Candid Sustainability Podcast
The Candid Sustainability Podcast aims to explore what sustainability looks like in real life. No fancy terms, no pressure to be perfect, just honest conversations about how people try ( and sometimes fail) to live a little lighter on the planet. Whether it's about recycling wins, cultural quirks, or learning how to grow basil without killing it, this podcast keeps it real, relatable, and a little bit cheeky, because saving the world shouldn't feel like homework! :D
Honest reflections on trying, failing, and still caring about the planet.
Candid Sustainability Podcast
EP 4: AI and Sustainability - A new era in waste management
What happens when cutting-edge AI meets traditional waste management? Prepare to have your perspective transformed as sustainability innovator Gift Lubele takes us behind the scenes of South Africa's hidden recycling economy.
Did you know that 80-90% of all South African post-consumer packaging passes through the hands of approximately 90,000 to 200,000 informal waste pickers? These unsung environmental heroes work tirelessly, often in dangerous conditions and facing significant social stigma, to collect and sort materials that would otherwise end up in landfills.
Gift shares the remarkable journey that led him to co-found Kudoti, a Google-backed waste management platform designed to bridge the gap between these informal waste collectors and major corporations seeking data visibility for sustainability reporting. His definition of sustainability—"protecting possibilities" by balancing people, planet, and prosperity—offers a refreshing framework that acknowledges both environmental and social dimensions of the challenge.
As we explore the intersection of technology and waste management, Gift unpacks why technological solutions alone aren't enough. From the challenges of behavior change ("it might be too late for adults") to the importance of local knowledge ("what works as an incentive in one community fails in another"), we examine why even well-designed systems often struggle to drive meaningful environmental impact. The conversation takes fascinating turns through AI's potential in predicting climate trends, aggregating fragmented sustainability data, and creating green job opportunities that balance ecological and economic needs.
Whether you're a sustainability professional seeking innovative approaches or simply someone trying to make better environmental choices, this episode will transform how you think about waste, technology, and the invisible workforce keeping our recycling systems alive. Join us for an honest conversation about both the promise and limitations of technology in building a truly circular economy.
Join in on #CandidConfessions and let us know what is the one waste habit you still struggle with?
Get in touch with Gift at www.giftlubele.com
Follow Candid Sustainability and Kabelo on Instagram : Kabelo Rathobei (@krathobei) • Instagram photos and videos
Kabelo Rathobei (@krathobei) • Instagram photos and videos
Engage with the community and read more on Substack: Candid Sustainability | Kabelo Rathobei | Substack
What happens when cutting-edge AI meets the vision of local communities? Can the future of waste management be built on both? Today, we explore how technology and traditional knowledge come together to tackle one of the world's deadliest problems waste. You're listening to Candid Sustainability, the podcast that explores ways we try, and sometimes fail, to live more sustainably. I am Kabelo, a corporate sustainability PhD researcher, navigating life across cultures and continents. Here we talk honestly about trying, failing and still caring about the planet. Today, I am joined by Gift Lubele.
Kabelo Rathobei:Today, I am joined by Gift Lubele. He is a data-driven strategist and sustainability advocate with an MBA in data analytics and AI from HALT International Business School in Boston, us, so today he's going to talk to us about the work that he has done as president of the HULT Sustainability Club. He also has a track record of leading impact-focused initiatives, including co-founding sustainability startup Kudoti, which I'm a huge fan of. That's how I actually got acquainted with GIFT's work, so I'm excited for us to talk about that. And Kudoti was actually backed by Google and tech starters, and he's passionate about using technology for good and he bridges the gap between data sustainability and social change. Welcome to Candid Sustainability, gift.
Gift Lubele:Thank you. Thank you, karla. It's always interesting hearing an introduction. So, yeah, I appreciate being here and I must also say to you congratulations and well done on just having a platform where people could come and speak openly and realistically about sustainability.
Kabelo Rathobei:Thank you so much for making the time. I was so happy when you you're actually one of the first people I kind of got in touch with about coming on to the podcast, so I was very pleased when you were like I'm very keen. So thank you very much for making the time.
