Yann Toutant is the founder of Black Winch, which helps businesses understand the opportunities, practicalities and benefits of shifting to ‘as a service’ models, and supports them in making it happen. Yann has been implementing subscription-based models for hardware in the ICT industry for 25 years, including over a decade as CEO of Econocom’s Dutch operations. Today with his own company, Black Winch, Yann Toutant helps CEOs and their teams to focus on the user experience by incorporating all components of an As-A-Service offer into a single in-house comprehensive, scalable subscription model. Yann sees offering a doorway to circular economy as one of the main drivers, making it possible to centralise ownership and to industrialise circularity at scale. We discuss why ‘as a service’ is becoming more popular, for business customers as well as for people in general, and then Yann talks about some of the benefits for service-based businesses, and how Black Winch helps its clients take the first, easy steps to ignite that journey. Yann explains how, for some products, ‘as a service’ is likely to exist alongside traditional ownership models, and what he sees as the motivators for that.

Ruth Taylor of the Common Cause Foundation guides us through the field of social psychology, to explore how our personal values drive behaviour, and what that means for sustainability and the circular economy. I recently completed ‘Values 101’, a short course run by the Common Cause Foundation. It opened my eyes to a whole new way of thinking about our behaviour and what motivates our choices, actions and interactions. The course tutors were Ruth and her colleague Tom Crompton, and today, I’m talking to Ruth about some of my main takeaways from the course. The Common Cause Foundation works at the intersection of culture change and human values, and is driven by the belief that it is possible to design societies that magnify and strengthen the cooperative and caring parts of human nature. By doing that together, we can build ways of living that are equitable and just, and lie within our planetary boundaries. The Common Cause Foundation sees Values playing a pivotal role in shaping our cultures and systems. The dominant global culture is out of balance, prioritising extrinsic values such as wealth, power and social status, in a way that has led us to the brink of destruction; with crises of poverty, inequality and climate change. Common Cause Foundation’s work shows that balance can be restored by elevating intrinsic values instead – values like community, creativity and unity with nature. Ruth Taylor has worked in the field of social and environmental change for close to 15 years. She is driven by the question of how more people can be encouraged to think, feel and act differently when it comes to the multiple and interconnected challenges we are experiencing globally. Ruth explains what values mean, and how they impact our daily lives, and we talk about the Perception Gap – the mistaken beliefs we have about other people’s values, and why that matters. We also talk about why we might not always act in line with our values, and how we can overcome that. We explore how engaging certain values could influence more sustainable and circular behaviours, and how it’s relatively easy for people to become interested in topics and actions that have similar underlying principles - for example, being passionate about women’s rights makes it more likely that you’ll be interested in supporting other movements for equality and fairness, both for humans and other-than humans. We find out how values are like muscles, and can be strengthened, and we discover why we misunderstand other people’s values, and how that’s holding back our shift to a circular and regenerative world.

Professor Walter R Stahel, widely acknowledged as a circular economy pioneer, talks about progress, barriers and missed opportunities. Walter is the founder and director of the Product-Life Institute in Switzerland, founded in 1982 and now Europe’s oldest sustainability-based consultancy and think tank. These days, his is a keynote speaker and author on sustainability and circular economy and says he has always been interested in what he does not know. With over 500 publications since 1975, he holds a number of visiting professor and lecturing roles, and a long list of awards and advisory roles, including being a Full Member of the Club of Rome. Walter sees the circular economy as a ‘changer of the globalised industrial game’, creating societal resilience and providing protection against disruptive events. Walter created the idea of the performance economy, as a way of extending the concepts of the circular economy, and says that many of the opportunities are either untapped, or criticised by those who benefit from the Rentier Economy. (If you want to know more about the problems of the rentier economy, have a listen back to ep 119 with Ken Webster.) We talk about the business case for the circular economy, and Walter highlights some of the aspects that are often missed, especially for the future value of materials. We discuss the opportunities offered by platforms, digital twins and passports for products and materials, and why we need better ways to assess the remaining life of expensive products and components. We discuss the need to shift from a mindset of owning to using, and the need to change how we frame things for customers and businesses. Walter describes how we might rethink designs to minimise risks and liabilities, and how caring for our things opens up lots of interesting career opportunities, especially for young people.

