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Artwork for Circular Economy Podcast episode 125 with Walter Stahel

125 Walter R Stahel: signs of circular progress

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.

Circular Economy Podcast #113 Steven Bethell – systemic solutions to the crisis of stuff

113 Steven Bethell: systemic solutions to the crisis of stuff

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.

Circular Economy Podcast - Episode 77 Steve Haskew – Remanufactured laptops

77 Steve Haskew – the world’s first Kitemark for remanufactured laptops

Steve Haskew of Circular Computing, is back to tell us about how Circular Computing was awarded the world’s first BSI Kitemark™ for Remanufactured Laptops from the British Standards Institute. Steve explains what a Kitemark is, and why it’s important. Steve also tells us how the Kitemark has opened up conversations with new customers and partners, and why it’s important to realise that a zero carbon future can only happen if we go all-in for a circular economy.

Circular Economy Podcast Episode 61 Astrid Wynne – IT Sustainability expert

Episode 61 Astrid Wynne – IT Sustainability expert

Astrid Wynne is the Sustainability Lead at Techbuyer, a global sustainable IT solutions provider, which specialises in product life extension. She is also head of partnerships at Interact, a software tool that optimises energy and carbon usage of servers.
Astrid has co-authored a number of academic papers including ‘Optimizing server refresh cycles: The case for circular economy with an aging Moore’s Law’, which looked at how past generations of IT can provide a net positive on use-phase energy, economic benefit and retaining precious materials.
She is a board member at the Free ICT Europe Foundation, chair of the Sustainability Special Interest Group at the Data Centre Alliance and represents Techbuyer on the Interreg-funded research project CEDaCI, and we hear about some of the work at these collaborative and open-data projects.
This episode follows up on a previous conversation with Techbuyer, and digs into some of the perceptions around refurbished and remanufactured tech hardware, including reliability and performance. We hear how a remanufacturered server is able to outperform a latest generation machine, and why they are at least as reliable as new machines, too.

Circular Economy Podcast Episode 60 – Turning off the tap

Episode 60 Turning off the tap

Every 10th episode, Catherine Weetman looks back at recent conversations and round up some of the insights we’ve heard:
The theme for this episode is turning off the tap. What do I mean by that? One of my favourite metaphors for the linear economy – our system of taking materials, making stuff, using it and then throwing it away. We’re pushing lots of resources in at one end of the pipe – but it gushes out at the end, and there are leaks all the way along the pipe with pollution going into the atmosphere, air, water and soil.

And all of that, of course, is undermining our ability to thrive on this planet.

So what can we do? We’ve got to radically rethink business as usual, to turn off that flow of resources and waste. We need to be regenerative instead of destructive and wasteful.

We need a different approach, so we have products with a life of their own, not just serving a single user. We need objects designed for reuse and resale once someone no longer needs them, or objects available in multi user systems with customers sharing or renting when needed.

In this episode, we unpack this to understand how it works, and why it helps to separate the benefits of products and services from their cost to the global commons.

Circuar Economy Podcast Episode 53 Mick Payne of Techbuyer

Episode 53 Mick Payne – Techbuyer

Mick Payne is the Managing Director of Techbuyer’s UK operations. Techbuyer helps businesses maximise their IT budgets by supplying cost-effective new and quality refurbished servers, storage, memory and networking equipment, from over 150 brands including HPE, Dell, IBM and Cisco. Every year it configures over 3000 IT servers and data-erases over 10,000 hard drives each month.

Circular Economy Podcast Episode 33 - Greg Lavery of Rype Office

Episode 33 – Greg Lavery of Rype Office

We talk to Greg Lavery of Rype Office, which remanufactures high quality office furniture. We hear why Greg decided that office furniture is ideal for a circular business, how Rype’s customer base is evolving and why people are switching to remade furniture.
A civil engineer by training, Greg has focused his career on improving the sustainability of the built environment. He began by working for Arup and Greg was awarded a PhD in sustainable building design in the 1990s.
He built, from startup, what is now Australia’s largest solar business, Origin Solar, and as a consultant, assisted organisations with innovative sustainable business models, including Masdar City, Interface, Shell and ClimateWorks Australia.

Circular Economy Podcast Episode 30 - what have we learnt?

Episode 30 – What have we learned?

We review the last 9 episodes, exploring key themes & summarising what we’ve learned. Plus, we hear from Geoff van Sonsbeeck, on womenswear brand Baukjen’s packaging approach.
The wonders of online communication mean we’ve been to the United States, Jordan, Uganda, Canada and Ghana in the last nine episodes. We’ve talked to a start-up looking for funding, two social enterprises, two charities, a community cooperative, and several businesses that have been growing for 15-20 years.
If we look at the circular economy strategies of these organisations: five are helping to ‘Close the Loop and Regenerate’, two are ‘Slowing the Flow’ of materials through more durable, circular designs, and two are ‘Intensifying the Flow’ through sharing services.
We’ll also look at how these different organisations are creating value for different groups – for their customers, suppliers, employees, communities – and for our planet.

Catherine Weetman's webinar on the circular economy for Economia Circular Brasil

Webinar for Economia Circular Brasil

The circular economy is the #1 tool for profitable, resilient and sustainable businesses – in this webinar for Economia Circular Brasil, Catherine Weetman explains the benefits for business, and discusses the barriers: why aren’t we all doing this, now?
Part one
• What’s wrong with business as usual?
• A quick introduction to the circular economy
• Circular economy strategies – what can we do, and why is it better?
• Who is already going circular? A range of examples, from different industry sectors
• Q&A on the circular economy and business benefits
Part two
• Why aren’t we doing this already? Barriers and how to overcome them.
• Q&A on barriers

Circular Economy Insights 19

Circular Insights #19

Podcast: Circular Computing | Blog: Semi-circular | Earth Logic Fashion Action Plan | Strategy Innovation: Assumption reversal |