Setting up a successful collaboration: key learnings from a career in collaboration | Article

Catherine David, Director of Collaboration and Change at WRAP UK, shares advice for leaders from her career in collaboration and explains the cross-sector approach taken in the UK Plastics Pact.  

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” African proverb.

How do you determine the best model to set-up a collaboration?  

“One of the most important things to think about is your theory of change – how the change is going to happen – and that should inform how you design your model.  

"If you take Fairtrade as an example, it achieves collaboration at scale through standards and certification. One of the unique points of the Fairtrade model is that it's owned by the farmers and workers, and so it has their interests and power at its heart. You see this play out through all sorts of mechanisms - the money is invested into fair trade communities by brands and retailers but the decision on how that money is spent is determined democratically by the farms. In other sustainability standards models, those decisions might be made by major traders or retailers.   

"The way that WRAP UK creates a scalable collaborative model at the whole system level is through a programmatic platform, which takes more of a membership model.  At the core of our theory of change is the idea that you convene around a voluntary agreement –  and that the collective commitment to a set of goals is accompanied by an individual organisational commitment. 

"A theory of change could state that actually you don't need to take everyone with you, you just need to take the most powerful – the G7 is a collaborative platform."  

“One of the biggest challenges for collaborations is scale. When looking at a collaborative initiative, it’s important to think ‘What’s its theory of change? What’s the model for how the outcome is going to be achieved?” 

In your experience, what are the success factors for collaboration?  

1. Co-creation of theory of change is a key opportunity. 
“To make a collaboration successful, and it's kind of obvious from a human psychology perspective, co-creating the theory of change is such a key opportunity to get everyone on-board. You might not necessarily have a burning platform, but what you can do through a theory of change is achieve clarity on the goal, create a sense of vision and future, and gain a set of views and principles for how you're going to create that future."

2. Commit to learning along the way. 
“Importantly for me, the theory of change is a theory, and what it should do is imbue your collaboration with a learning mentality. If you all agree you want to achieve ‘X’, it’s worth exploring what that sounds like to each party, taking the time to understand each other’s perspectives."  

“The theory of change is a theory and it should imbue your collaboration with a learning mentality… It’s good to avoid becoming ‘locked in.’” 

"It’s good to avoid becoming ‘locked in’. Enter collaborations with a mindset of ‘this is our best guess - our current theory based on evidence and our perspectives’ and then commit to learning along the way: here’s how we think we’re going to get there and here’s how we’re going to learn whether that’s true or not."

3. Don’t forget to invest in the ‘soft’ elements, you can’t over-engage.  
“Don’t rush but create momentum. It’s not very scientific, but if you rush, you’ll get it wrong. It's one of those things where you need both a very organised, programmatic approach with a clear running process (you need to be tracking stakeholders, how you're engaging etc) but you also need to massively invest in the soft bits. The relationship building, the community, the values, the communication. I think obsessive curiosity is key – stakeholders won’t always reveal what they’re thinking in the first, second or third conversation. In a way, I don’t think you can over-engage."

4. Have a plan but be responsive.   
“A plan is important, but in collaborations you need to be opportunistic and responsive. Capitalising on the ideas, energy and skills of those in your collaboration can keep momentum up and make sure all collaborators are a driving force for the initiative, but you need to respond to the dynamic of the group and the changing context around you."    

5. Don’t ask everyone to agree  
“Something I learned recently, which has helped me think differently, is - don't ask everyone to agree, ask everyone not to actively disagree. It's less demanding on someone to say, ‘Can you live with this?’, rather than ‘Do you wholeheartedly agree with this?’ And obviously, while we'd like everyone's wholehearted, enthusiastic agreement, the route to getting there may start with ‘I don't disagree’. It can help you make early progress."  

“It’s less demanding to ask ‘Can you live with this?’ than ‘Do you wholeheartedly agree?’” 