Mirella Ferraz is co-founder of Share Shed, the world's first travelling library of things. The Share Shed van visits rural communities, so people can borrow a wide range of useful things, including tools, household appliances, camping and gardening equipment, sewing machines, suitcases and much more! Share Shed aims to • Help people save money, space and resources, and reduce clutter • Build bridges between people’s needs and wants and the resources already available in their community • Support more collaborative and sustainable lifestyles and inspire people to engage in social change Mirella Ferraz has worked for over 10 years at the Network of Wellbeing, which supports Share Shed, and she is proud to set up and run community projects that support the wellbeing of people and the planet. Mirella grew up in Brazil, and currently lives in Devon, UK. We find out how Share Shed works in practice, and how it’s been evolving as it expands to serve more communities – including finding was to make the service more convenient for those who can’t make it to the Shed’s pick up and drop off locations and schedule. Mirella tells us how perceptions and attitudes are changing, too – for a variety of reasons.

We explore why it’s important for business to map, and understand their waste flows: what it is, specifically; where it comes from and goes to; how much there is – and why!; and to understand the opportunities for wasting less and circulating more value. Topolytics is a data analytics business that is making the world’s waste visible, verifiable and valuable. Michael Groves and Fleur Ruckley explain how data analytics, mapping and machine learning can make waste and resource management more transparent, efficient and effective, both commercially and environmentally. Founder and CEO Michael Groves is a geographer with a PhD in aerial and satellite earth observation. Michael has over 20 years’ experience in environmental management and sustainability reporting. Fleur Ruckley is Topolytics’ Head of Implementation, using Topolytics’ WasteMap® platform to generate actionable waste and resources analytics for clients and their supply chains. Fleur has a degree in Natural Sciences and a Masters in Environmental Management, and has worked in the charity, public and private sector supporting organisations, communities and schools to develop and implement sustainable and circular policies and practices. Fleur is a Chartered Waste Manager and is a member of the Circular Economy Steering Group for the Institute for Environmental Management & Assessment. Leveraging Topolytics waste map means companies can identify areas for improvement, such as preventing or reducing the waste or by re-designing processes and products, to support reuse and to achieve more efficient and sustainable outcomes. Mike explains how those sectors with significant waste generation are showing increasing interest in this. Business that understand what materials they produce and consume, can then make better decisions about recovery, reuse and recycling, and Geospatial analysis can help reduce waste by identifying material flow and leakage. Fleur tells us how companies are starting to see the benefits of using data and modeling to reduce waste in their supply chains, with improvements in ESG reporting, supplier management, and overall performance. Mike also highlights the potential for industrial symbiosis, using unwanted materials to create resources for another organisation – in other words, new by-products and value opportunities!

Iain McKechnie of the Advanced Services Group helps clients develop services-led strategies, improving circularity and outcomes for the businesses and their customers. The market for services, including rental, subscriptions and ‘X-as-a-service’ is growing rapidly, both for business to business and business to consumer markets, and services can be a gamechanger for businesses looking to shrink their footprint and adopt circular strategies. It’s all part of a shift from a culture of ‘ownership’ to ‘usership’, with services emerging as a way to provide more convenient, flexible options for customers, avoiding the burden and hassle of ownership. Meanwhile, businesses can benefit from the stability of recurring revenue, predictable income streams and easier financial planning; and improve sustainability by using resources more efficiently. And providing services helps businesses get closer to their customers, with many more opportunities for contact and dialogues, discovering more about what customers value, and how to improve things. The Advanced Services Group are specialists in servitization research and practice, with work that is grounded in the latest academic research, real industry insight, business know-how and experience. The Advanced Services Group helps manufacturing companies and technology innovators on their servitization journey to develop services-led strategies and ultimately transform their business model to compete through advanced services. ASG has worked with over 300 businesses, multinational companies and SMEs to develop their growth strategies through services. Iain tells us a bit about what Advanced Services Group does, and which kind of sectors are starting to move towards service-based models. Iain then explains how companies can transition from selling products, to moving along what ASG calls the 'Services Staircase', developing different kinds of services to create value for their customers. Iain talks about the kind of benefits these companies are seeing – and how this is better for their customers, too. We hear what typically holds companies back from switching to services, and how they might get started. Iain shares a couple of diagrams from the resources on ASG’s website – the Transformation Roadmap and the Services Staircase, and I’ve included links to those in the shownotes.

