Does my local town have its own unique mains electricity plugs? Does the London Borough of Camden choose to drive on the right? Does each train company set its wheels to its own chosen distance between the rails, optimised for its own rail routes? No. Even in our chaotic and innovative world, we have standards, where being the same as the next town, or all the towns, is more useful than being “better.” Even the super-innovative world of IT has standards. I have lots of cables, which at one end are all different, and at the other end all the same – the USB plug.

It’s time we took the same approach to recycling – I mean specifically the separation of materials that we expect of citizens, and how these are collected. For three reasons:

• Compliance: Citizens don’t struggle with standards, in fact they are a relief, one less thing to think about, especially for mundane things. Where recycling is not standardised, we create a whole series of get-out clauses for the citizen – I didn’t understand, I didn’t believe it really gets recycled, I didn’t have time to check the label, I didn’t recognise the bins – all adding up to simply “I didn’t.” According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s recent New Plastics Economy report, globally only 14% of plastic packaging is collected for recycling. You don’t hear 86% of people say “I didn’t drive on the correct side of the road.”

• Design: Products are not designed for recycling. Not really. They carry various statements about their recyclability, which basically mean “this product could theoretically be recycled, somewhere.” The somewhere may actually be somewhere else, perhaps on the other side of the world, perhaps in a laboratory. In most places the product is sold, the design may make it nearimpossible to recycle. But manufacturers also have an impossible task, trying to design recyclable products when every municipality does recycling differently. Standardised recycling systems would give designers and manufacturers a clear target, leading to compatibility in design, labelling, and choice of materials.

• Investment: Separating different parts of the waste stream is hard, but not impossible. Almost all products start with a heterogeneous raw material from a mine or a field, and over many years engineers have developed technologies for refining and purifying the materials we use to make things. The waste steam is just another source, a growing one at a time when virgin material sources are being depleted. The waste and recycling industry is not new, but as an integral part of manufacturing industry, producing high-quality products, it is on new ground, struggling to develop the skills and business models it needs. It may seem helpful if some citizens in some places can be persuaded to segregate some materials, but this misses the point. If we’re really to stem the tide of waste, we need all the citizens in all the places to feed back all the materials. If we ask too much in terms of separation that will never happen. So a standard – a very simple standard – becomes the basis for the citizen to comply effortlessly, leaving the professionals in the waste and recycling industry to invest in doing the whole of their job.

It is nowhere near enough just to standardise between adjacent municipalities, admirable though that may be in the places it is starting to happen, like London and Scotland. Yes that may allow a larger, more efficient, recycling facility to be built, but it doesn’t begin to address the three points above. Citizens move around more widely than that, and the scale of design, manufacturing and investment is far greater than city-size. This is truly the place for international standards.

Ah yes, but citizens are different in my town. They have different needs, different culture. Really? When I worked for Unilever we researched consumer behaviour around washing clothes – a similarly mundane domestic task. Every country manager in Unilever’s global empire would tell you that “their” consumer was different. But the research showed in fact there were global archetypes of behaviour, which appeared everywhere, but in slightly different combinations. What if the same applied to recycling – what would the archetypes be? Suppose apartment dwellers in Copenhagen and in Sao Paulo actually have the same needs in terms of recycling – limited space for bins, no direct street access etc. Likewise the house dwellers, and the slum dwellers. The proportions of the three will differ – no slums in Copenhagen for a start – making it easy to say that the two cities are different. But in fact a standardised approach to each kind of dwelling could work in both cities – and everywhere else. And it’s highly debatable whether recycling behaviour is in any deep sense “cultural” – I suspect the so-called culture is mainly people being accustomed to what they currently have. So the idea that municipalities are all different seems to me to be lazy thinking – mainly a way of saying we don’t want to face change from what we are currently doing.

Isn’t standardisation a barrier to innovation and design? If innovation is meant to be a complete free-for-all, design without consequences, then perhaps, but since when was that the case? Designers always have to work within parameters of cost and regulation. Design in a circular economy is about designing the system, not just the product, and the economics and regulation will increasingly dictate that the system should allow the materials, and even better the intact product and its components, to be re-used. In that world some standardisation of recycling will greatly help the designer.

