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enablers

Circular Economy Podcast - Gene Homicki - getting more from less with MyTurn

105 Gene Homicki – getting more from less with MyTurn

We’re going to hear about some amazing software that helps with the 2nd of the 3 key circular strategies I advise people to use… getting more, from less. Finding ways to get more use out of under-utitlized objects can have big benefits, especially by reducing costs.
When we think about it, there are probably lots of things – both tools and toys – that we don’t use all day, every day. Sometimes we only use these things once or twice a year! But often, we want to be sure we can have access to that equipment, or that product, whenever we want. Those needs might be planned, say for camping equipment, or unplanned – like repair tools.
Today, we’ll hear from Gene Homicki, founder and CEO at MyTurn, a B2B platform that transforms idle equipment into value. MyTurn helps organizations to optimize asset usage, reduce waste, and generate revenue by making it easy to offer rental, lending, and product subscription services.
Gene is a serial entrepreneur and technology strategist who is dedicated to advancing the circular economy and sustainable systems. Over his career, he’s led teams delivering cutting-edge solutions for organizations like SEGA, ABC News, The Economist, and the National Science Foundation.
Gene co-founded the West Seattle Tool Library which has helped provide affordable access to thousands of people in the community. After seeing how much stuff people had in closets, garages and storage (while others had too little) and knowing that businesses, universities and governments had even more assets sitting idle, Gene founded myTurn.
MyTurn’s customers include businesses, communities, universities, and public sector organizations, and it is a for-profit public benefit corporation.
MyTurn’s platform has a wide range of features, from admin dashboards to online marketplaces, helping organizations of all shapes and sizes to identify and rent underutilized tools, equipment and other resources – either within the organisation, or by collaborating with others.
MyTurn’s customers are seeing big benefits from this circular solution, often increasing product reuse by 10 to 100 times compared to traditional ownership.

Circular Economy Podcast Episode 102 Jo Spolton - making second-hand our first choice

102 Jo Spolton – making second-hand our first choice

Jo Spolton is the founder of Rumage, a brilliant online platform that makes it super-easy for people to find – and buy – exactly what they’re looking for across a wide range of secondhand marketplaces.
Jo is a Fine Art graduate and was a professional racing sailor. Her adventures when sailing around the world opened a window, showing how badly global consumption is affecting our planet.
On the Rumage website, under a heading that says “let’s make secondhand first choice”, Jo explains why she’s driven to do this, saying: “I wanted my children to grow up knowing that as consumers they have a choice. Fast fashion, our disposable economy, always buying new is unsustainable. Buying second hand means less resources being used up, less energy, less manufacturing, less shipping, less landfill. The choice is ours. Rumage.com is here to make it easy.”
In this episode, Jo Spolton tells us how she came up with the idea for Rumage, and shares some of the challenges of starting up, including creating a basic test product, getting clear on what customers really want, and the difficulties of securing funding.
Jo talks us through her insights on customer trends, and how people are moving away from ownership and towards renting, sharing and subscriptions.

Circular Economy Podcast Software as a circular enabler

98 Barry O’Kane – Software as a circular enabler

It’s episode 98, and Catherine Weetman is talking to Barry O’Kane about software, one of the key enablers for circular economy solutions.
Barry O’Kane founded HappyPorch, a software engineering specialist and consultancy (and now a certified B Corp) in 2015, and I met Barry a few years ago when he asked me to help him find examples of software that was supporting circular economy strategies. Barry interviewed a few of those companies for Happy Porch Radio, and has featured many more software-related circular businesses on his podcast.
Today, Barry and I discuss the trends that he’s seeing, as businesses and developers start to build software solutions to support circular economy business models and recovery systems. Barry explains the importance of context-specific solutions, and outlines some of the software related barriers that are making it difficult for bigger businesses to adopt circular systems and processes.
He also explains how software can help you get a much better understanding of the current system, and what the possibilities might be.
We talk about the potential uses of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, including visual Machine Learning, and about blockchain, and Barry shares his lessons learned from seeing businesses trying to get started with circular solutions.
Barry talks about infrastructure software, which in this context means software to help business organizations perform basic tasks such as business transactions, supply chain management, workforce management and other internal services and processes.

Circular Economy Podcast Episode 40 Sharing Data and Values

Episode 40 – Sharing data and values

We round up themes from the last nine episodes, exploring how data is the key to solving problems of waste and underused assets, and why aligning values with your customers is important. Plus, Catherine is celebrating publication of the new edition of her award-winning A Circular Economy Handbook, and shares a code so you can save 20 percent on the print or e-book, worldwide.

Circular Economy Podcast Episode 17 Nancy Bocken of Homie

Episode 17 – Nancy Bocken of Homie

Nancy Bocken co-founded the company HOMIE, which is developing circular services for pay-per-use home appliances, starting with washing machines. Nancy has an academic background, and she is professor and research coordinator in Sustainable Business Management and Practice at Lund University in Sweden.
We talk about how Homie got started, and how the service works. Nancy tells about some of the challenges they faced, and the benefits of pay-per-use for customers, the business, and our environment.
Nancy gives us some great tips for those of you thinking about circular projects or startups, and we hear how Homie has built relationships with its customers so that a lot of the marketing is by word-of-mouth.