Claire O’Sullivan and Kitty Wilson Brown are two inspiring people who are passionate about the properties and potential of hemp, especially for textiles. Their journey together led them to found a UK business, Contemporary Hempery. Hemp has amazing potential, for a wide range of products, and it’s brilliant for regenerative farming practices – so why aren’t we doing more with it? It’s useful as a textile, in construction, in food and personal care products, and as an alternative to plastic. But although cultivation is increasing and being encouraged by the European Union, elsewhere it’s a different picture. Kitty and Claire outline some of the uses of hemp across different sectors, about the little-known history of hemp growing in the UK, and some of the ways it was used – many of them absolutely essential to our industrial evolution. We’ll also hear about some of the current issues, in terms of hemp production and processing. Kitty and Claire also share the story of how they came together, the amazing coincidences that sparked their interest and what drove them to start Contemporary Hempery, to embark on this long and complex journey to rescue hemp for regenerative, contemporary textiles.

People’s priorities are changing, as we realise more stuff doesn’t make us happier– so how can businesses thrive by doing better, with less? In this episode, Catherine suggests it’s time to bust one of the myths of the modern economy – people don’t want more and stuff! Priorities are changing, people are realising that more stuff doesn't make us happier. Instead, people are discovering that life is better when we care for, share and treasure our stuff, and what’s more, that’s better for our planet and society. But this presents a big challenge – a paradox – how can businesses succeed without selling more stuff, every year? Many of the Circular Economy Podcast guests are already doing just that, using circular strategies to thrive by doing better with less. You probably already have big questions on this. It feels logical to say that new designs and innovations will always make life better, that people want to keep up with trends and the status that comes from having the latest thing, And of course, that making new products underpins the success of a business ... but Catherine shares research and insights from guests in the last series of podcasts to show why we need to question conventional wisdom, and choose alternative strategies that are fit for the current business landscape.

This is the 2nd part of the conversation with Ken Webster, one of the foremost thinkers in the circular economy field, where we explore concepts for a critical aspect that’s being ignored - the economy itself! In this episode, we go deeper into the possibilities offered by a universal basic dividend, especially as we move to a world where artificial intelligence might completely change the nature of work. Ken mentions his work with Earth4all, supporting the discourse and new thinking marking the 50th anniversary of the Club of Rome's ground-breaking Limits to Growth report. We move on to Ken’s mission to make these concepts easier to grasp and to help people get excited, plus the importance of getting really clear on the core idea, before trying to make this work in practical terms. Ken explains the overlaps between the thinking around circular economy and complex, adaptive systems and highlights some of the glaring faultlines in mainstream economic thinking. That leads us back to the Commons and regenerative and open systems, together with the key questions that should be at the heart of designing circular products, components and materials, And we finish by hearing a bit more about Ken's most recent books, including ABC&D: Creating a Regenerative Circular Economy for All - co-written with Craig Johnson, and his latest book, The Wonderful Circles of Oz: A Circular Economy Story, written with Alex Duff. If you haven’t already, please do listen to the previous episode to hear Ken talk about the Universal Basic Dividend (not Universal Basic Income), and the importance of reviving the concepts of commoning, and the Commons.

