How do we draw people towards a deliciously sustainable future?In this episode, we’re going off at a slight tangent: to explore how we can bring people into this world, to feel they have agency and to see an exciting, meaningful future where we do better, with less.We’re going to hear about a way of telling stories – that could be fiction to help people understand circular solutions, or it might be stories to help them imagine how circular products and services work in real life, helping them...

Tara Button is the founder and CEO of Buy Me Once, a platform which helps people buy the longest-lasting products on the planet.Podcast host Catherine Weetman says "If you’ve heard me talking about the 3 essential strategies for circular businesses, you’ll know that one of those 3 strategies is Keeping things in use for longer, through durability, repairability and resellability. I get frustrated by how difficult it is to find good examples of companies doing this, and so it was brilliant to...

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...

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.Catherine Weetman says "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...

Professor Walter R Stahel is widely acknowledged as one of the founding fathers of what is now known as the circular economy.Catherine Weetman says: I first heard Walter speak at an circular economy event in London, back in 2015, and then had the opportunity to work with him as on the SFB for the Circular Economy Alliance. We wrote a paper together on Intelligent Decentralisation, one of the concepts he introduced in his latest book, The Circular Economy: A Users Guide.Walter describes...

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*...

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.Catherine Weetman talks to Michael Groves and Fleur Ruckley, to find out how data analytics, mapping and machine learning can make...

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...

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....

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 Weetman 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...

This is the 2nd part of Catherine's 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...

This episode is different – Ken Webster is a leading thinker in the circular economy field - we explore concepts for a critical aspect that’s being ignored - the economy itself!Catherine says: Ken Webster is right up there as one of my CE 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...

It’s episode 118, and we’re going to talk about how we talk about the circular economy – the language we use, and whether it’s helping us, or getting in the way. Catherine Weetman talks to Ann Stevenson, 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...

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,...

In episode 116, we hear from Chuck Fuerst, the 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.Catherine Weetman says, "When I first worked in logistics, back in the late 1980s, for most companies, most of the time,...

In today’s episode, Catherine Weetman is 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. We explore the broader context of a future-fit economy... how do we create the conditions for circular solutions to gain traction? What’s...

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....

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...

We meet Fiona Dear, a Co-Director at The Restart Project, which aims to keep our electronics in use for longer through repair and reuse. The Restart Project champions community repair, supporting regular Restart Parties where people teach each other how to repair their broken and slow devices. The Restart Project uses the data and stories they collect to help demand better, more sustainable electronics for all. Having recognised that there's only so much we can do to prevent waste...

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...

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...

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....

In the 2nd part of the conversation with Sian Sutherland, co-founder of A Plastic Planet and PlasticFree.com, Sian tells Catherine Weetman why, instead of  seeing a miserable picture of the future, we can reinvent a better, brighter future. As Sian says, by "fixing the plastic crisis, we will fix so much else." A Plastic Planet is one of the most recognised and respected organisations tackling the plastic crisis and PlasticFree, the first materials and systems solutions platform, empowering...

Sian Sutherland, co-founder of A Plastic Planet, tells Catherine Weetman why there are compelling reasons to design plastic out of our lives, and how PlasticFree.com helps us do that... Plastic is embedded in pretty much every part of our lives. The plastics industry promotes it as the perfect material for thousands of products, being cheap, lightweight, clean, and convenient. But is that really true? And are there better ways to design products, packaging and systems to meet the needs of...