Getting this done will be hard. The points above are a provocation, which needs more evidence, although similar conclusions appear in the New Plastics Economy report, which has already come through consultation with a large expert group. But even with overwhelming evidence on the principle of standardisation, the question will be which standard? My vote would be for the simplest possible, because high compliance with a simple system should win over partial compliance with a complex system. We should even question whether citizens need to segregate their waste at all! But who decides? The greatest global leverage over product and infrastructure design comes from international companies in different sectors, and from major cities. If the CEOs of Dow, Unilever, and Veolia, all signed up to this, with some major city mayors, that would be a start. The New Plastics Economy report has these players on board, and proposes a Dialogue Mechanism which establishes a new “global plastics protocol.” I believe this needs to include the standardisation of recycling. If it doesn’t, I fear the overall task of eliminating plastic waste will dissolve into impossible complexity. Unlike the plastic floating in the ocean, which won’t dissolve for hundreds of years.

It’s time the world of recycling learns which end of the cable it is. If we want a circular economy, recycling is the USB plug.

Image: e3Learning via Creative Commons

This blog is a follow on to his piece The New Plastics Economy – a breakthrough, and not only for plastics.

Last week I wrote about the recent report on the New Plastics Economy, claiming both that it’s a breakthrough for plastics (particularly packaging), and that it positions the Circular Economy as a force for creating a new, transformational, conversation about resources.

I didn’t really explain the latter point and several people asked why I think the Circular Economy has this particular potential. Let me explain, starting with a brief trip to the zoo.

Imagine we are zookeepers. We have an elephant. But the zoo visitors are bored with the elephant and really want to see a panda. What do we do? It’s an incremental change, surely – a large mammal, four legs, probably fits in the same enclosure, we can retrain the keepers to feed it on bamboo shoots. We take a close look at the elephant, with panda in mind. It’s too big, the wrong colour, and it’s nose is too long. So we put it on a diet, start some plastic surgery on its trunk, and buy some black and white paint…

If you think this is ridiculous, remember just how strongly we business people have adopted the mantra that “you get what you measure.” So it is when we try to reduce our business “footprint.” We emit carbon, so let’s measure that and set a target to emit less; same with water, waste, and so on. If we’re really ambitious we make the target zero. But what if we have the wrong animal? What if there is a different take on our business, which doesn’t have a negative footprint in the first place, but instead is regenerative and restorative with the resources it uses?

If we take the incremental metric-driven approach, this positions business as inherently bad – the best we can do is to be less bad. This needlessly contaminates reputations and stakeholder engagement. Lots of activists think business just is bad, period – and with this mindset we’re proving them right! So we end up in attack / defend mode in external conversations, on subjects where a bit less bad isn’t good enough – ocean plastics waste, for example.

Also, this pattern of thinking really limits the strategic options we may consider. Measurement is good for comparing options, and it’s absolutely essential for tracking implementation. But measurement alone will not tell us to change the shape of our business – from linear to circular, say.

So the reason the circular economy conversation is different is because it starts with the shape, not the metric. It starts with an idea about a different way of meeting our familiar customer needs. In essence that’s a question of design, of the product, and of parts of the supply chain and business model. And if that makes it seem scary, it turns out not to be, on the whole:

• It’s an idea people readily get, about as close to common sense as you will find in solving complex problems.
• And it’s full of opportunity to actually do a better job for the customer – better products/services, and better value for money. It simply turns out that, if we think broadly enough, it‘s neither particularly effective nor efficient to use stuff once and throw it away. Is that really such a surprise?
• Finally it doesn’t mean changing everything, so it’s not something which we could never do and only a disruptor will do it, putting us out of business. We can still build on the skills and knowledge we have, and many of the same assets. We need a new animal, but not a completely new zoo!

And when we bring the metrics back into play, to evaluate the new strategy, it turns out that on dimensions like carbon, water, waste etc, the circular model is typically far more efficient – the “footprint” may even be negative. We get this multiple payoff because we’ve got to the root causes, and developed a better system, rather than trying to force improvements out of the old system. We can answer different questions: How good is our business, not how bad? What problems are we helping to solve, rather than to create?

Where this gets most challenging is not with technology, or economics, but with collaboration. The whole point of the circular economy is it’s a systems-level change – it has to work across whole supply chains, whole industries. In among loads of innovation and competition, there will need to be some areas of convergence and harmonisation, Here the winners will be those who do a standardised thing faster / better / cheaper. Waste collection needs such convergence. But why should that be impossible? We’re talking about a few specific dimensions of the system – even Apple uses standard USB and mains plugs! But there will need to be new processes, and new governance, to make this happen in a world of constant innovation and fragmented governance.

