Circular Economy Podcast

Liz Bui takes us behind the scenes at Yulex, a material science company that’s replacing extremely useful, but problematic petroleum-based products with natural rubber alternatives. Liz Bui is Chief Executive Officer at YULEX, based in the USA. She began her career in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry where she spent 20 years in senior roles. On top of managing all operational and business matters at YULEX, Liz is an intellectual property and transactional lawyer, a PhD scientist and also an adjunct professor at the University of San Diego School of Law. Originally from Vietnam, at the age of six Liz escaped on the day Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) fell to the North Vietnamese forces. She and her siblings, without their parents, were war refugees aboard a fishing boat until they were rescued by a US aircraft carrier. Like other Vietnamese refugees from that period, she was granted permanent residency and a new life in the U.S. We’ll hear about the origins and mission of Yulex and its long-term collaboration with Patagonia to develop natural rubber foam for wetsuits, replacing neoprene, a petroleum-based material. Liz explains some of the key principles underpinning Yulex’s approach to innovation, and how these are fundamental to helping it scale out and create benefits right across its value network. Liz talks us through some of the environmental and health issues associated with neoprene, and explains how Yulex is making it easier for suppliers to use natural rubber instead. She tells us about Yulex’s latest material innovation, Yulastic filaments - a sustainable alternative to petroleum-based elastane, aka spandex. And we hear how Yulex's Equitable AG program supports rubber smallholders in Southeast Asia, distributing 50% of the profits back to them.

We zoom out to the economy part of the circular economy, to talk about the Post Growth concept, with Marcus Feldthus. Together with Oscar Haumann, Marcus founded the Post Growth Guide back in 2023, as a learning space for people who want to understand the social and planetary boundaries so as to make real sustainability strategies, avoiding greenwashing, going beyond compliance, and leading the way forward for their business and wider industry. The platform has a growing membership community and offers explainers, case studies, online courses, books, and public talks. Marcus Feldthus is an entrepreneur from Denmark with a Master's Degree in Business from Copenhagen Business School. Marcus, with Oscar Haumann also started a consultancy called Abel, back in 2015. Marcus will explain the concept of Post Growth, its historical roots and what its aiming to achieve, and we talk about how the circular economy fits into a Post Growth system. We discuss how Post Growth is gaining traction and how it aligns with some of the other approaches to progressive economic, including degrowth and regenerative economics. Marcus tells us more about the Post Growth Guide and course, about his new book, “The Economies of Small Scale”, coming out soon, and why conversation starters are a great tool to help us all think about this from practical, business perspectives.

Martin Tomitsch and Steve Baty have written a brilliant book called Designing Tomorrow: strategic design tactics to change your practice, organization and planetary impact, published earlier this year. Martin Tomitsch is a Professor and Head of the Transdisciplinary School at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). As a design academic and educator, Martin advocates for the transformative power of design to envision speculative futures and drive positive change. He has written lots of academic articles and seven books, including Making Cities Smarter and Design Think Make Break Repeat. Steve Baty was the inaugural CEO of the Australian Design Council, co-founder of Meld Studios and co-founder of UX Australia. He is a Director of the Product Stewardship Centre of Excellence and served two years as the President of the Interaction Design Association. Steve focuses on the integration between strategic design and traditional architectural practice, especially for improving our public spaces, infrastructure and services. You might be noticing interest around supporting responsible innovation in ways that consider all life – human and other-than-human. That might be badged as life-centred, regenerative or post-anthropocentric design, and Martin Tomitsch and Steve Baty say these approaches share an important goal, to ‘reach an operational status where human activity no longer exceeds the planetary limits.’ In Designing Tomorrow, Martin and Steve bring together several design philosophies, to help designers, strategists and policymakers amplify their impact, shift their perspectives and empower them to create lasting positive change inside organizations. We’ll talk about some of the concepts and tools they introduce in the book, why we need to carefully consider who is involved in a system and the broader implications of our design decisions, and ways to change our mindsets – including about stakeholders, our sphere of influence and how to think about strategic decisions.