This episode is different – I’m talking to Ken Webster and we explore some big themes and concepts for a critical part of the circular economy that often gets ignored - the economy itself! Catherine says: Ken Webster is right up there as one of my circular economy heroes, and is widely acknowledged as one of the foremost thinkers in the field. From 2010 – 2018, Ken was Head of Innovation for the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, shaping current concepts of a ‘circular economy’.. Ken also co-wrote the book that first opened my eyes to the circular economy back in 2011 – Sense and Sustainability, co-written with Craig Johnson. One of Ken’s best-known books, The Circular Economy: A Wealth of Flows, relates the connections between systems thinking, economic and business opportunity and the transition to a circular economy. I’m very keen to read one of Ken’s most recent books, co-written with Alex Duff. Ken and Alex use a storytelling approach based on the The Wonderful Wizard of Oz to offer a new and compelling narrative about the future direction of our economy, calling for macro-economic system redesign. It’s called The Wonderful Circles of Oz: A Circular Economy Story – you’ll find links in the shownotes. Ken’s written several more thought-provoking works on the circular economy, including ABC+D: Creating a Regenerative Circular Economy for All - also co-written with Craig Johnson, and we mention some of these as we go along. This was a wide-ranging conversation about system-scale issues and concepts. I tried my best to keep up with Ken’s thinking as we explored some of the big ideas he has been working on, including: • A Universal Basic Dividend – not to be confused with UBI, or Universal Basic Income. We discuss why a Universal Basic Dividend would be a good thing, how it would be funded and where the money would flow to. • We move onto The Commons – what that really means, and how it could be better accommodated in our modern economies, in a meaningful and sustainable way. • Ken talks about the rentier economy, and rentiers. If you’re not familiar with that term, it’s someone who earns income from capital without working – for example by owning property or land that is rented out to tenants; by owning shares or bonds that pay dividends or interest, and so on. • We discuss why the economy isn’t working for the vast majority of people around the world, and what’s getting in the way of an ‘economy for all’. • We talk about some of the signals for change, with people are starting to see the potential of a future with community, connection and caring – caring for each other, and for our Mother Earth. The potential of a future that’s not all about ‘Work, Buy, Consume, Die’. I’ve split our conversation into two parts – the 2nd part will be out next week as a bonus episode.

Let’s talk about how we talk about the circular economy – the language we use, and whether it’s helping us… or getting in the way. Ann Stevenson is the circular economy lead at Resource Futures, an employee-owned and non-profit distributing BCorp environmental consultancy in the UK. Ann has been working in the field of environmental consultancy for over 25 years, and one of her specialisms is understanding and managing risks in transitioning to a circular economy. Ann became curious to know more about how we use language to explain and make the case for the circular economy, and to discover whether that is affecting how SMEs are moving towards more circular practices. The academic term for this kind of research is discourse analysis – aiming to understand how language is used in real life situations. Ann recently completed a PhD, using discourse analysis to investigate perceptions of risks around the CE for established small manufacturing businesses, or SMEs, and she’s written a chapter with her key findings for a newly released book: Circular Economy: Meeting Sustainable Development Goals, published by the Royal Society of Chemistry. We’ve included links to Ann’s phD and the book in the shownotes. We discuss some surprising findings, in particular how we tend to frame the workings and outcomes of a circular economy in ways that actually encourage and embed the wrong behaviours! For example, Ann explains how focusing on economic cost savings can lead us to focus on outcomes that are too narrow, and that might ignore important benefits – especially over the long term. We can end up with unintended consequences, too - one example is when we talk about waste being a valuable resource – and Ann explains why that’s tricky.

James Rigg is CEO of Trojan Electronics in Wales, and has a wealth of expertise in value-adding circular solutions for electrical and electronics manufacturers and retailers. James has built on his experience across retail and more recently, leading growth across the Buy It Direct Group, and is now focussed on expanding Trojan Electronics Circular Solutions to help retailers and manufacturers recover value and at the same time, reduce e-waste. Trojan provides services to high-profile brands, and we’ll hear about some examples. E-waste – the waste from end-of-life or unwanted electricals and electronics – is the world’s fastest growing waste stream, and is forecast to grow by 30% over this decade. The Trojan Electronics team provides electrical repair, refurb and resell services in several ways – through their client’s own marketplace stores, through direct integration into the clients’ ecommerce stores, and through Amazon, eBay, Tik Tok, Wowcher and others. Trojan is a £20M turnover business based in Swansea, south Wales, employing 150 staff in a purpose-built warehouse housing repairs and all its other services, and refurbishing over half a million items each year. Ahead of our conversation, James sent me some customer research, digging into people’s attitudes to refurbished products, with some very encouraging findings, and we’ll hear more about that in the conversation. I can share a few of the standout figures now: over a third of the respondents had bought a refurbished or repaired electrical item in the previous 12 months, including smartphones, laptops or tablets, and household appliances. Only 1% of those people had a bad experience with that purchase, and almost 80% said they’d buy refurbished in the future. And even though people knew they’d bought a refurbished item, 24% of customers couldn’t tell the difference from the equivalent new product. The survey includes some market research, highlighting predictions for the growth of refurbished electronics – the market was valued at around $85bn in 2021 and is forecast to grow at 12% each year over the next decade. James is happy to share the research, and I’ve included a link to the research paper in the shownotes. James also shared information from Trojan’s clients who are offering refurbished products alongside new versions, and the results are very exciting. However, at some clients, attitudes are slow to change, with people reluctant to make the transition to selling refurbished products as well as new versions, and James explains some of the reasons behind this.