So the zookeeper does need to buy a panda, and find a new home for the elephant (when the poor animal has recovered). For business, let go of the metrics (temporarily) and just have a go at re-conceiving your business in a circular form. This won’t be a game of solitaire – you will need to collaborate. But you may be surprised how good you can be.

The recent book No Ordinary Disruption sets out four forces shaping the modern world. Urbanisation, technological change, aging populations, and global interconnection, together create a world of extremes – both opportunities and threats, with an accelerating, and bewildering, pace of change.

Such extreme circumstances require more than business-as-usual actions, so the book describes “Intuition Resets,” fundamental changes to our assumptions about how the industrial world works. One of these concerns natural resources, becoming increasingly scarce with our growing consumption. Specifically, the book advocates the emerging concept of the Circular Economy. Put simply, if we are to be such prolific users of stuff, we need to use it repeatedly, or find sustainable ways to replenish it. Or it will run out, or get very expensive, and also end up as a big pile of waste. Not rocket science.

The Circular Economy, a composite of old and new ideas, has taken off since 2012, when the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s collaboration with McKinsey yielded the first of a series of reports describing the economic opportunity. The World Economic Forum joined in, ensuring growing engagement with business and political leadership. The Circular Economy now features in the strategies of the EU, London, New York, Dow Chemical, Unilever, Veolia, and many more. I spent two years at the Foundation, setting up project MainStream, which tackles the biggest stalemates blocking this important transition.

The reports address the overall Circular Economy opportunity, which is huge (over $1 trillion). But what if you break this down into slices – individual industries, with their own technologies, supply chains, and materials? Does the concept translate from 30,000 feet to reality? Last week at Davos the first report was published from project MainStream: The New Plastics Economy – Rethinking the future of plastics. Well done to my successor Rob Opsomer, and to the Foundation and McKinsey teams. At last this applies the Circular Economy concept to a major industry – in this case plastics. Plastic is an icon of modern life, everywhere. And it’s most prevalent form is packaging – the focus of this report.

The report provides a new global fact base about plastic packaging. It is:

• The biggest (78 MT/year), most waste-prone (40% landfilled + 32% not collected at all) segment of plastics, growing at 5%/year
• Overwhelmingly linear – 90% of plastic is used once then becomes waste
• A mixed blessing for the environment – good on CO2 emissions, bad on waste, with 8 MT/year falling into the oceans, where it accumulates

The report depicts an industry plagued by misalignment:

• A short product life yet a highly durable material
• Fast-moving product innovation yet slow-moving waste infrastructure
• Global and relatively centralised in corporate structures, technology, and production, yet highly fragmented in distribution and waste handling

As a total system, this is plainly not fit for purpose, not with plastic well on the way to being more prevalent than fish in the oceans!

But before coming to the report’s conclusions on plastic, let’s reflect for a moment on the wider significance of this publication.

It’s not new news that plastic is clever stuff but creates lots of waste. But the debate has fallen into the classic bish-bash-bosh of environmentalism. Some attack – advocating banning plastic. Some say burn it – then it won’t go into the oceans (moving the problem to the air?). We have artisans turning tiny amounts of plastic into trendy durable stuff. Some say we shouldn’t need packaging at all. Others defend – using CO2 emissions to claim plastic is sustainable, ignoring the waste issue. Increases in recycling are claimed, actually outpaced by growth and innovation. And some say that, like the banks, plastic is now just too big to fail…

STOP! This is not helping! We don’t just need an intuition reset on resources, but also on how we work together to solve these problems.

Here is the hidden secret of the Circular Economy – it changes the conversation. A remarkable feature of the New Plastics Economy report is the range of participating organisations – across the whole value chain, despite many competing interests. Large and small companies, major cities, some NGOs and industry bodies. In setting this up, I was startled by the willingness to participate openly and constructively. I’ve worked in industry for years, in numerous collaborations, and for me, this is unprecedented. And this experience need not be unique to plastics – the Circular Economy conversation could be a game-changer in any sector.

So, returning to plastics, the recommendations are in two parts – equally important I believe:

• What? (configuring the materials flows for a circular plastic economy)
• How? (the collaboration which will get this complex job done)

You can read the report so I won’t give all the details, but key takeouts are:

What?