Loic Le Fouest is a leading expert in Customer Experience (CX) with a strong track record of driving customer-centric transformation across the private, public, and not-for-profit sectors. As the head of the CX practice at Clarasys in the UK, Loic helps organisations design customer experiences that drive loyalty, innovation, and sustainable business growth. Clarasys describes itself as The Experience Consultancy — employee-owned, purpose-driven, and dedicated to helping organisations create better experiences for customers, employees, and the planet. Clarasys recognises that circular economy approaches often require fundamentally different relations between providers and users, and it’s keen to understand more about that. In 2022, Loic launched a partnership between Clarasys and the University of Exeter’s Centre for the Circular Economy to tackle what they saw as one of the biggest challenges in circularity — customer engagement. This collaboration led to a report and toolkit on Creating Customer Experiences in the Circular Economy, providing businesses with practical strategies to make circular models work for their customers. Loic is an experienced transformation consultant with over 10 years of consulting and industry experience, and he combines design thinking with his background in product management, digital transformation, lean 6-sigma and change management. Loic shares insights from Clarasys' collaboration with the Exeter team, which looked at how businesses were dealing with challenges around user adoption and acceptance across the food and beverage and household appliances sectors. The research team looked at the new aspects of roles, behaviour and relationships for consumers/, and Loic explains some of the key findings around that, including ‘consumption work’ and ‘key moments that matter’ for customers. The study also found that firms were struggling to launch and scale successful circular business models, and Loic talks about two kinds of approaches to that - ‘inside out’ versus ‘outside in’.

We hear insights from Anette Timmer of DESSO by Tarkett, a leading carpet brand that was an early adopter of circular economy principles. Anette Timmer began her journey with DESSO almost 18 years ago, and has played a central role in the business’ transition to a circular economy model. Anette helps to bridge the gap between the vision and execution of circular transformation, using marketing and communications to educate audiences about circularity; develop stakeholder trust and transparency; inspire behaviour change among customers; and build advocacy and momentum across the wider industry. Anette is a strong advocate for cross-industry collaboration, where businesses share experiences, and work together to create systems to circulate products and materials. DESSO is now part of Tarkett, and has a long-held belief in designing with people and planet in mind, and over a decade ago, it made a bold commitment to place circularity at the core of its ambitions. Moving towards a closed-loop system has involved a total change of mindset within the business. DESSO calls its commitment the Beauty of Circularity, and it drives the business to do more with less at every stage. - Annette unpacks the three pillars of Desso's beauty of circularity strategy: designing products to live multiple lives; developing innovative materials that are made to be remade; and building systems to return flooring at end of life to complete the circular journey. And sometimes, synchronicity steps in to lend a hand!

Markus Terho tells us about the Lifestyle Test, a web-based app for anyone who’s concerned about global warming and wants to be a part of the solution by adopting a positive and sustainable lifestyle. It’s already available in 10 countries across the EU and has 350,000 users. Markus describes himself as a corporate responsibility veteran, with over three decades in the industry. He is the CEO of Sparkter, a boutique sustainability consultancy to help simplify and make sense of sustainability. Before that, Markus was the chief sustainability officer at Nokia and has been a director at the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra. Markus is passionate about helping people to find their own way to build a good life that is also sustainable. Almost 70 per cent of Europe’s climate emissions and almost all of the damage to nature can be traced back to people’s everyday lives – how we eat, live, move around and consume. In less than 10 minutes, The Lifestyle Test gives you clear and tailored tips about simple positive and sustainable lifestyle changes that can help you save time and money and improve your quality of life. Markus explains how the test was first developed and how it’s evolved since, and explains some of the ways it’s been shaped for each different country it’s in. He goes onto explain what kind of things it covers and how it works from a user’s perspective, including the high proportion of circular economy suggested actions. Markus highlights the way conversations about climate often result in feelings of guilt and shame, and how the app is designed to help us feel we have agency, with some insights from well-established models for successful behaviour change. And we hear what’s in the pipeline for future developments, including ways to link more sustainable behaviours to other primary motivators, such as health or convenience.