Gift Lubele:Anytime, anytime. Very excited to be here.
Kabelo Rathobei:Yes, awesome. So I don't know where to start because there's so many things that I actually wanted to talk about. But before we dive a little bit deeper into today's conversation on waste, I want to share the reason why I even wanted to have the conversation with you to begin with. Like I've said, I've been following your work Also, so last year I went home and I spent a couple of days in Johannesburg and I was driving through Randberg and I saw a man, like a young man really. He was pushing a massive wagon like it was loaded with recycling waste. I'm talking bottles, cardboard, everything.
Kabelo Rathobei:And he was like right in the middle of traffic. I was so stressed for him because I was like this does not look safe. But at one point, exactly what I was thinking, he then slips and falls like in the road. But he still held on to this wagon for dear life and I was like, okay, I'm sure he was trying to do that because he didn't want all the load to tip and fall into traffic. But I was really heartbroken, if I'm being honest, I was so heartbroken so, as we were driving down, but it also then hit me, it was almost like I was having some kind of an enlightenment, if you want, and I was like you know what? I guess these people I'm going to call them waste pickers that like, yes, they're doing this because maybe it's a financial situation, they're scraping by, but I realized that they're also actively helping to manage waste in the city, and it's often at a great personal risk, as was this young man that I saw.
Kabelo Rathobei:So for me it's really a double edged sword, because they're trying to survive, but they're also doing some kind of environmental service, if you think about it. So I want us to reflect a little bit about that. But before we do that, maybe so that we set the boundaries and maybe the understanding for the listeners to understand maybe what sustainability means to you personally, before we actually dive into into all of this. So I'd like you, maybe, before you share, that may explain maybe I don't want to say introduce, because I've already introduced you, but maybe tell us a little bit more about gift and then in that response, maybe weave in what sustainability means to you personally.
Gift Lubele:Right, I mean, first of all, I must say that I didn't always know what the word sustainability is, and in fact it's the same case with a lot of people that are doing really good work that promotes sustainability, but they just they're not even aware of the term. I grew up in a village and I just grew up burning any type of waste or trash that would be generated, and we moved to one of the townships in South Africa, tembisa, and even there you know the work that I was doing, which we'll get deep into it I still really didn't fully understand what sustainability is. It's only later on, when I kind of realized the importance of the work that I was doing, did I realize that there is a thing called sustainability, and what that is for me is not just about protecting the planet. For me, sustainability is also about protecting possibilities.
Gift Lubele:Right, it is basically purpose that's found in action, and there obviously is a dictionary definition of what sustainability is. But, in short, I do think that we cannot be speaking about sustainability and you know, circularity, all these terms that we hear in the space if we don't speak about the balance between people, between prosperity and also the planet. I think in my definition I would say it is making sure that all these three different I'm going to call them stakeholders. They need to really be working together in creating systems or ecosystems where nothing is wasted, where nothing goes to waste really.
Kabelo Rathobei:That's great that you say that. So, like you already mentioned, that you didn't realize exactly what was sustainability and what wasn't in your upbringing or as you were navigating life. So when exactly did that pin drop to be like actually, this is what sustainability is and this is why I want to be in this space. How did you end up in the sustainability space?
Gift Lubele:Yeah. So when I first moved to Tembisa, which is one of the biggest townships or slums in South Africa, I realized that there's a lot of waste that's being generated and, not to speak ill of any you know departments in our government, but the service seemed to not have been 100%. And so I remember meeting a lady in Tembisa who is one of the informal waste pickers, and I just started asking her as well why is she doing what she was doing? And what she was doing is basically going house to house every single morning with this you know trolley or cart-like thing that she'd made and collecting waste, and I was very curious as to know what was she doing with this waste. Why was she doing this in the first place? When we spoke and I just learned about the work that she's doing, I got so curious that when I did further research, I realized that there's about 90,000 to about 200,000 of these informal waste pickers across the whole country, and 80 to 90% of all South African post-consumer packaging passes through their hands. Now, this is quite significant. It means in any time where you are in South Africa, whether you are having a drink or you are having a bar, a snack bar that packaging, there's an 80 to 90 percent chance that's going to pass through the hands of informal waste pickers, and so what I deeply realized is the importance of these individuals. But it also provided a very good platform for me to start going even deeper within what sustainability is and obviously understanding that you know, as I mentioned in my definition, that it's about balancing between the prosperity of the people, the planet, as well as really the different stakeholders in the space.
