, depending on when you're listening to this. And it's an incredibly valuable event. Is it an invite only kind of event Dave, if I recall, or it's kind of. certain tracks are open, certain tracks are invite only. So like this legislator track that we do is invite only. I believe your packaging innovation track is also invite only, but there are ways to be a part of it with some of the other tracks. But certainly reach out to us if you're interested in attending, if you have something valuable to offer to that, we'd love to hear from you. Certainly reach out to Dave's team or our team at A New Earth Project or Atlantic Packaging. And Don Meek has put together that uh track for us and just did an incredible job. You want to do the origin story? What do think? Tell me about how, you know, how did, OPLN come to be and, uh, why is it now pivoting to circle? So I used to run an expedition company and we would take C-suite executives to Antarctica. We did a lot of like human wildlife conflict work in southern India. We would take groups to Zimbabwe around anti-poaching. was amazing. A lot of senior management education. This is back from 2015 to about 2018, 2019. This eventually morphed and turned into... Uh, OPLN, and we, it was 2017 and I was in Southern India. The plastic zeitgeist was just starting to blow. mean, it was like every other page was plastic waste, know, plastic waste in Albatross, you know, plastic waste and wildlife, the turtle up the straws nose, boy in slat was starting to do his thing with the ocean cleanup project. was, um, literally, you know, overwhelming. and I had a university professor introduce me to a friend of his in Delhi. And I was over there, I was in Bangalore National Park, we were doing this tiger, know, elephant intensive for this Fortune 50 company. And I went on to spend a day in Delhi, just visiting the plastic waste crisis firsthand. I didn't know a thing. And we ended up in front of the Ghazifpur landfill, which was this giant mountain. of, and I actually think the landfill might be closed now, but it was a half of it was smoldering. The other half had hundreds of people. I didn't even know what a waste picker was. They had hundreds of people picking through it. was just like a sensory overload. And I called my co-founder and I said, we need to do something on the plastic crisis. And we, the next thing you know, we chartered a ship that was on its way from Antarctica to Greenland. Cause he's these, these Antarctica Greenland ships just go up and back and forth back and forth to the opposite seasons and we got them to stop off at Bermuda In the Atlantic garbage patch, which is the North Atlantic garbage, which is in the Sargasso Sea Which is a really interesting place to see the ocean plastic crisis because there's so much of the seaweed and all the plastic gets like mixed into the seaweed out in middle of the ocean and we just decided it was a good idea and a few friends in the space that knew the new people, including Bridget Croak, closed loop. And we essentially for the next year, I recruited one hundred and sixty five participants from the petrochemical industry all the way to the environmental environmental NGOs. So, you know, we had the American Chemistry Council and Greenpeace on the same ship. you know, with WWF, most of the big players, know, and we had, it just went absolutely incredible. It could not have been better. Meaning like it was just really impactful. It was the right place and time. were CEOs on the boat that needed to see this. We were 500 miles off the coast of Bermuda, snorkeling, you know, two mile deep water, pulling handfuls of plastic waste out of the ocean. One of the... brand reps found three of her products floating in the middle of the ocean with the brand name on it that she was able to take back to her CEO. You know, we had like grown men in tears and it was on that. And at the time we did, we just thought this was going to be a one-off expedition. And we also, you know, we didn't have any advocacy agenda. We were just trying to get this group out to see it and it was the right place and time. And it was. the fact that we didn't have any advocacy agenda that really like gifted us this like neutral convening superpower that we have. And we didn't know it at the time, but when we got back home, we knew something interesting happened out there and we decided to form, it was called the Ocean Plastic Leadership Summit and we just decided to form the Ocean Plastic Leadership Network. And we have. 17 of the 24 companies that were out there with us became our first members and that's how we started. And we were gonna continue at the time doing these experiential expeditions and then the pandemic hit six months later. So we were forced to morph very, very quickly, but like neutral convening superpower, WWF reached out to us and asked us if we would start. convening neutrally around the Global Plastics Treaty. And that was like five or six years ago. And we started to do the global treaty dialogues. It was online. For five years, or four years, I guess, we ran these around all the negotiations all over the world. And we would bring the petrochemical industry and the environmental NGOs and all the governments of the world together. So really like, you know, we did a lot of work here at home. We did work on reuse and refill. You know, we did some like, we would secretariat groups on really hard to top of gap, talk about topics. And some of that, you know, was the early stages of the EPR work that, you know, that I just mentioned. But we, you know, like advanced chemical and molecular recycling, we worked, which is really, you know, highly controversial, you know, between these ecosystem actors. Um, but that's sort of to get full circle and that that's circle. didn't mean to use that pun, but that's where circle, the circle program began, you know, uh, specifically going out to see deposit return systems and EPR systems. so, you know, that, that idea of going to visit experientially and learn directly, you know, is a part of our origin story as is, you know, having the ENGOS and the, you know, and the brands in the petrochemicals all you know, a part of the same, you know, this is part of the same cohort. So it really happened quite accidentally, Cory. I got to be honest with you. I we were very, I feel very blessed to be able to, you know, be useful in a space where there's, where there's, you know, so many different opinions and, know, and it, couldn't have scripted this in a business plan, not in a million years. So just very humbled and grateful to be able to do this work and to be able to work with such a great team. think a lot of those people, those leaders feel like they're constantly having fingers pointed at them. Like, this is your problem. This is your fault. And I think what you and your team did is said, Hey, we're all in this. Let's, take a break from that. Let's say, let's look at what the problem really is and how we can work together to solve it. Cause I think, like you said, it got emotional and I think we need to, we need to have an emotional connection with this issue. to really be motivated to fix it. Amen to that. And there's, we're talking about systems change here, right? I mean, and with