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The best way to support the SDGs? Go circular!

If you’re familiar with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), you’ll know they create a ‘shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future.’ They are ‘an urgent call for action by all countries – in a global partnership.’
The 17 goals tackle the critical global issues facing all of us. They aim to end poverty and deprivation, underpinning this with ‘strategies that improve health and education, reduce inequality, and spur economic growth – all while tackling climate change and working to preserve our oceans and forests.’
We show how the circular economy is a great way to strengthen your business and make a significant impact on the SDGs.

Episode 62 Malin Orebäck Circular Design at McKinsey

Episode 62 Malin Orebäck – Circular Design at McKinsey

Malin Orebäck is leading McKinsey Design’s work in sustainability and circular economy. McKinsey Design is one of the world’s leading design agencies, and Malin shares a wide range of insights and gives us a masterclass introduction to circular design for products and services. Malin explains how she helps her clients get started with circular, and overcome linear ‘lock-in’.

Circular Economy Podcast - Episode 58 Rae Stanton - Lush Cosmetics

Episode 59 – Rae Stanton of Lush

Rae Stanton is the Earthcare Retail Lead for Lush Cosmetics UK and Ireland, using Permaculture principles to provide environmental best practice insight and guidance on packaging, sourcing regenerative ingredients and much more.
We find out how Lush embeds Permaculture and regenerative agriculture approaches into its business practices, and why Lush realised it needed to ‘own the packaging solution’ instead of relying on municipal recycling collections. Rae explains how Lush engaged its customers in designing ‘bring-back’ solutions, including asking them how much the reward should be.

Circular Economy Podcast Episode 56 Laura Meijering - Unravelau

Episode 56 Laura Meijering – Unravelau

Laura Meijering, a designer, fashion lover and entrepreneur from The Netherlands. While studying, Laura watched the True Cost documentary – something inside her snapped and she realised she wanted to be part of a better fashion system. Laura founded Unravelau in 2017, to unravel the threads of fashion and keep only the good parts. She wants to pioneer a new way of designing the clothes we wear. As Laura says, unravelling the fashion industry is a big job, and so Unravelau starts by cutting the crap and spreading awareness of the impact we have on the planet. Unravelau uses only organic and second-hand materials, and produces for customer commissions, so there is no dead stock.

Circular Economy Podcast - Ep 50 Thinking differently

Episode 50 – Thinking differently

In this season, we’ve featured another 9 amazing, talented people, helping to make the circular economy happen. Our guests have been from the USA, Chile, Ghana, Spain and the UK.
We’ve heard valuable insights, shared by people working in startups, in well-established companies, and working to support those with new ideas, or to make existing businesses more circular. And yet again, I’m struggling to fit all the brilliant tips and lessons learned into this round-up episode.
A recurring theme was the advice to use different ways of thinking. You can link up with people from outside your organisation, you can use different design perspectives, like biomimicry, lean innovation or systems thinking, and you can develop your own process to help you think about the complete cycle, as we’ll hear later.

Circular Economy Podcast Episode 49 Ryan Edwards of Naked Innovations

Episode 49 – Ryan Edwards of Naked Innovations

Ryan Edwards is Co-founder of Naked Innovations, an eclectic mix of entrepreneurial “co-creators, fresh-thinkers, disruptors, shakers and provocateurs” that create and connect agrifood ecosystems to re-align the planet, business and people.

Ryan is passionate about transforming and innovating the agrifood industry by developing successful businesses, communities and teams. His background includes over 15 years international leadership experience at Cargill as European Marketing & Innovation Leader and as Managing Director of allfoodexperts. Ryan explains how Naked Innovations combines human-centred design and circular design to work on solutions that understand the needs of people and our planet.

Circular Economy Podcast Episode 46 Gary Giles - OGEL

Episode 46 Gary Giles – OGEL

Gary Giles is another entrepreneur inspired by the circular economy. Gary set up his company, OGEL, to use a material that is quite difficult to recycle and very bulky, so transporting it to be recycled is expensive. We’ll hear how Gary was inspired by the modular design of Lego, and how he’s developed a way of constructing durable buildings that use only 3 shapes, are easy to assemble and need very few tools. Plus Gary tells us what a ‘full stop product’ is!