Chuck Fuerst is Chief Marketing Officer for software provider ReverseLogix. ReverseLogix is the only end-to-end, centralized, and fully integrated returns management system built specifically for retail, eCommerce, manufacturing and 3PL organizations. The ReverseLogix platform facilitates, manages, and reports on the entire returns’ lifecycle. When I first worked in logistics, back in the late 1980s, for most companies, most of the time, returns were a minor issue. When e-commerce came along, starting in the 1990’s, product returns began to increase, and over the last few decades – especially as companies have moved towards cheaper products, with less reliable information on sizing for things like clothing - returns have become a major issue for many businesses – whether that’s for manufacturers and retailers, and for both B2B and B2C models. Chuck explains how the ReverseLogix software helps companies improve the process for getting products back into the system – whether that’s from e-commerce returns, returns of faulty goods, for repairs and warranty claims, and more. We’ll hear how ReverseLogix improves the customer returns experience, saves employee time with faster workflows, and helps businesses get insights into returns data – all of which improve profits and circular outcomes.

We’re exploring the broader context of a future-fit economy, asking questions like: How do we create the conditions for circular solutions to gain traction? What’s holding us back, particularly when we think about our economic systems, and the way companies are set up? In today’s episode, I’m talking to Paddy Le Flufy about his book, Building Tomorrow: Averting Environmental Crisis With a New Economic System, which was published in March 2023. Paddy’s aim is to work out how we can improve our own society AND improve the lives of the billions of people currently affected by the dominant global systems. In A Circular Economy Handbook, I included a chapter on Enablers and Accelerators for the circular economy, and today we’re going to explore a couple of important ideas that fit into those categories – concepts that aren’t circular in themselves, but are important ways to help circular approaches have even more impact. Before embarking on this project, in 2015, Paddy had a somewhat different life. After a degree in mathematics at Cambridge University then qualifying as an accountant at KPMG in London, he lived something of a double life. He worked as a finance specialist in London for six months at a time, but then used his money to live in remote places, alongside people whose lives were drastically different from his own – and we’ll hear a bit more about that later. Paddy’s book is featured on the 2023 Financial Times Best Book of Summer reading list, and has earned praise from Jeremy Lent. “The book aims directly at creating systemic change by providing people with both a holistic vision of a new economic system and the tools with which to build it… Positive real-world examples and potential future developments show how people throughout society can help build the new system. Those that do will be creating a better world.” Paddy will give us an overview of the 6 themes in the book, one of which is the circular economy, and we’ll then go a bit deeper with a couple of them, exploring different forms of company structures and learning more about regenerative organisations.

Daniel Kietzer is Director of Ecosystem Growth at Rheaply, a digital sharing platform scaling reuse by making resources discoverable, easily transferable and more valuable. Rheaply was started in 2016, and has won lots of awards, including Most Innovative Reuse Company at the Reusies in 2021. It’s backed by a number of early-stage investors, including Microsoft and Salesforce. Daniel Kietzer provides strategic, organizational, and technical support to Rheaply clients and their partners. He’s a circular economy and sustainability professional with 10+ years of experience designing and leading impact-focused projects with forward-thinking companies and organizations across the globe. Daniel’s speciality is reuse and recycling market development is his specialty, but he also dabbles in social entrepreneurship, sustainability in the built environment, water, carbon, and a variety of other sustainability-related efforts. We’ll get an update on how Rheaply has evolved since my original conversation with Tom Fecarotta back in 2020, in particular how data aggregation unlocks opportunities for cost and carbon savings, as well as supporting your zero waste targets. So many organisations could be tapping into these solutions to help them do better, with less.

