Rethinking Business for a Circular Future with Emily Amann

So for someone who doesn't understand what circular economy is, could you break it down for us and if possible, give us a few examples?

Yes.

So circular economy is a concept or definition, but it's also a practical tool, how we can teach businesses or people that want to start a business to do things differently.

How is that you try to really copy nature and look at what nature does.

So when you want to, for example, produce you are a farmer, you would follow the cycles that nature does, what we call regenerative agriculture or agriculture that respects.

So you have to really think through what type of fertilizers, what type of biomaterials you want to put in your soil, how you treat the water you're using, if you need energy, if it can be renewable energy like solar energy.

Like all the inputs and resources that go into the soil.

And when you grow the crops and everything you need, at all your stages of your business, you can apply circularity.

You make sure that nothing ends up as waste.

So you think about the packaging.

how you're going to sell your crops, how you offer.

Is it single use plastic? What we see a lot this time, single use because it's used one time, but plastic is a very useful material when it's kept in use, like in buildings or in strong materials where we need.

But plastic doesn't just biodegrade or is compostable or can go back to soil.

It stays for at least 500 years in our environment.

And that's the problem, right? So can you change your packaging to alternatives that are nature or bio-based materials out of like mushroom have this quality of, I don't know if you've heard mycelium, like a new type of material or hemp instead of plastic or paper or metal or glass, which are materials that can be really recycled much more effectively than, for example, plastic.

And then how you engage with your customers.

So in the end, you want to incentivize also your clients or customers in the circular economy to bring back these materials for you.

So you can add reusable packaging or incentives to recover what they don't need or what's not being used.

And you create a very different value chain throughout your whole business.

But always keeping in mind, yeah, circular, how it can be circled back, how nothing gets lost.

And you close these circles or loops, what we call as well in the circular economy, that we are able to design out waste.

And there are many examples.

So this was one from agriculture, but it applies to all the sectors.

And that's, I think, the powerful tool you can apply it in.

construction in the way you build your buildings by making them modular or easily repairable you can apply to services there are new models of people renting clothes not only your wedding dress which is common or something more fashionable but every day today so we need to go away from fast fashion or things that are used only once but at the end just end up in landfill and that's yeah a big cost for the environment but also for our health and that's why it's important to think circular.