Clarissa Morawski, CEO of Reloop Platform works with governments, industry stakeholders and NGOs to develop policies for a packaging circular economy. Clarissa brings nearly 30 years of technical, analytical and communications experience in waste reduction operations and policies. She started her own consulting business in 1998 and co-founded the Reloop Platform in 2015. As CEO, Clarissa works with stakeholders and partners to develop smart, practical and effective policy frameworks and operational recommendations, and combines her no-nonsense communication skills with science to make the case for ambitious policy. Reloop Platform's mission is to accelerate the global transition to a circular economy by working at the centre of policy-making with governments, industry stakeholders and NGOs. Reloop’s primary objective is to prevent waste, by reducing production and consumption, re-using packaging wherever possible and collecting materials properly for closed loop recycling. We talk about a recent report, the Global Recycling League Table, that Reloop produced in partnership with Eunomia; and Clarissa highlights key elements of the recent EU Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulations. Clarissa shares some insights on how to make sure policies actually make a difference and don’t get sabotaged by various vested interests; we hear how mindsets are changing, and brands are starting to see litter as a real issue. We discuss Deposit Return Schemes and which ones are seen as best-practice, and we cover some of the issues affecting the safety of virgin and recycled packaging materials.

I’ve been reflecting on what’s come up over the last series, in episodes 141 to 149. How do we create the conditions for our ideas to spread? Do we fully understand the systems that circular products or services will be embedded in or affected by, how those work, and what keeps them going? It’s likely there will be multiple systems, and some of these will be cultural, invisible and hard to disrupt. How much can you change? Could you create a new system that integrates with what’s already there? We also look at who you need to convince – your target customers might have a wide range of characteristics and motivations, and they probably want approval – even permission - from colleagues, family or friends. Often, you’ll need to convince other parties – supply chain partners, distributors, investors, employees and more. What’s the value proposition to them? What pain points are you relieving, and what benefits can you offer? Some circular solutions can solve multiple, disparate problems, either by design or from beneficial side-effects. Are you making this clear, and could it help you get more buy-in, attention and support? The last series covers episodes 141 to 149: 149 Giulia Ziino of CircularPlace: generate value from underused assets 148 Tim Forslund of Sitra: circular solutions for nature 147 Dr Alexandra Leeper of Iceland Ocean Cluster: smarter ways to create value 146 Dr Monika Hauck of Repair Rebels: Making repairs easy & fashionable 145 Evolena de Wilde of Faircado: your AI-powered second-hand shopping assistant 144 Chris Allen of Decathlon: ever-evolving circular design 143 Michael Colarossi of Avery Dennison - Digital Product Passports 142 Anna De Matos of Iceland Tool Library – igniting circular communities 141 Joel Tasche of CleanHub: scaleable solutions to plastic pollution

Giulia Ziino is a co-founder of CircularPlace, a digital platform that helps organizations generate value by reusing and repurposing underutilized products and equipment. These services are needed more than ever, by a wide range of organizations. The pandemic, working from home and now hybrid working upturned the entire concept of workspaces, and organizations need to resize, relocate or restructure on a regular basis. That usually means changing office layouts. Manufacturing businesses may need to update or replace machinery and equipment to reflect changing specifications or what’s selling well in their product mix. And hotels and hospitality venues need to keep their furniture and equipment looking fresh and attractive – and some rooms or areas might look tired, with others hardly used. All of this means that furniture, equipment and other items become available, and often these might be in as-new condition, or just lightly used. Even if they are more worn, they may be suitable for refurbishment, repair or remanufacturing. The CircularPlace platform is available as a white-label solution, and facilitates the sale or donation of equipment, furniture and other unwanted items, either within the company or to external buyers. This provides tax benefits as well as reducing GHG emissions and waste. CircularPlace was founded in 2021, and clients now include Microsoft France, Sodexo, Schneider and Fedex. Giulia Ziino joined CircularPlace as a late-stage co-founder, bringing international experience and initially taking on the role of Chief of Staff, where she focused on expanding and stabilizing the brand. Now, as Chief Marketing Officer, Giulia is building a robust presence for CircularPlace in the B2B circular economy space and driving impactful storytelling around sustainability. We’ll hear how CircularPlace helps clients with asset and inventory management, with logistics, and provides an impact calculator to measure carbon savings. We hear what’s encouraging companies to look at these solutions, and how the platform links clients with specialist resellers, improving the value recovered as well boosting the existing reuse markets.