Steven Bethell is a thought leader and pioneer in the post-consumer textile space for over 20 years, who’s creating innovative and relevant solutions to the crisis of stuff. Steven is co-founder of the Bank and Vogue family of companies, which includes a major remanufacturing plant where the circular economy for textiles is brought to life. Taking post-consumer waste and transforming it into relevant products, Steven works with big brands to help them bring their sustainability platforms to the next level. Steven is also behind Beyond Retro, the largest vintage retailer in the UK and the Nordics which launched in 2002 and now has 15 retail outlets and an online shop, offering a wide selection of handpicked vintage clothing. When we donate clothes and shoes to a charity shop, how many of those end up being put on display and successfully sold? You might be surprised by the stats that Steven shares. Steven explains how he at the leverage points in the overall system, to work out where B&V could get involved and how to retain more value, in particular by reselling. Steven then took this further, finding ways to repurpose and remanufacture clothing and footwear – at scale. Steven explains how this works in the retail business he set up – Beyond Retro – and how he then looked upstream to develop remanufacturing services for a major US footwear retailer. Steven thinks at a system level, looking at the whole value network both upstream and downstream to see where he can intervene to make the biggest impact, and how to create the critical mass needed to create value, and overcome the sticking points. In his spare time Steven lives off the grid in the Canadian wilderness. He is an avid woodsman: fishing, paddling and learning about the outdoors and its many wonders.

Fiona Dear is a Co-Director at The Restart Project, which aims to keep our electronic technology in use for longer through repair and reuse

How might we design and make ceramics in a circular economy? Ceramic products make our lives better in all kinds of ways. Some have been around for centuries (think bricks, tiles, pottery), and some are much more modern, in microchips and more. To help us learn about circular ceramics, we’re going to meet Sara Howard, a very impressive and award-winning ceramic designer and materials researcher, whose practice is focussed on reducing the environmental and societal impacts of ceramic production. Sara graduated from Central St. Martins in 2020, with a BA Honours Degree in Ceramic Design. In her final year, Sara designed an industrial symbiosis around the ceramics industry, in which waste from one industry replaces the raw materials in ceramic production. Sara wrote a book, Circular Ceramics, to openly share her methods and processes and help fellow ceramicists to adopt these sustainable processes in their own practices. On top of that, since graduating just 3 years ago, Sara has created two groundbreaking projects, collaborating with ceramic producers, artists and other industries to implement the use of industrial waste on a larger scale. Sara tells us how she’s set up a project for ceramics made with excavation waste from construction sites, and is launching a circular tableware startup in Bali, complete with its own factory. We’ll also find out about the key problems with modern ceramic production and why making new ceramics from ceramic waste is pretty much impossible.

Are we designing a circular economy – or just designing circular products and materials? Today we’re catching up with Dr. Katie Beverley. Katie is a Senior Research Officer at PDR International Centre for Design and Research, at Cardiff Metropolitan University. She works with academic partners and the public and private sector, to embed ecodesign, circular economy and sustainable thinking into products and services. Back in Episode 5, Katie helped us understand more about ecodesign. She describes herself as a ‘critical friend’ of the circular economy, and that feels like a great starting point to explore what’s going well, and what isn’t.

Janina Nieper is an Architect and Designer, working at Furnify, a design agency in the Netherlands. Janina Nieper is passionate about concepts that promote the well-being of our planet and its inhabitants, including using the Circular Economy to help us stay within planetary boundaries. At Furnify, a company dedicated to creating circular spaces, Janina is in charge of Business Development and Consulting, merging her expertise in spatial design and Circular Design. Janina wants to accelerate the Circular Economy through connecting, collaboration, and sharing, and she founded the Circular Economy Club in Amsterdam, with regular events to create a network of Circular Pioneers in Amsterdam. Furnify is a design agency, designing interior spaces for office work, education, and other activities. Furnify aims to turn its client’s sustainable ambitions into a circular reality by offering 2nd life alternatives for new designs. Furnify’s offers four services: consulting, design, realization, and story telling. We hear about how client needs are evolving and broadening. On top of the aesthetic and practical requirements around what do we need to do in this space – now, organisations want to reduce carbon, make a positive impact on other sustainability measures, and create healthier spaces for their teams and customers. That could include improving mental wellbeing, as well as reducing synthetic materials, chemicals like flame retardents and more.