Gift Lubele:I learned quickly that sustainability in these type of environment is something that doesn't even exist right, and I say this because, through the work that we've done at Godotji, we were at some point training about 200 informal waste pickers monthly, where we were trying to help them understand and see the bigger picture and see where they fit in in this much bigger piece.
Gift Lubele:And it's not always easy, and in some cases these people don't even care about that. For them, it's about making a living. Right For them is can I collect this in a way that allows me to pay my rent, to cover my school, my kids' school fees, to just ensure that we have food in the house? And so I try by all means, every single time I am on these digital, on these platforms to not really give a dictionary type definition of what sustainability is, but to really bring it down, because we really need to be looking at what actually enables sustainability. To answer your question in short, for me that's when I first kind of started understanding what sustainability is, engaging with these unsaying heroes that we've been working with.
Kabelo Rathobei:That is such an incredible story because, I'll be honest, like I said, I'm going to keep saying this, but when. I first saw the Kudoti project on LinkedIn. I was just scrolling and I was like this is so incredible, like I was like I wonder what inspired it. And hearing the story firsthand is quite great, but I'm guessing this is then what inspired Kudoti, right? Yeah, so tell us a little bit about that, then about Kudoti Sure.
Gift Lubele:Absolutely, you know. I must also give an update to say that, as of last month, I've actually exited Kudoti.
Kabelo Rathobei:Okay.
Gift Lubele:So after six years, you know we've done some really good work and I'm now quite happy that the organization is still continuing to make impact. And where Kudoti came from is the word Kudoti is Zulu, for Udoti it's like dirt right. And so the reason that came about is we realized that, although we were engaging with these informal waste pickers and we were trying to really understand what the difficulties they have are and how technology could then be introduced in these environments so that one it just increases efficiency, it enables them to grow and, more importantly, there's an ability to track impact, the more we did that, the theory became that data was a problem, right, and that's where we started thinking about a solution that offers end-to-end visibility throughout the whole value chain. And what we learned is when let's go back to this individual that you saw in Rundberg right that was pushing this big trolley when they do collect those different materials, there is no data that's collected. When they sell those materials, there is no data that's collected. But then, on the other hand and this is the side of the FMCG brands, or even the manufacturers they need that data. They themselves need clear visibility of where their materials end up, what actually happens to them and if they don't do that, you might know this well that there's a lot of new regulation that's coming particularly from the EU that mandates these brands to start reporting in a way that's fully traceable. So when we sat down, myself and my co-founders, it almost looked like there's two, you know, pieces of the puzzle that really need to be connected, and what we then started doing is further doing research and understanding why is it that it's so difficult to collect data within this space, and there's a bunch of interesting insights that we got.
Gift Lubele:You know, when you speak about the informal sector, particularly around waste, you know you're speaking about a very interesting persona of individuals. Most of them are foreign nationals, most of them don't even have smartphones, they are illiterate, but yet they're doing so much good work and throughout there's some really interesting initiatives that I've been able to be a part of that really, I would want to believe, pushed the growth of these individuals. One such program that I was a part of was actually led by the Department, the Department of Environment, and it was basically what they call the integration of informal waste pickers and, as you know, that these people are doing work that should have been done by the government, and I understand from the government side that resources are limited, but they've previously not been recognized. Right, a lot of the people and it's not just in South Africa, even in South America this is the same thing, and even in other parts of Africa it's the same thing there's still a huge stereotype around informal waste pickers. Their identity you know and you see it. When they walk past a car, people would close their window. They would almost feel threatened as if these people were about to steal something from them, right?