Tim Forslund works on the circular economy at the Finnish Innovation Fund Sitra. As a key part of his work at Sitra, Tim has analysed how circular economy strategies can help tackle biodiversity loss, including through the circular bioeconomy. We’ll be talking about Sitra’s latest handbook for businesses, CIRCULAR SOLUTIONS FOR NATURE, which helps companies aiming to integrate circular business models into their operations so they can address biodiversity loss. Sitra’s handbook includes a primer on the interconnections between circularity and nature, and sets out a three-step approach for action: 1. identifying critical biodiversity impacts in the value chain; 2. using circular solutions to tackle these impacts; 3. designing the circular transformation journey. Sitra is a public fund, think tank and future house. The circular economy has been a central part of Sitra’s work for more than 10 years. In 2016, it led the work for the world’s first national circular economy roadmap, and in 2017, it started the World Circular Economy Forum. CIRCULAR SOLUTIONS FOR NATURE is the third of Sitra’s handbooks for business, following on from its publications on technology and the chemical industry.

Dr Alexandra Leeper is the CEO of the Iceland Ocean Cluster and is passionate about the sustainable use of ocean resources. She’s working as a scientist intrapreneur in the blue and circular economies, drawing on diverse experiences from working all over the world in universities, consultancies, and at sea. Alexandra has a background in marine resources and completed an industrial doctorate in aquaculture and circular economy in 2021. Her work focuses on sustainable value creation, positive impact in the blue economy and supporting the development of ocean clusters around the world. The Iceland Ocean Cluster is at the center of maritime innovation in Iceland, with a mission to create value by connecting together entrepreneurs, businesses and knowledge in the blue economy. They describe their flagship project, 100% Fish, as an ‘incredible fishy value machine’. 100% Fish is all about inspiring the seafood and fish sectors to utilize more of each fish, increase the value of each fish landed, support new business opportunities, increase employment and most importantly decrease waste. It’s incredibly successful - since the 1990s, the utilization of fishery by-products has increased 30-fold, the export value per kilogram of fish has risen by a factor of 4 and a wide array of different products have been developed. Alexandra explains how that works in practice, and how it’s sparked a movement around the world, with other Ocean Clusters using the same approach to come up with their own incredible value machines, and create value for their local blue economies.

Entrepreneur Dr. Monika Hauck is tapping into the emotional charge we feel after getting something repaired, and using that to revolutionize how we choose and care for our clothing and accessories. Dr. Monika Hauck is the founder of Repair Rebels, a digital B2C & B2B fashion repair platform that’s a pioneer solution in the German market, with a goal is to make textile and shoe repairs digital, convenient and fashionable! Repair Rebels started in 2021, and has already won numerous prestigious awards, including the German Ecodesign Award. Dr. Monika Hauck is a creative economist, entrepreneur, social activist, and researcher specializing in Open and Collaborative Innovation. Her Ph.D. focused on Corporate Venturing and Open Innovation in the fashion industry. Monika has also founded the WHU Entrepreneurship Center to support startups and corporate innovation initiatives in Germany’s North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) region. Monika was passionate about fashion from a young age, and later worked as a model for renowned international agencies and brands. You may have heard of "Fashion Revolution," a British social enterprise - in 2018, Monika became the Fashion Revolution City Ambassador in Düsseldorf. Then, in 2019, she launched change-room.org, a think tank dedicated to sustainable and inclusive innovation in fashion. Now, Monika combines her expertise in fashion, innovation management and sustainable development with her commitment to revitalising local craftsmanship. Monika explains how Repair Rebels works for customers and repairers, and how Repair Rebels is meeting the needs of different groups of customers. We hear how Repair Rebels was inspired by Monika's childhood in Lithuania, where she learned to sew and repair clothing while still at school. Monika outlines some of the trends she is seeing around fashion consumption and the circular economy, and we discuss the reasons that big businesses are finding it so hard to change course. We also talked about the Lean StartUp concept, and how that can be helpful to circular entrepreneurs.

Evolena de Wilde d’Estmael is co-founder & CEO of Faircado, a Berlin-based startup that provides the first AI-powered second-hand shopping assistant in Europe. Faircado’s technology helps people find the best second-hand alternatives to what they are searching for online. Driven by the mission to reduce global waste and support the shift to a circular economy, Faircado’s goal is to help make second-hand goods the first choice for consumers. Evolena was born in Belgium and is proud to be an impact entrepreneur, committed to the circular economy and sustainability. She was named one of the top 100 women in social enterprise in 2022 and is an EU Climate Pact Ambassador. Evolena is also the co-founder of Solidartsy, a non-profit dedicated to bridging the art world’s gender pay gap. Faircado is available as a browser extension, working in the background to search for second-hand alternatives to whatever you’re looking to buy, and Evolena explains why they decided to start with a browser extension rather than an app or a website. Until recently, Faircado was available only in Germany, and yet already has 100 million products integrated from 60 different partners. Evolena talks about the numbers and the partnerships, including how this works commercially and how companies like eBay are reacting. We hear about the underlying principles for designing the technology, and how Faircado has used research into habits and behaviours to make it easy for people to adopt. Evolena shares some of her fascinating backstory too, which blends a deep sense of purpose with making interesting and maybe unexpected choices at various forks in the road.

