Transcriber: Emma Gon Reviewer: Anna Sobota
Good afternoon, TEDxAntwerp.
I have sad news.
I’m the last speaker of the day, are you ready for my speech?
(Audience) Yeah!
I’m Catrien, and on March 2020, my beautiful world went in lockdown.
Antwerp, my city of yummy chocolate,
shiny diamonds, beer and burgundy lifestyle became numb.
No planes, few cars.
Nobody out in the street after 12 o’clock because of the curfew.
Suddenly, I could hear birds singing
and at eight o’clock sharp there was this amazing sound.
(Hands clapping)
Raise your hand if you clapped along.
For who were you clapping, for which heroes?
For which heroes were you clapping?
Perfect.
I also clapped for nurses,
but my round of applause included seafarers.
90 % of everything comes to us by ship.
My portable, made in China.
The shoes shipped all the way from Vietnam.
My sweater produced in Turkey.
Without seafarers, no shipping.
Without shipping, no shopping.
Have you sometimes felt claustrophobic during a lockdown?
I did, although I love my husband to the moon and back
living in each other’s pocket 24 hours a day, seven days a week,
ask him, it is challenging.
If we sometimes feel stuck in our bubbles,
imagine how the hundreds of thousands of seafarers are feeling
that are trapped at sea.
Did you know the word quarantine originates from ancient seafaring?
In the 14th century, Europe was hit by the plague,
killing one third of its population.
To stop the outbreak of the Black Death, ships were not allowed to enter ports.
They had to sit at anchor for ‘quaranta giorni’, meaning 40 days.
These were the Middle Ages, the Dark Ages.
Today we live in the 21st century,
you would expect things to have changed.
Last year, the Russian seafarer Alexei Kolibaba
got a stroke on board his vessel.
Indonesian authorities delayed his ship to enter the port,
only after the intervention of the IMO,
the International Maritime Organization,
Alexei got help.
Too late.
One part of his body is paralyzed
and today Alexi needs help with basic tasks.
There are many Alexis and Alexandras out at sea
struggling to get medical help or crew changes.
Isn’t it ironic that often cargo is treated better than crew?
If we want overseas products,
it's about time we treat the people that bring these goods to us with respect,
as people and as key workers, we need to make the seafarers visible.
And not only seafarers, if you want a better, more equal world,
we need to make the invisible visible.
Here’s my idea on how to achieve this,
we need a system change.
We need to make the design, production,
transportation and buying process of goods and services transparent,
and the people behind it visible.
Follow my thoughts.
Last month, me and my youngest son, Sam, bought a washing machine.
We browse the Internet and were dizzy with options.
So much choices, where to start?
Sam says he pays importance to peer reviews.
I advised Sam to buy a washing machine with an energy label,
Triple A Plus rating.
After some research, we ended up with two similar washing machines.
Machine A costing 1 249 euros,
Machine B, 1 149 euros.
Both machines had an A triple plus energy label,
and both machines were delivered and installed at Sam’s premises.
Here I need a little help from you again.
Who would buy the cheapest machine?
What if we had more information,
if you knew that machine A was made according to circular principles
and machine B wasn’t.
And if you knew that the seafarers delivering washing machine A,
were paid proper wages and had timely crew changes,
whereas machine B,
the seafarers were stuck on board for over a year?
Would this influence your choice?
Would you be willing to pay 100 euros extra?
My point, if we all have more information on products and services,
we could make better informed choices, couldn’t we?
We need to use technology to become empowered, knowledgeable consumers,
not in the sense of buying more and cheaper.
Reports of Rome showed us that there are limits to growth
in the most sustainable products will always be the products we do not buy.
But if we buy something, we must disrupt the traditional part of purchase,
whereby price is often the main driver
and we have to start using data as currency to a more sustainable world.
Maybe this seems challenging or even impossible.
So was President Kennedy’s dream to go to the Moon.
One of the groundbreaking inventions that made the moon landing possible
were the computers on board the spacecraft.
Knowing that a smartphone in your pocket today
is more powerful than all the computers on board the Apollo spacecraft
makes my mission to make the invisible visible even more achievable.
Nowadays, there’s so many data, so much information,
how to structure this?
I have good and amazing news.
I will start with the good news.
I found a guideline to see the wood for the trees.
My roadmap are the SDGs.
The United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals
are a blueprint to achieve a better future
for all people and the world by 2030.
Let us use the SDGs as a driving force and building block
to create one universal SDG product label.
If we create this label, we have to make
the life cycle of our products visible from cradle to grade.
And we don't even have to use language,
we can use pictograms comparable to some washing machine energy label.
Wouldn’t this be fantastic,
if we had this one universal label in our clothes,
in our shoes, on our washing machines?
I call upon all of you to break out of your bubbles
and to help me to start creating
this game changing universal SDG label across companies,
across nations, across industries.
We have to work together.
Let me finish with amazing news.
We do not have to sit and wait on this universal product level
to start acting.
We can all make an impact for a better, more balanced world today.
Because what you and I do very day makes a big difference.
Every act, however small, can set something big in action.
I taught my boys, it’s OK to cry and to express their emotions.
I show girls in my industry to take up their space.
And at my office, we work according to SDG principles.
I give three examples.
We recycle waste.
As architects of transport,
I inform my customers about sustainable forms of transport
and on board our vessels,
we kept doing crew changes every 10 weeks.
“FORWARD Belgium”, an association of Belgium fowarders
recently issued an SDG label,
and I’m very proud to say that my team worked very hard
and yes, we received the SDG label, but this is not the finish.
It’s a start to become even better day by day and step by step.
The power for change is in our hands.
We only need a mental shift.
With every decision, like buying a sustainable washing machine,
we can make an impact and have an influence on the world around us.
Knowledge is power.
See what happens if you use your power
to put pressure on companies to become socially responsible.
I see change happening already.
A department store is no longer sending foie gras,
because thousands of customers were urging them
to stop selling products that harm geese.
We sometimes fall into the trap of thinking
that we consumers are like geese being fed with products.
The truth is we are not powerless consumer.
I repeat, not powerless consumers.
We do have choices.
We can decide how we spent our money.
Let’s just make better choices.
And we have the power to support sustainable companies,
companies that treat our planet with care.
And the people like seafarers with the respect they deserve.
You and me, when we walk out of this theater, we can all become game changers.
Thank you for listening.
I’m Catrien, happy mum, loving friend,
sustainable entrepreneur and game changer.
Are you game changers too?
(Applause)