Gift Lubele:So when working in this integration plan, the idea was to firstly give these unsaying heroes an identity, to say, as an informal waste picker, could you be part of a system that recognizes that you are doing something that's actually helping the government? And then, when that happens, we are then able to further enable incentives. And this is how most of the projects that we did in Kudoti were positioned. We would have different stakeholders, either the government and an FMCG brand, and then we would have other stakeholders, like you know, the informal waste pickers, potentially even SMEs that were buying waste directly from these individuals, and then we would implement our software, and our software would include an informal waste picker having an interface to insert the data, manage their progress, see how much money they're making. Then the platform covers the SME that is buying the waste from the informal waste picker. The brand would also have the ability to get reporting or data, as well as the government.
Kabelo Rathobei:Okay, that's great that you say that, because I was going to ask you because you mentioned just the importance of data visibility in the space, and for me that also speaks to transparency. A lot of my research is about reporting, for instance, sustainability reporting, and that's always a conversation. Like these brands don't have enough data to kind of come back and report to the different stakeholders to say, listen, this is how much product we've put out into the environment, but how do we ensure that we track it back so that it goes back to when we're looking at more of a circular economy? How do we know that the amount of waste that we're producing is the same amount of waste that's coming back into the system and that we're trying to recycle it? And so I guess that's where the transparency comes in.
Gift Lubele:Right, yeah, and you know I think there's two sides for the transparency the external and the internal. The external you know it's and I'm specifically going to speak about South Africa but Godot had presence in six countries, including South America. And so, starting with the external, I would say that in developing countries you see a lot that infrastructure is still a big problem and I use that word broadly. And if infrastructure includes, you know, just the ability to collect the data right, people might not have phones and if they do have phones, they just might not have data like mobile data to actually use that, like they don't have airtime or stuff like that. So there's a whole lot of problems that also exist externally, of which we've spent a significant amount of time trying to really solve some of those issues. But then we really came to a big realization that there's also challenges of traceability internally.
Gift Lubele:With big brands that we've worked with, we realized that they themselves internally don't have the ability to fully report on scope three. Scope one and two in many cases is pretty much covered, but scope three is challenging because they have a lot of different systems. The data that they have internally is fragmented, it is sitting in different systems and most of these systems are legacy systems that cannot be integrated with other systems. There's just no single system that kind of brings all these different data variables into a single source of truth, and so we also kind of spoke quite a lot with different brands in trying to help them understand why this is important and why it works for them.
Gift Lubele:It was a bit challenging, you know, kind of being the first one in the market, because five years ago regulation was not as harsh as it is today from a reporting point of view, and so a lot of brands got away with it right. A lot of brands would put a sustainability report out there and ask consumers, we would just accept it. There was no questioning around where that data came from. There was no questioning around who audited that data in the report. It was just out there, right.
Kabelo Rathobei:And I think things are changing now whereby everything that you're putting out there Things are changing now, whereby everything that you're putting out there, you know, there's even activism groups that are constantly looking out for brands that are either greenwashing, you know, or just simply putting out groups, and these are some of the stakeholder groups that really fall, for me, under the wider community, and so I want us to bring a little bit of that into the conversation. I want to look at the role of communities and these different stakeholders, like activists, groups, NGOs, innovators, such as yourself, in this space. How would you say that these stakeholder groups engage or incorporate, or rather, how do these big businesses that need the information and need, perhaps, the waste pickers in order to bring back the waste, how do they incorporate their knowledge into the sustainability systems in terms of waste picking, yeah, or waste management, rather?
Gift Lubele:Right To give you. You know, the quick, short answer is previously they haven't been included right, which I fundamentally believe is part of the reason and part of the cause of the mess that we are in right now. The harsh reality is no one can achieve sustainability all by themselves, right? That's just not how things work and a world like that does not exist. Everyone has a place and a role to play in helping us be more sustainable. So, to be more direct in answering your question about how communities contribute, I would say maybe I'll position it in like five points, right? The first one is it's important for communities to be a part of this. More specifically, from a data generation point of view, Anything that we do, whether you are a consumer, whether you are an informal waste picker there's data that needs to be generated and that data is very useful.