just so many pressure points on this system, right? And part of that is consumer ease. And part of that is disposal of materials. I mean, it's interesting, like what you guys are doing at Atlantic. on the innovation side and the material innovation side is really hard, but like so necessary, right? Like to start looking at these alternative materials and figuring out how to fit those into existing systems. And also the policy levers that come into that. It might be in a whole other podcast, but like really applaud what you guys are doing at New Earth Ventures, you know, really looking at like the seaweeds and the chitons and like some of these materials that that hold a ton of promise, also need a lot of help from a lot of different places to bring them to life. Yeah, well said. A lot of our customers are finally open to these ideas and our team is, has the mindset of let's be ready. Let's have all the options available for when people are ready to move and are ready to pivot to a more sustainable option. Our, our team, Kyle leads our design team. He's just done an incredible job. Matt Saunders with the new earth ventures is, it's taken off like crazy and it's exciting to. to be a part of at Atlantic Packaging, all of these great things. So yeah, thanks for mentioning that. Really appreciate it. My pleasure. a big fan of what you guys are doing, you know? And yeah, and like Don Meeks' vision on for Sea Change. Like literally, I remember when he first told me about Sea Change and then I went and like, we went a year before we actually brought our program there. And yeah, what was able to transpire there was like, yeah, again, like literally blew, you know, my wildest dreams away. So like, just love that you guys are, you guys are doing things that are really like against the grain. You you just don't see a lot of that in your industry. It's a risk, but it's the right thing to do. And I think that's why I respect Wes Carter and the team that leads our company so much is they're willing to put their neck out there and just say, we're gonna do this. And it's the right thing to do. And our customers will appreciate it. And it's better for the environment and the next generations. And well done. So will you be presenting this new? You know, tool at sea change next year. Do you, do you know yet? Yeah, mean, this tool is now like the bedrock education tool of our entire operation in its circle, right? And the only way that I feel like it could have happened was through this organic way this idea was born with literally every spoke of the value chain watching it happen in real time. So, but I mean, this is something that we are, you know, we're going to continue to iterate and build and, know, so it's going to be a part of everything that we do moving forward. It's really, and just in the spirit of education, like in a perfect world, this is the kind of tool that you would use if you had a customer or somebody that you were trying to just educate or upscale on EPR, you could send them this to be like, this is, these are all the pressure points and these are where the different. industry folks think about this, but also obviously like the North Star is for legislators. But yeah, if we have environmental NGOs that are using it to help educate their people and industry folks using it to help educate their people. that's, we had a lot of skeptics earlier because like, know, folks were like genuinely afraid that this could like be advocacy and we, cannot have it be advocacy. That's why it's like vital that we have all opinions a part of this. You know, as contrary as we have to be. So yes, I will be presenting it at C-Chains next year. I can't wait. I did want to thank you for introducing me to Senator Heidi Campbell. She was in your cohort at the event and she was on the podcast talking about her way to jobs, EPR bill in Tennessee. Just incredible that a red state like that can, you know, move towards something very positive. It's exciting to see. bit, they are working very, hard in Tennessee to make that happen. you know, we are, you know, I think it's, it's fascinating, the different language you need to speak in the south, then you need to then you speak in the north, you know, but there's an interesting economic resilience article around circular argument around circularity in the South and about supply chain resilience and like the aluminum, like aluminum is infinitely recyclable. And there's also tariffs on exported aluminum and 80 % of the aluminum that comes in is export. So there's all these different narratives. then not too far off from the packaging recycling, like e-waste recycling and the critical minerals that you can mine out of our phones and computers and just how rapidly that's happening in China. So there's just a different narrative in the South that we're going to be doing a big Southern States convening next year, really trying to talk to Republicans on their terms and really lead with what they need and hopefully be able to close education. gaps, not advocate, but educate, you know, and it's just important, you know, really across the ecosystem, you know, that everybody understands what's going on, you know, and, know, and you talk to Southern States and conservation and just love of nature. And I think the way you talk about all of this is through clean, clean rivers, you know, or healthy, healthy, clean rivers, healthy soil, healthy oceans. doesn't matter if you're where you're coming from. you're going to get head nods on that front. And it's just so much easier than talking about some of these more polarizing lenses. Well said. Well, how can people help Dave? How can they reach out to you to be a part of this solution? Well, you I feel like the website will give a sense of what we're doing on the policy side. We're also doing a lot of work on readiness and implementation for big companies. ah So these companies that are now reorganizing internally for EPR compliance, I mean, it's a really heavy lift. Like we work with a Fortune 50 company that has like over 250 people that are designated to work on EPR in some way, or form, right? Like to help, you know, crosses legal packaging design, so many different departments, accounting, finance, sustainability. It's like, it's a really huge task to bring all this to life, especially with the differentiation laws that are happening. So we're building readiness circles where we're bringing these multi-stakeholder groups together to help them learn from each other. We're working with a lot of the top consultancies. So that's one key offering, an additional to the policy work that we're doing are these readiness circles. So we're there to help on that front. people can reach out to us. can reach out to me directly at Dave at OPLM.org. We're on LinkedIn. We try to put a lot of useful information out there. And yeah, we're just... We work with a lot of the big companies in the ecosystem and we're just really trying to just be useful across the board on the policy side and on the readiness side. Well, keep up the great work, my friend. I appreciate you coming on and uh I'm sure we'll do another episode again soon. Let's do it, my friend. Thanks, Cory. Have a really, really great rest of your day, my friend. Thank you.