Chris Allen, Sustainability Leader and Head of Circular Business Development at Decathlon UK. You’ve probably heard of Decathlon, which is the world’s largest sporting goods retailer, with over 1,700 stores in more than 70 countries. It’s a family-owned company, founded in 1976, and inspired by the belief that the best sports products should be accessible to everyone. Chris Allen has 15 Years experience in Decathlon spanning various retail management roles, including several years in Category Management and Head of Outdoor before being appointed to his Sustainability role in 2022. Chris has a degree in Sports Engineering and is an advocate of all things outdoors, and loves being out on his bike or at the local climbing wall. Decathlon describes itself as specialising in the creation and production of innovative sporting goods designed to delight and move people through the wonders of sport, including cycling, hiking, running, swimming and football. Decathlon sees its mission as ever-evolving and high-performance design, the best quality at the lowest possible price, and expert advice that customers of all ages, backgrounds and skill levels can access in-store or online, from anywhere, at any time. Decathlon has an integrated business model, with over twenty in-house brands as well as supplying well-known brands including Asics, Adidas, Garmin, Puma, Quiksilver, Reebok, Salomon, and many others. In the UK, Decathlon offers a 2-year warranty on its own brand products, has buy-back programme so customers can save money and trade in their old gear. It sells through it’s retail stores and online, and offers a 365-day returns policy, giving customers a whole year to decide if something is right for them. Chris will talk us through Decathlon’s approach, including how the buy-back, second-life and repair programmes work in practice, and how he’s working with the in-house and external product and design teams to implement a whole-systems approach to sustainability.

Michael Colarossi of Avery Dennison explains how Digital Product Passports can be a key enabler in the transition to a circular economy. Michael is head of Enterprise Sustainability at Avery Dennison, which specializes in global materials science and digital identification solutions. As part of the the leadership team, Michael is responsible for environmental, social and governance (ESG) strategy across the company’s worldwide operations. His work focuses on climate action, decarbonization, global supply chain transparency, digital product passports, circular labels and packaging materials. You might already know that the European Union is rolling out a new regulation meaning that nearly all products sold in the EU will require a Digital Product Passport (DPP). The initiative is part of the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation, and aims to enhance transparency and improve availability of reliable product data, by providing comprehensive information about each product’s origin, materials, environmental impact, and recommendations for disposal. The EU Digital Product Passport will include a unique product identifier, compliance documentation, and information on substances of concern. It will also provide user manuals, safety instructions, and guidance on product disposal. The EU intends that Digital Product Passports will enhance supply chain management, ensure regulatory compliance, and help companies identify and mitigate risks related to authenticity and environmental impact. For example, those products like mattresses, sofas and other home furnishings often contain multiple materials, including some natural fibres like wool and cotton, plus synthetics like polyester. The more we know about the make up of the product, the easier it is to decide whether and how it could be refurbished, remanfactured or recycled. The EU regulations will be mandatory for industrial and electric vehicle batteries from 2027, and other product categories, including textiles, are expected to follow by 2030. Michael Colarossi gives us a broader overview of Digital Product Passports, including what kinds of products are they useful for, and what forms they take. As Michael explains, the EU regulations only require the passport to provide details for the type of product – not for every individual unit of that product. We discuss why that more detailed approach would be better. We talk about the potential for Digital Product Passports to guard against fraud and misinformation This isn’t straightforward, and we talk about some of the barriers and difficulties from a company perspective, together with the advantages that help make a good business case for doing it, even without the legislation.