Gift Lubele:So what we have learned is if you don't have good mechanism to incentivize people to generate this data, then already you are breaking a very important step, and some of the models or projects that we've been involved in that sort of work but one could question their scalability is we would have a project where we have informal waste pickers, we have community members, we have a brand, we even have a municipality and we basically, through the platform that we build, we would incentivize people to share the data that they have with us. So, as you are an informal collector, you have a mobile phone wherever you are collecting the material, we would ask you to share what type of material you're collecting, where you collected it, and by doing that, you basically unlock incentives. There's a lot of projects that are like that and although that model works in a pilot type setting scalability is very difficult because it means if you want to get more data, you then have to have more incentives, right? And another disadvantage is, once the incentives stop, all the different members within the community also stop. There becomes no direct reason for someone to include and you know, kind of.
Gift Lubele:Going back to the thing of sustainability, we really tried to show them why it is important, right, we spoke to them about why recycling is important for the environment and how it becomes part of the much broader sustainability agenda. That's not important For them. It's like, if I am going to be giving you data, will you give me something in return, whether it's monetary or some form of voucher or whatever may be the case, but we've seen that data generators and I would even say feedback loops need to be something that community members really assist us with.
Gift Lubele:The second thing is there's also an opportunity for consumers, individuals like you and me, to start sharing interesting insights that are local intelligence that you wouldn't find on Google, for example. Can you imagine you know, let's go back to this individual, this gentleman that you saw in Rhineburg Can you imagine if there was a platform where the community of Rhineburg could simply share their bin, overflowing bins? That's all they have to do. They just expose where the overflowing bin is, no one has to be there, picture or you report it, and that information then flows to these informal waste pickers so that they are able to come and take whatever type of material that they require from your bin. Something as simple as that would really be revolutionary and it would be helping. You know, us consumers take responsibility for this.
Gift Lubele:So I would say the second thing that is important for communities is just citizenship, monitoring and participation in these aspects, and, having moved from South Africa to USA, I've really gotten to see that we are just so busy, you know, human beings are just so busy that it almost becomes irrelevant to speak to someone about how they should sort out their waste, even reporting their waste. It almost becomes very, very secondary, it's not as important. Right, more models, and perhaps this is where AI can come in. More models need to be introduced that also help us consumers adapt new behaviors, new habits that enable more visibility of what's going on. The third thing and you spoke about this briefly is behavioral change, and again, this is a very tough nut to crack.
Kabelo Rathobei:I must say it is.
Gift Lubele:Because we've went as far as doing community education programs. We've went to almost all the big townships in South Africa trying to educate people about the importance of the work that they are doing and how we might potentially assist. Still, there was very little by it. You know, we went to Cape Town and Ailicha Makaza Guguletu. We went to Joburg and Tembisa, we went to Sowetu and we had these workshops where we were just saying come through, spend a day with us. There's food, there's music. We just want to speak about the work that you do. It's great. People did show up, but the behavioral change that we were expecting was almost non-existent. I do think that, yeah.
Kabelo Rathobei:Yeah, sorry, sorry to cut you in there when you were saying that I was just thinking about, but doesn't it also speak to the systems that are put in place in these areas? Because I do, and that's also something that facilitates behavioral change. In one of the episodes I think it's the third one, if not the second one I touch on how the fact that I live in Sweden gives me I mean, it's not mandatory incentive I don't get incentivized to separate my ways, but there's a system that encourages that. So there's an entire building that is dedicated to waste separation in my apartment block and these biodegradable packaging that I can use to put on my compost. So there's systems there.
Kabelo Rathobei:Because I was thinking, when I'm home in South Africa, I would still want to carry on and separate my waste, but everything, when the municipality comes in and gets the trash from the yard, it's all in one plastic bag. Even if I was to separate it, they all put it in the same pickup. There's no kind of labeling, there's nothing. So someone would argue well, it doesn't really matter if I separate the waste in my apartment when the waste pickers come, when the municipality comes, it's all going to go and be incinerated in the same place. So what's the point?
