Skip to content

109 Janina Nieper – Connecting new designs to leftover materials

Circular Economy Podcast - 109 Janina Nieper – Connecting new designs to leftover materials

Catherine Weetman talks to Janina Nieper, 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.

Podcast host Catherine Weetman is a circular economy business advisor, workshop facilitator, speaker and writer.  Her 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.  Catherine founded Rethink Global in 2013, to help businesses use circular, sustainable approaches to build a better business (and a better world).

Stay in touch for free insights and updates… 

Read on for a summary of the podcast 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, links and transcript 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 we mention in the episode:

Books, people and other links

Guest bio

Janina Nieper is an Architect and Designer passionate about concepts that promote the well-being of the planet and its habitants, thus passionate about the Circular Economy as a means to stay within planetary boundaries. Driven by her passion for the Circular Economy, Janina has actively pursued knowledge and expertise in the field. She has completed various certifications and participated in workshops accredited by institutions such as TU Delft, the Circular Economy Institution, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, and Cambridge University.

At Furnify, a company dedicated to creating circular spaces, Janina is in charge of Business Development and Consulting, merging her expertise in spatial design with her expertise in Circular Design. Eager to accelerate the Circular Economy through connecting, collaboration, and sharing she founded the Circular Economy Club in Amsterdam, a non-profit focusing on creating a network of Circular Pioneers in Amsterdam through regular events.

Furnify creates circular spaces and turns a company’s sustainable ambitions into a circular reality by offering 2nd life alternatives for new designs. Furnify’s mission is to reduce the environmental impact of a spatial redesign without compromising aesthetics by offering four services: consulting, design, realization, and story telling. They are your circular design partner for an environmentally conscious approach to spaces.  

Interview Transcript

Click here to open the transcript…

Want to find out more about the circular economy?

If you’d like to learn more about the circular economy and how it could help your business, why not listen to Episode 1, or read our guide: What is the Circular Economy

To go deeper, you could buy Catherine’s book, A Circular Economy Handbook: How to Build a More Resilient, Competitive and Sustainable Business. This comprehensive guide uses a bottom-up, practical approach, and includes hundreds of real examples from around the world, to help you really ‘get’ the circular economy.  Even better, you’ll be inspired with ideas to make your own business more competitive, resilient and sustainable. 

Please let us know what you think of the podcast – and we’d love it if you could leave us a review on iTunes, or wherever you find your podcasts.  Or send us an email

Podcast music

Thanks to Belinda O’Hooley and Heidi Tidow, otherwise known as the brilliant, inventive and generous folk duo, O’Hooley & Tidow for allowing me to use the instrumentals from the live version of Summat’s Brewin’ as music for the podcast. You can find the whole track (inspired by the Copper Family song “Oh Good Ale”) on their album, also called Summat’s Brewin’.  Or, follow them on Twitter.

157 Liz Bui Yulex

157 Liz Bui of Yulex: safer, sustainable materials

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…
156 Marcus Feldthus Post-Growth Guide

156 Marcus Feldthus: the Post-Growth Guide

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…
155 Martin Tomitsch Steve Baty life-centred design

155 Martin Tomitsch and Steve Baty: Life-centred design

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…
154 Loic Le Fouest of Clarasys

154 Loic Le Fouest of Clarasys: designing circular customer experiences

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…

Leave a Reply