Circular Economy Podcast
90 – Does circular mean it’s sustainable?
Does circular mean it’s sustainable? Or, are companies just using circular economy solutions to grow their business (and their footprints)?
In this episode, Catherine Weetman wants to shine a light on something that’s been worrying her.
Over the last few years, she’s come to realise that the circular economy is not fit for purpose. It’s not helping create the future we need. Instead, it’s being watered down, and cherry picked. Catherine sees increasing numbers of businesses and policymakers choosing strategies that ARE circular – but aren’t improving sustainability. She’ll be talking about loopholes, rather than loops…
Catherine says “I think we’re at a critical turning point. We need to evolve the circular economy into a framework that supports the future we want – the future we know is possible.
If we don’t, we’re letting all our work, our innovations, our struggles, go to waste. (And you don’t need me to remind you that waste shouldn’t exist in a circular economy!)”
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).
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Read on for a summary of the podcast and links to the people, organisations and other resources we mention.
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Links we mention in the episode:
- A Circular Economy Handbook: How to Build a More Resilient, Competitive and Sustainable Business – buy from any good bookseller, or direct from the publisher Kogan Page, which ships worldwide (free shipping to UK and US) and you can use discount code CIRCL20 to get 20% off. It’s available in paperback, ebook and Kindle. If you buy it from online sources, make sure you choose the new edition with an orange cover!
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Circular Economy Rebound, Trevor Zink and Roland Geyer, Journal of Industrial Ecology, Volume21, Issue3 https://doi.org/10.1111/jiec.12545 Special Issue: Exploring the Circular Economy
Does circular mean sustainable? How ‘false solutions’ undermine our progress, article by Catherine Weetman: https://www.rethinkglobal.info/does-circular-mean-sustainable-how-false-solutions-undermine-our-progress/
Circular economy rebound – is it always problematic? Article by Catherine Weetman: https://www.rethinkglobal.info/circular-economy-rebound-good-or-bad/
Conceptualizing the circular economy: An analysis of 114 definitions, by Julian Kirchherr, Denise Reike, Marko Hekkert, published in Resources, Conservation and Recycling, Volume 127, December 2017, Pages 221-232 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2017.09.005
Making the circular economy work for human development, by Patrick Schröder, Alexandre Lemille, PeterDesmond. Resources, Conservation and Recycling, Volume 156, May 2020, 104686 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2020.104686
Alice Mah tells Chris Seekings how plastics and chemical companies are taking control of the circular economy narrative, IEMA Transform magazine, June/July 2022 https://www.iema.net/articles/a-continuing-crisis-corporations-owning-the-circular-economy-narrative
Uber And Lyft Usage Increases Miles Driven In Cities, Study Says: So much for decreasing traffic congestion, by Stephen Edelstein UPDATED Oct 12, 2017, TheDrive https://www.thedrive.com/tech/15073/uber-and-lyft-usage-increases-miles-driven-in-cities-study-says
Renting clothes is ‘less green than throwing them away’ – Transportation and dry cleaning make it the worst green option for consumers of fashion, study finds. Article in the Guardian, by Priya Elan, 6 Jul 2021 https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2021/jul/06/renting-clothes-is-less-green-than-throwing-them-away and the research: Innovative recycling or extended use? Comparing the global warming potential of different ownership and end-of-life scenarios for textiles. Jarkko Levänen et al 2021 Environ. Res. Lett. 16 054069 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/abfac3/pdf
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.
90 – Does circular mean it’s sustainable?
23rd October 2022
Circular economy
social value
sustainability
Does circular mean it’s sustainable? Or, are companies just using circular economy solutions to grow their business (and their footprints)? In this episode, I want to shine a light on something that’s been worrying me. Over the last few years, I’ve come to realise that the circular economy is not fit for purpose. It’s not helping create the future we…
89 Simon Hombersley – plastics from plant protein
9th October 2022
biomimicry
Circular economy
plastics
regeneration
Simon Hombersley, CEO of Xampla, shares the story of how this Cambridge University spin-out has created the world’s first plant protein material for commercial use, pioneering the replacement of the most polluting plastics with natural alternatives. Xampla’s ambition is to become the leader in natural polymers, and it’s been developing its natural polymer resin over the past 15 years. The…
88 Alexandra Rico-Lloyd – the Bike Club
25th September 2022
Circular economy
mobility
rental
Alexandra Rico-Lloyd is one of the UK’s circular economy entrepreneurs, and is passionate about inspiring the next generation to get active and outdoors. Alexandra says there are over 12.5 million unused kids bikes, just in the UK. That spurred her on to create Bike Club back in 2016, to provide a better way to cycle; better for the environment, better…
87 – Veena Sahajwalla – high-value opportunities from MICROFactories
11th September 2022
Circular economy
recycling
social value
Professor Veena Sahajwalla, founder of UNSW SMaRT Centre, is an internationally recognised materials scientist, engineer, and inventor who is revolutionising recycling science. In 2018, Veena launched the world’s first e-waste MICROfactorieTM and in 2019 she launched her plastics and Green Ceramics MICROfactoriesTM, another breakthrough for recycling technology. Veena unpacks the concepts of micro-factories and micro-recycling, and we hear why it’s…
86 Jennifer Hinton – Rethinking how profit is used
28th August 2022
Circular economy
social value
sustainability
We explore a different way of thinking, about how business fits into our society and economy. Jennifer Hinton is a systems researcher and activist in the field of sustainable economy. Her work focuses on how societies relate to profit and how that relationship affects global sustainability challenges. Jennifer started developing this theory in the book How on Earth, which outlines…
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