Kabelo Rathobei:So maybe it's also a matter of putting the systems in place.
Gift Lubele:Absolutely, I fully agree, and I think it's not one, all it's everything right.
Kabelo Rathobei:Of course.
Gift Lubele:I think it's not one all. It's everything right. Of course, I used to strongly believe that. You know, developing nations such as the US have a really they're very developed right and, as a result, they should be able to recycle way better than countries like South Africa and so forth. It doesn't look like even in a world where systems exist and things work, it doesn't look like that's enough right. And I say this because you know, as you look at the US, for example, the US recycled and compost rate and I'm not sure about the year, but I know that it's quite recent and it was about 32.1% this is all municipal solid waste. I think it's 2019, if I'm not mistaking, it might be a bit of a few years ago.
Gift Lubele:But when I read that, I was like this is really not encouraging at all. Right, like it's very small. There's a lot of kind of systems put in place. You know there's different bins in the US. You know they don't go as far as Europe where they are giving you, you know, free compostable materials or things or bags to put your waste in. But compared to South Africa, the US is way ahead in terms of infrastructure and systems that are being implemented in place, but you still need to look at individual consumers as well, right, and really understand what is it that could be implemented that starts encouraging that behavioral change. Just because there's different bins next to someone's house, it doesn't mean that you're automatically going to recycle, right.
Gift Lubele:And I think it goes back to education as well, right, when we look at countries like Europe and I've visited several countries in Europe recycling, sustainability, circularity, these are concepts people don't learn when they are like 18 years old. They start learning them quite young, right, that's true. And if you go to the schools, there's programs that speak about these things and there's careers and there's professionals that have dedicated all of their lives to really doing this. Right. And for me, honestly, I do think that behavioral change, particularly for adults, it might be a bit too late, right, it's really difficult. I know it's not the most positive thing to say, but I think the chance we have to really have long lasting behavioral change that really prioritizes the environment. We need to really be looking at the young people in schools, educating them about what the norm is, helping them understand what proper waste sorting is, why recycling is important, and then, if we can then embed that with digital tools to enable that we really will start seeing some patterns of behaviors change over time.
Kabelo Rathobei:I did want to speak I agree with you, but, yes, carry on.
Gift Lubele:Sure, so no, I was just saying that you know. The fourth point that I wanted to mention you know around how communities could be a part of this is local knowledge and context right, which I think in some areas it's overlooked. It's underlooked rather, but it's very, very important. We again I'll go back to the waste pickers we realized that there are certain local insights that are very crucial that you cannot find online, that need to be incorporated in this. So in one area, for example, when we were doing these projects, it was okay to give out incentives because we had partnered with Nestle and Nestle is a big food FMCG brand. In some instances it was okay to introduce tangible incentives, like food parcels. Like it was okay in one area. In another area it was not.
Gift Lubele:When you introduced these things, people just didn't value them as much as we thought they would value them, which meant that if we then said, you know, because we also wanted to gamify, so what we would do is we have 150 or maybe 200 informal voice pickers who we are tracking on our platform, who we are tracking on our platform, and we're saying you know, whoever is doing a minimum of $600 per month for plastic, paper, cardboard, maybe aluminum as well automatically qualifies for all these incentives that we've listed. But some people didn't even meet the minimum threshold in cases where we thought, yeah, we have a big brand backing us. Some people just purely needed like monetary incentives. That's all they cared about. Some people in a different area cared more about digital tools, so the incentive wasn't monetary. It was like, if I could do this and then at the end of this, you guys give me a smartphone or a tablet, I mean in South Africa, I could be wrong, but I think about 40% of these informal waste pickers are foreign nationals, right?