• Recycling can and must work on plastics, but at a totally different level than today. This requires end-to-end rethinking, especially on design, and some tough choices about which materials to use
• We shouldn’t give up on re-usable packaging. At least in the B2B space, it should be the norm, and for selected consumer uses too
• Bio-materials will help if we target them effectively – specific uses for compostable materials, and bio-produced materials gradually replacing fossils as the source for the remaining virgin material demand

We will need to transform waste collection, with a simpler and much more standardised approach. This becomes a clear and consistent target for designing both the packaging and recycling infrastructure, and builds the confidence of citizens so recycling becomes second nature

How?

• A dialogue mechanism – a new collaborative structure, which goes beyond any existing industry body
• This would oversee a global plastic protocol – a framework driving selective convergence, in what must remain a highly innovative industry

In conclusion, if we are to face the four disruptive forces and thrive, this is the work we should be doing – creating new conversations which do reset our intuition. The Circular Economy is a new force for such transformation, not only on plastics. And, at the sharp end of this, there is much work to do to realise the New Plastics Economy.

Image: Hilary Daniels via Creative Commons

With intelligent design thinking and innovation, and with a sprinkling of marketing dust we can create new circular industries.

Each year 400,000 tonnes of carpets are disposed of in the UK. About a third is diverted from landfill, largely thanks to Carpet Recycling UK and the forward thinking companies that have joined their crusade. The last half decade has seen an industry develop, from zero, which now places some value on pre-loved carpet fibre as a resource. Post industrial carpets and fitters off-cuts are put aside and turned into products like hanging basket liners and carpet underlay. Some carpet is converted to energy; some is refurbished and re-installed in social housing. However nearly 300,000 tonnes is still destined for landfill.

The carpet industry is making slow progress towards a circular economy with a handful of companies truly embracing sustainability and seeing both the brand and cost advantage, not to mention the very real risk of doing nothing. Within the next ten years not having an end-of-life solution may mean not having a marketable product.

However, the vast majority of carpets designed and sold in the United Kingdom still have a major design flaw in that the design process completely ignores circular values and manmade fibre is mixed with wool to meet a misconception that blended fibres perform better than non-blended. Retailers and manufacturers have become complacent, pumping out millions of kilograms of non-recyclable floor coverings in the belief that an “80/20” performs better. I refer to this as the dark age of carpet design and often ask how woven carpets performed so well for nearly two centuries before nylon was introduced. The technical, environmental and health benefits of 100% pure wool products are significant, but that’s for another blog.

In circular economy terms, very few carpets sold in the UK can be considered part of a biological metabolism, even those made from wool. Synthetic carpets can contain recycled content and often claim to be fully mechanical, but in reality 75% of those produced still end up in landfill with much of the rescued carpets heading for incineration. Design for recycling is required and soon.  In the meantime we have to find a way of dealing with the carpets that exist that will be uplifted over the next decade and beyond.

Post-industrial carpets can and are being recycled. John Lewis for example insists their carpet fitters recycle off cuts and in the stores sell underlay made from the pieces. The big issue is post-consumer carpets. No infrastructure or business model exists that can handle soiled textiles. Building infrastructure means investment, investment requires a profitable business model.

Enter SolidWool. SolidWool are a UK company that wants to create jobs in the Devon town of Buckfastleigh following the closure local spinning mill. Justin and Hannah Floyd have been using new Herdwick wool to create their very stylish furniture. I asked SolidWool if they would work with us at Wools of New Zealand to use recycled carpet fibre, and they said yes!

The theory is that by applying design thinking to create products that have form, function and demand we can work towards creating value.  Designing products that embrace recycled fibre for its renewable credentials shows that sustainability can be both trendy and profitable.

Wool is an amazing fibre. It’s, of course, rapidly renewable, but more than that it softens noise, insulates heat, is flame resistant and even absorbs toxins creating a safer more breathable interior.  It’s an incredibly smart raw material that we are throwing away. The second life chairs by SolidWool capture some of wool’s benefits, they are designed for longevity and will exists as furniture much longer than they did in their first life as carpets, but crucially they are the start of a new conversation about realising the true potential of what can no longer be considered waste.

Find out more about SolidWool’s approach to materials and material flows here.

Image: Steven Parsons

The map based tool allows the public to search for recycling centres or charity second-hand furniture organisations in their local area, see their opening times and directions and enabling them to choose what to do with their items.