Anna De Matos is the founder of several community-focused sharing initiatives, and a force of nature. Originally from Brazil, Anna De Matos went to university in the UK and moved to Iceland in 2017. Inspired by a visit to Toronto's tool library, Anna started a tool library and repair café, and managed to bootstrap and crowdfund her way to establishing these – all whilst dealing with the serious challenges of autoimmune disease. Anna has degrees in Conservation and Restoration and is now channelling her skills and experience into helping people conserve and restore their things. She founded the Munasafn RVK Tool Library to promote shared resource use and has organized numerous repair café events, fostering a culture of repair and reuse within Icelandic communities. Anna’s skills go beyond organising and bringing people together, and she’s also created a technology add-on to MyTurn’s Library of Things software to provide a self-service kiosk option for Libraries of Things. Anna’s hands-on experience in running these initiatives provides her with unique insights into the practical needs of communities, which she has channeled into the creation of the Circular Library Network (CLN), helping communities around the world manage their own "libraries of things," promoting sustainability through shared access to essential items – so we can all get more, from less. Anna’s story is inspiring, and fascinating, with many forks in the road that led her to what she’s doing now.

Joel Tasche founded CleanHub, a Berlin-based company that provides a scalable solution to plastic pollution. CleanHub connects coastal communities to proper waste collection in places where that doesn’t exist, at the same time creating safe and dignified jobs. Brands can support the mission by funding the collection of waste that otherwise wouldn’t be collected. CleanHub accepts ALL types of plastic – not just the stuff that’s easy to turn into value. CleanHub’s AI technology tracks the entire process from collection to disposal, ensuring transparency. It’s verified by TÜV SÜD according to ISO standards Joel’s mission was sparked by a love of the ocean. As a traveler and surfer, he witnessed firsthand the heartbreaking reality of plastic pollution, everywhere he went. Whilst disheartened, Joel resolved to dedicate his working life to keeping plastic out of the sea. Many doubted he could make a difference. Fast forward to today, CleanHub has collected over 9 million kgs of plastic waste and partnered with more than 300 brands, helping them reduce plastic and collect more plastic than they use. Whilst we see images of ocean plastics, beach plastics and landfills, we’re perhaps less familiar with the dreadful working conditions of those trying to earn a living by collecting and sorting the waste. Resolving this is at the heart of CleanHub’s mission, and we’ll more about how it does that. Joel also talks about the complexities of plastic waste collection, how to scale new ventures, and how keeping ethics at the heart of your business really helps bring everyone along with you.

Are we focused on adding more fuel to get the circular economy going – when, really, the problem is too much friction?Those terms stuck with me a few years ago, from a book helping people to get new ideas going, and succeeding, by looking more closely at the 'frictions' that create resistance. The book, The Human Element is written by organisational psychologist Loran Nordgren and David Schonthal, a specialist in entrepreneurship, design, and innovation.They say that most people working to create change focus on increasing the appeal of the idea itself – we’re convinced that if we add enough value, people will say “yes.”' Whilst it’s definitely helpful to ‘sell the sizzle’ of our idea, to help move it forward, we tend to overlook the power of all the concerns, confusion, and other factors getting in the way of the change – the friction.Of course, fuel is necessary for success. Frictions, on the other hand, are difficult to spot. We are naturally convinced that our idea, our project, our new service, is the best thing since sliced bread. So it’s hard for us to see what’s getting in the way for our audience, customers, or investors. Understanding and overcoming frictions requires empathy. We have to see the world, and our idea within it, from the perspective of those affected.Over the last series of podcast episodes, we’ve talked about quite a few fuels and frictions relating to the circular economy. Reflecting on those conversations helped me see some recurring themes, including:Systems thinking, and the need for seeing a connected whole instead of separate parts, or sub-sectionsCulture, language and how we understand and interpret the circular economyMindsets – what’s our worldview, and does this mean we’re stuck in our ways?Information technology, especially ‘legacy’ software systems.In this episode, I’m going to pull out some of the fuel and friction insights shared by our guests. International speaker, author and strategic advisor, Catherine Weetman helps people discover why circular, regenerative and fair solutions are better for people, planet – and prosperity. Catherine's award-winning book: A Circular Economy Handbook: How to Build a More Resilient, Competitive and Sustainable Business includes lots of practical examples and tips on getting started. Stay in touch for free insights and updates... Read on for more on our guest and links to the people, organisations and other resources we mention. Don't forget, you can subscribe to the podcast series on iTunes, Google Podcasts, PlayerFM, Spotify, TuneIn, or search for "circular economy" in your favourite podcast app. Stay in touch to get free insights and updates, direct to your inbox...You can also use our interactive, searchable podcast index to find episodes by sector, by region or by circular strategy. Plus, there is now a regular Circular Economy Podcast newsletter, so you get the latest episode show notes and links delivered to your inbox on Sunday morning, each fortnight. The newsletter includes a link to the episode page on our website, with an audio player. You can subscribe by clicking this link to update your preferences. Links for the episode: Catherine's work: Circular Economy Podcast on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/showcase/circular-economy-podcast/ Circular Economy Podcast website: circulareconomypodcast.com Catherine Weetman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherine-weetman-9419107/ A Circular Economy Handbook: How to Build a More Resilient, Competitive and Sustainable Business - buy from any good bookseller, or direct from the publisher Kogan Page, which ships worldwide (free shipping to UK and US) https://www.koganpage.com/CircEcon2 Interactive podcast index https://www.rethinkglobal.info/circular-economy-podcast-index/ Rethink Global www.rethinkglobal.info Sign up to get the podcast player and shownotes for each new episode emailed to your inbox Books, films, people and organisations we mentionedThe Human Element,