Gift Lubele:And there's also, then, complexities that come with that. Are they documented? Are they not documented? What does giving visibility on the platform look like? We spoke to one guy who said and he was really doing well in Soweto, and he said I'm just afraid to be on any digital system because if I do that might, I don't know where you guys share this data, but the last thing that I want is to be deported or to be arrested or whatever may be the case, and this is the environment that we operate in, right? So these type of local knowledge and context could be the make or break of a really interesting, innovative solution, and they, too, need to be shared as well. So I would say local knowledge is the fourth thing.
Gift Lubele:The last thing, the last point, is just accountability and transparency advocates, I think you know, in answering your question of how could communities be a part of this, I think it's high time we encourage and see communities that demand transparency and ethical use of the resources that we have in the world, right, and I just have this feeling that most of the communities we've engaged with they don't even care or they don't like. For them, the environment and so forth, it's something that's far away, right, like it's not as important. As you know, I'm currently looking for a job and we tell them look, this, in fact, is a chance for you to get a job. I mean the circularity industry in itself. This is a growing industry that is creating so many opportunities, but there seems to be a huge disconnect between a community that cares about what happens with the products that they consume and you know kind of what needs to happen and unfortunately, this is the only way the brands, the manufacturers, the company behind extracting raw materials from earth, transforming them into products and putting them into the market.
Gift Lubele:Unfortunately, if the demand for traceability and ethical use of resources is not coming from communities that doesn't matter for them, right? If I am a big company and I am taking oil and I'm making plastic and I'm putting that into the market and my consumers continue consuming it, there's no reason for me to change, right? But if there's demand for responsibility or accountability coming from the consumer, I can see that in my income statement. I can see that Hold on a sec. For all the different products of plastic that we've been manufacturing, they're actually not selling. We're starting to see a downswing trend in these products. So then I have to change, because then this is coming from the people I serve, and I do feel like we're not there yet.
Gift Lubele:We still need more communities that you know are pushing for this, and in my TED Talk, this is also one of the recommendations I share to say that, as consumers, we have a big role to play in circularity. We have a big role to play in sustainability, but it starts with us. It starts with asking questions about the things that we consume. If you're drinking a bottle of plastic, it starts with you. You need to be the one saying who made this bottle and after I drink and finish it. Where is this bottle going to end up?
Gift Lubele:We seem to not care about that.
Gift Lubele:We seem to be focusing on other things entirely, and I always say it's a bit extreme. But I always say that because of this ignorance that we consumers or communities have, we are still not connecting it to the harsh climate impacts that we're currently experiencing. It still doesn't make sense to a lot of people. How not you know how if I'm not recycling, how does that connect to my house flooding right? Which is an interesting case that we also kind of looked at in Durban, where there was a strip of land that was flooded entirely because the waste that's produced in that region blocked the sewer system and, as a result of that, when the storm came, water couldn't go through the system, so it started flooding. In many cases, connections like that do not exist in, you know, in the minds of consumers or communities, and I think until we get to a point where it's clear why we should prioritize this, why brands, governments, even ourselves, should be fully accountable for these things, until we get to that point, it becomes quite difficult to really implement long lasting change.
Kabelo Rathobei:I absolutely agree with you We've run out of time, but there's still so much that I wanted us to discuss and hopefully we can sit down and have and continue this conversation. But before we end this, I want to know, because I know you're doing a lot of work in this space. I just want to know, on a more positive note, what maybe is or what is exciting you the most about the future of AI in sustainability.
Gift Lubele:Yeah, wow, really good question. I would say there's a lot of things. One of the, you know, most interesting things that excites me about AI is its ability to have very tied relationships with individuals, and with that, for me, comes an opportunity to introduce these new ways of changing behavior. I mean, I was reading a study recently that showed that. You know, I think the vast majority of people that are currently consuming CHEG-GPT, they are using it to understand what their purpose is in life. They're using it as therapy, they're using it as like a friend right, and for me, that definitely could be an opportunity to start introducing AI tools that help people change and understand why the current systems or patterns we have are not working. So I think that's number one.