Furniture Choice hopes that the tool will both prompt their customers to see the importance of recycling or rehoming their current furniture and support them to do so.

Tom Obbard, Director, said: “As a business we want to ensure that we are meeting all our customers’ needs, but raising the importance of recycling is similarly important to us.

Issues such as fly tipping and sending items to landfill are of great concern to us, so we wanted to make people aware of just how easy and beneficial it can be to others when furniture is donated or recycled. With the new tool, we can hopefully cut down on the amount furniture waste generated in the UK.”

It’s important that retailers take opportunities to support and encourage their customers to see the value in their furniture, and are very pleased to see this happening.

Our report also recommends that manufacturers and retailers:

• Stitch fire labels into products where they can’t hang out, or stamp them on to the furniture so they can’t be cut off.
• Start to progress business models that allow for and encourage products or materials to be returned.
• Encourage longevity by providing longer warranties for products. Introduce finance models that enable longer term investments in product.
• Manufacturers and designers should interact with waste managers to gain insights into designing in second and third life opportunities for furniture.
• Encourage a culture of innovation and experimentation around the circular economy.

Try out Furniture Choice’s new tool here

Read the Great Recovery’s ‘7 Things we can do to keep our sofa’s out of landfill’

For further information on where to recycle furniture and most other household items, visit Recycle Now

They created this rather nice infographic to explain the problem and what the public can do. And they’re now looking at ways to work with their clients to ensure that customers get clear and useful information, at the point of sale, about reusing and recycling their sofas.

It’s important that retailers take opportunities to support and encourage their customers to see the value in their furniture, and the importance of rehoming or recycling it.

Our ‘Rearranging the Furniture’ report also recommends that manufacturers and retailers:

• Stitch fire labels into products where they can’t hang out, or stamp them on to the furniture so they can’t be cut off.
• Start to progress business models that allow for and encourage products or materials to be returned.
• Encourage longevity by providing longer warranties for products. Introduce finance models that enable longer term investments in product.
• Manufacturers and designers should interact with waste managers to gain insights into designing in second and third life opportunities for furniture.
• Encourage a culture of innovation and experimentation around the circular economy.

See their full blog on the subject of old sofas here.

Read the Great Recovery’s ‘7 Things we can do to keep our sofa’s out of landfill’

For information on where to recycle furniture and most other household items, visit Recycle Now

Colleagues in the creative industry were surprised that I’d joined The Great Recovery as filmmaker.

I was actively discouraged from doing it. “Sustainability is boring”, “How will you bring it to life?” “No one will watch the films” were a few of the comments I received.

Sustainability films are generally considered to be overly portentous. They have such a need to be worthy that they forget about narrative and the core messaging. I was sent many examples of these films to watch which gave me the basis of what not to do.

Right from the get go I decided to make them look like TV shows with titles and music and high production values – all on a shoestring budget. When you unfold messaging in video via a format people are already familiar with it helps to pull in a general audience.  Aiming for that general audience is key as it will amplify the messaging and empower the project.

It was also important to keep the videos human scaled  “How does this make you feel?” “Why should we care about this?” were key questions during most of the filmed interviews.

Doing this makes an audience connect with other people and from that connection will come understanding.That’s been the overriding aim with the visual communication of The Great Recovery.

The engagement between the viewers and the films is very high.  As they say in the advertising industry “there is an appetite” for this content when it’s presented to an audience in this way.

I’m pleased to have ended my time on the recent “Survivor Sofa” project  by having brought it to “real” television. After four years of figuring out how this type of communication works visually it was relatively straightforward to pitch it to a broadcaster and additionally raise funds for a long form Great Recovery film to be made.

The film follows a small team of designers – Ella Doran, Kirsty Ewing, Sarah Johnson and Xenia Moseley – as they wage a war against waste with design as their primary method of attack. This inspirational and thought provoking film follows the designers as they participate in The RSA Great Recovery project’s exploratory and pioneering design residency.

Along the way they meet furniture manufacturers, reuse organisations, waste experts, upholsterers, furniture designers, policy makers, manufacturers and local council officials in their bid to identify where design initiatives can help reduce the amount of furniture and bulky waste which needlessly ends up in landfill.

The film is now available on catch up services and via www.survivorsofastory.co.uk

You can also download the “Survivor Sofa Story-book” which has interviews with all the participants and those “behind the scenes”.

