Tim Grant will be at The Australian Skeptics national convention on Saturday 2nd December. He will present a fascinating talk titled, The demonisation of plastics to avoid challenging consumerism more broadly.

Tim is the Director and Founder of Lifecycles, providing premium consultancy working on sustainability metrics. Tim’s specialty is Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), which is a technique for systematically identifying the resource flows and environmental impacts associated with the provision of products and services. The importance of LCA has increased alongside the need to assess and reduce greenhouse gas emissions resulting from different manufacturing and service sectors.

Tim has over 25 years of experience in developing, teaching, and applying LCA. He is a co-chair of the Ecosystem Services and Natural Resource Task Force and the UNEP hosted project “Global Guidance on Environmental Life Cycle Impact Indicators” (GLAM). He has been instrumental in the development of data and leading-edge sustainability software tools. Tim has also contributed to a number of books, including Life Cycle Assessment: Principles, Practice and Prospects (CSIRO Publishing).

Regarding his presentation, Tim observes:

Over the past 10 years, there has been increasing pressure from community and environmental groups to reduce plastic pollution, culminating in legislation and corporate declaration of targets to become plastics free or have plastic reduction targets.  

While reducing the emissions of plastics into the environment is a laudable goal, there is significant confusion over the objectives of fossil plastic replacements. It is sometimes framed as a need to be not fossil, to be degradable, biodegradable, compostable, renewable or sustainable – to avoid macro plastics or microplastics. 

Few products meet all of these objectives, and even if they can, there are the plastic replacements that can lead to higher environmental impacts including climate change, water use and land use impacts.  

You can read up more about Skepticon and check out various ticket options here.