6. Make sure there’s capacity and capability.   
“This sounds obvious, but it’s the question I never forget to ask myself when considering a collaboration. Having capacity yourself and having the right skills in your team to work on something is critical, and sometimes they’re just not there. Be open about where the constraints are - there's nothing worse than initiating something and then being unable to follow through on it. "

7. Have the right people in the room, with the right leadership skills.  
“In any collaboration, you’re looking for people who can role model the values of collaboration and collective purpose. They’ll put the collective above their individual and organisational priorities, they’ll be open, always come with a solution mindset and they’ll challenge and attack problems. It doesn’t mean you have to be extravert; you might email the group after a discussion with further information or evidence. But having these values embodied by key leaders in the collaboration is so important – these are the leaders that become influential, not necessarily because of their job role, but because of how they are. 

“It can feel quite exposing, so it takes a bit of bravery.” 

"No single person or organisation has the full picture, so it can feel quite exposing to ask questions and contribute ideas – it takes bravery, even for those people who may seem confident and assertive. In a collaboration, all leaders need to create an environment where contributions are welcomed and encouraged, that’s so important." 

Case study - collaboration in practice: The UK Plastics Pact, WRAP UK  

What? Borne out of David Attenborough’s Blue Planet II, which catalysed huge interest in what could be done around plastics, WRAP UK launched a collaborative initiative in 2018 with four headline goals to achieve by 2025:  

1. Eliminate single-use packaging
2. Ensure that 100% of plastic packaging can either be reusable, recyclable or compostable 
3. Ensure 70% of plastic packaging is effectively recycled  
4. Ensure that plastic packaging has an average recycled content of 30% 

Model, funding and governance: 

• A voluntary agreement that businesses sign up to, coordinated by WRAP UK.  
• Co-funded by DEFRA with a devolved administration; participating businesses pay a membership fee.  
• A roadmap, with practical actions and guidance, was developed for each of the four headline targets.  
• Businesses report annually on how they’re performing against the target.  

Collaborators:
The initiative launched with 40 businesses, growing to nearly 200 organisations today. The collaborating organisations also include recycling companies, NGOs, and local authorities; the result is that everybody in the system - from plastics manufacturers to retailers to waste collection, disposal and recycling companies – is involved and committed.  

“We brought the whole sector together around those headline targets. We’ve got the right people in the room.” 

Progress so far:
WRAP UK has recently published how the collaboration is doing against its four targets. In five years, there has been progress against each of the four targets, with the collective achieving the following headline impact:  

• Reduced problematic single-use plastic items by 99%.  
• Average recycled content levels in plastic packaging have tripled since 2018, now at 24% – contributing to a 10.5% carbon reduction.        
• 71% of plastic packaging is recyclable and hard-to-recycle plastics are nearly designed out.  
• Recycling rates have risen to 55% - and over half is now recycled in the UK, not shipped overseas. 

As part of the roadmap, participating organisations had a very clear checklist of items they should not be selling, which has helped the significant reduction in single-use plastic, but at the other end of the spectrum, some of the collaboration’s initiatives have been harder to solve - delays in implementing key policy measures will affect the collaboration’s ability to achieve two of its goals by 2025.   

“The UK doesn’t have the right infrastructure in place to recycle certain types of plastic. The collaboration has now embarked on a series of projects around this – how do we create the innovations and policy frameworks that enable this. 

“I think this programme is an excellent example of how progress is achieved through a combination of actions – there are some things organisations can just crack on and do, with the right support, and then there are things that you can only unblock with collaboration. We are now working with partners using a similar approach in over 20 countries, so it's become a global footprint. The other thing that it's connected to is a negotiation around a global treaty to end plastic pollution, so it's leading to global conversations on policy.

“The UK Plastics Pact’s progress in five years is evidence of what can be achieved through collaboration at scale. For businesses and governments it can deliver fast, practical action working towards measurable targets and a common vision of a circular economy for plastics." 

What makes it a successful collaboration?   

• Clear, measurable targets. 
• Through a membership style model, everyone has ‘skin in the game’. 
• The whole system is represented in one place.  
• The roadmaps for each target have very practical actions and guidance for individual businesses.  
• The bigger challenges that require innovation are easier to identify and then act on together. 

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