This non profit documentary was shown with great success via the Media Trust’s Community Channel which is the only TV channel for communities, charities and the brilliant people who make the U.K. a better place for us all. Twelve million people watched the channel last year.

Most broadcasters will tell you that anything involving sustainability is hard to make “sexy” or interesting to a general audience. This highly visual project has managed to circumvent all of that in a very human and accessible way

We met them at Fab Lab during an event we held as part of Make:Shift:Do. They came along with a keen and talented group of primary school students from Kent who act as Tech Ambassadors in their school, promoting the learning of tech skills.

In this blog they unravel the role of education in developing tech skills for the next generation, who may inhabit a world where work looks very different.

Sophie Zajicek, a weave designer and RCA graduate, is investigating the potential to create 3D printed ‘woven’ structures.

GR: Hi Sophie, tell us a bit about your project

Whilst at the RCA I worked with Oluwaseyi Sosanya who was developing a 3D weaving machine. It’s very similar in concept to a 3D printer, and I really wanted to further develop my ideas for printing ‘woven’ structures. My work is going in a really exciting direction at the moment – using Fab Lab London as my base and source of all 3D printing knowledge. I’ve been developing 3D printed materials that are based on woven structures, with the circular economy model ever present in every stage of the design process.

Developing textiles for the circular economy is achievable through the use of a 3D printer. A traditional weaving loom creates waste at the start and finish of each warp and a selvedge along the edges of the fabric that is then discarded. I can see potential in 3D printing to reduce or wastage.

Using the 3D printing facilities I am developing material samples that aid my research into creating shock absorbing textiles solely from one component. Cutting out any excess waste and additional materials usually required for spacer/ shockproof fabric. Using a 3D printer to create textiles enables me to transform traditional weave structures from the x and y axis into the x,y and z. It frees one from the constraints of a loom and adds a third dimension to the fabric.

GR: How did having access to Fab Lab and The Great Recovery support you in developing your ideas?

SZ: Through The Great Recovery and Fab Lab I have been able to develop my circular project design theory. I have relied heavily on the expertise of the Fab Lab team throughout my design development as I went into this project with no knowledge of 3D printing. During my time at Fab Lab I have slowly begun to understand the limitations of the machines, the software, the materials and therefore begun to realise the holes in my initial project aims.

The Great Recovery have given me a deeper understanding of the circular economy and the problems faced by manufacturers and designers when trying to tackle this challenge. However, I have only scratched the surface and am keen to push my project further.

GR: What challenges have you come up against as you’ve tried to design for circularity?

SZ: Sourcing and interpreting data has been a challenge. And because 3D printing is a new field for me getting to grips with the various software programmes has been a huge learning curve and has used up much more of my time than I anticipated. Whilst the technology is really versatile I’ve also found it hard to achieve the desired outcome using the materials I have access to in the Lab. A combination of these challenges has slowed down the development of this project.

I am in the process of testing a new software program, Gravity Sketch,which has been developed to give designers a more intuitive method of designing 3D forms. It is this transition between Gravity Sketch software into Rhino and then into product I have been experimenting with. This process has been a huge learning curve for me, as I find Rhino totally unintuitive to navigate, which is where Gravity Sketch comes in. On top of this designing process I’ve had to learn how to use various 3D printer software and learn that patience has a whole other meaning when dealing with all of them together on one computer, in a short space of time!

GR: What role do you think makerspaces, like Fab Lab, have in helping people design circular products and systems?

SZ: Fab Lab is the perfect platform to help designers initiate projects when facilities and space are incredibly hard to come by. Having expert advice on tap has been a big advantage and being able to access many different machines in one area, using a variety of different materials, is a great way to encourage immediate creativity and design development of circular products.

Find out more about Sophie’s work here

Why not get involved and share your ideas and work with our network of readers and collaborators?

How? You say. Here are two ways:

Case Studies

If you are working on a circular product or system solution, we’d love to hear about your experiences. Sharing stories of best practice and innovation is a fantastic way of enabling our wider network to progress their own circular economy solutions, find inspiration and connect with each other.

Blogs

What circular economy ideas are you currently working on? What challenges are you finding? Do you have a critique of a theory, or have you seen something really inspirational… as long as you are building on the discussion of closed loop thinking, we’d love to hear from you.

If you would like to contribute please click here to download our guidelines, and send your piece over to info@greatrecovery.org.uk