Gift Lubele:I'm really excited to be looking at climate models that are currently being implemented to climate patterns, natural disasters, even things like carbon trends. So in spaces where previously the human mind couldn't really comprehend what was going on, we have a chance now to really see what happened in the past but, more importantly, predict what might happen in the future, and I think that's a really good space to be in. We spoke also about scope three and these disconnection of data, and I think also that's where AI could come in, to try and aggregate all these different information. And there's a company here I was just looking at what they've built a model that is able to go into an internal environment for an FMCG brand and it connects with all sorts of system, from financial system to HR to operations, and then it looks for all these different data inputs, brings them all together into a single dashboard and then it also suggests how you might be compliant with recent sustainability regulations. So for me, I think that's really interesting.
Gift Lubele:But the last part the last could also be used to bring previously unrealized individuals, or let's call them stakeholders, into the front. I think I will always say that we cannot speak about sustainability, circularity, if we do not speak about the social and economic inclusion, because the reality is, the world today still is very much unequal and we can't be trying to solve that without balancing. If you go back to the definition of what sustainability is, for me it's striking that balance right Between people, between the planet and prosperity. It's we need to bring all those together. So I do think AI is also creating an opportunity whereby what a job is could change, and there's a lot of green jobs that are being introduced as a result of AI, where people can work while doing good for the environment in a way that they previously couldn't do it before.
Kabelo Rathobei:I absolutely love those suggestions. This conversation could go on forever, but I hope that I could have you back for another conversation. So right now we're going to move on to the last segment of the Candid Sustainability podcast, and I call it Candid Confessions. So, gift, I like to keep it candid on here, and I want you to keep it candid with me and tell us what's one sustainability choice you still struggle with.
Gift Lubele:For me, I think the one difficult choice I have is, I guess let's speak particularly about recycling. I guess it's the ability to follow the different practices that are put in place. So I'll tell you now here in the US, right? So we have three different bins one for trash, one for recyclables and I think the other one is for compostables. What I struggle with is to follow that, and the reason for that is I see that when the truck comes, it's one truck. Although you have three different bins, they just put in one truck, right.
Kabelo Rathobei:Okay.
Gift Lubele:I now know as well that the rate for recycling is not increasing. So I think my current struggle is to adapt the current suggestions that are supposed to be helping us recycle, yet they're failing. Are supposed to be helping us recycle, yet they're failing. So, on a scale of one to five, five being I'm doing the absolute best and one being I'm doing the absolute worst, I would give myself like a 2.7.
Kabelo Rathobei:Okay, you need to pull up your socks.
Gift Lubele:Yeah, I do, I do. But I think it goes back to the point of environment, right, and what's around you. I think when I was in Europe everything works and you can track it right. So your individual contribution from a recycling point of view is something that you can actually see right and the systems put in place to help you have that visibility. Where else in this side of the world it's not the case. You do something on the ground that you are told to do but that doesn't seem to be adding any value or helping with the problem at all and I think for someone that kind of understands the value chain, I definitely can't say there's more room for it to be improved. But it becomes very discouraging for me because when I take plastic and put it in the recyclable bins I always question if I'm really doing a good thing or not, because, like this is still going to end up where I'm trying for it not to go.
Kabelo Rathobei:Right, I hear that.
Gift Lubele:So I think that's definitely been a struggle of mine, for sure.
Kabelo Rathobei:Okay, it's okay, we all have them and we're trying to improve the best way we know how. But, gift, thank you so much for joining me and sharing your insights.
Gift Lubele:Anytime. Thank you for having me.
Kabelo Rathobei:Thank you. Thank you very much. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to Candid Sustainability wherever you listen, share it with your friends and please leave a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts wherever you listen to your podcast. And if you have a story or idea for a future episode or want to be on the show yourself, please reach out and I'd love to hear from you. Join in on Candid Confessions and I may read your answer in the next episode. What's a waste habit? You know is bad, but still struggle to change. Remember to hashtag Candid Confessions. Let's continue the conversation on Substack or comment, but before you go, remember to leave us a review on Spotify, apple Podcast or wherever you listen to your podcast, like and subscribe if you are watching on YouTube and share this with someone who needs to hear it. Thanks for being here. Let's keep it candid and keep doing your best.