Peter McCafferty works on Zero Waste Scotland’s Circular Economy Business Support Service (CEBS). These services were launched back in 2017, and since then, Peter has worked with over 200 SMEs and large organisations, so he’s got a wealth of experience and insights to share with us, especially on the fuel and friction around the circular economy. Zero Waste Scotland is a not-for-profit environmental organisation funded by the Scottish Government and the European Regional Development Fund. Its purpose is to lead Scotland to use products and resources responsibly, focusing on where it can have the greatest impact on climate change. It aims to both inform government policy, and to motivate individuals and businesses to embrace the environmental, economic, and social benefits of a circular economy. Peter has over 13 years of experience of working in sustainability and resource management, and his role involves working with individual businesses to identify, shape and develop circular and sustainable business ideas through a mix of 1-1 coaching and engagement, as well as facilitating bespoke support via Zero Waste Scotland's dedicated CE Framework. Our discussion includes: What’s the big ‘why’ behind ZWS, and in a practical sense, how does it provide support for businesses in Scotland that want to adopt circular solutions? What kind of things are providing the ‘fuel’ for the circular economy, and why digital solutions are coming to the fore as key enablers of circularity. We discuss some of the barriers to circular approaches, including regulatory challenges, scaling issues, and underestimated waste reduction potential. These days, we’re all living in a VUCA world – volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous - and we discuss the importance of systems thinking, especially in getting to grips with the challenges of implementation and addressing complex global issues. We share our thoughts on the ongoing struggle with language and interpretation of circular economy, and Peter talks about the increasing focus on carbon footprinting and net zero policies, and how seems to be getting in the way of conversations for circularity.

Award-winning documentary film maker Rubén Abruña helps us dig into one of the oldest problems in civil society… All around the world, there are serious problems caused by the various ways we deal with our toilet waste – all the poop and pee we humans create every day. We waste drinking water - Flushing toilets use massive amounts of water – for example, in a country like Switzerland, each person will flush over 40 litres a day down the toilet. Often, the sewage from water toilets is mixed with household waste water, so it’s now contaminated with microplastics, cleaning chemicals, contraceptives and drug residues. And then, in most western societies, all that liquid waste is then mixed with industrial waste. So now we’ve got massive volumes of pretty toxic stuff to try and clean up, and separate into drinkable water and solid waste. In developing countries, millions of people still use open toilets, or have to defecate on the land around their houses. So here, there are massive issues with disease and vermin, and in some areas, even a safety risk from predatory animals. What’s more, we’re wasting precious resources, too. Our human pee and poop contains valuable nutrients, including significant quantities of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium – NPK - the key elements that we need to growing food and other crops. Instead, we’re using expensive fossil fuels and synthetic chemicals to provide these macronutrients. Back in his homeland of Puerto Rico over 20 years ago, Rubén Abruña experienced a sanitation epiphany when he sat on a dry toilet for the first time. He was amazed that he could poop using no water, leaving no stink, and that the deposit could be safely composted into fertilizer, without polluting the environment. It drove him nuts that more people were not doing the same, and this prompted him to make the award-winning film “Holy Shit: Can Poop Save the World?” Rubén has over 30 years of experience in the film, television, and radio industries. He has written, produced, directed, and edited numerous documentaries, broadcast journalism stories, and educational programs in New York, San Juan, Miami, and Zürich.