Can insect farming reduce the stress on fish stocks across the Southern Hemisphere? How do you even get 8.4 billion flies to live together and operate in a way that makes it easy to capture their larvae? Described by Forbes magazine as 'Lord of the Flies’, Jason Drew is an innovator and serial entrepreneur. Before becoming CEO of AgriProtein – a company he co-founded in 2009 – Jason held leadership roles in several international businesses, including General Electric, BUPA and Egg. In this conve...
Nov 25, 2019•37 min•Ep. 19
What can we do to start trying to think differently and to start thinking in a way that is more circular rather than linear? Joe Iles and Ellen MacArthur cover a range of topics in the final part of their conversation about the circular economy, including emerging trends in design, technology, business models and the wider changes already happening in the economy.
Jul 10, 2019•21 min•Ep. 18
What does the circular economy look like? Joe Iles and Ellen MacArthur talk through the Foundation's butterfly diagram including examples of repair, remanufacturing, sharing, and the importance of distinguishing between biological and technical cycles.
May 08, 2019•19 min•Ep. 17
What is the circular economy? Who's doing it? And what are some of the best examples of it in action? In part one of our what is the circular economy series, Joe Iles and Ellen MacArthur consider what this idea might mean for cars, packaging and sandwiches.
Apr 29, 2019•24 min•Ep. 16
When you hear the word ‘design’, what images come to mind? Do you think of someone sketching products or creating a 3D model? A team making a prototype? A beautiful, timeless object? Dr John Maeda says that type of design is in the past. Through his diverse career - including work at MIT, the creation of the ‘Laws of Simplicity’, Presidency at Rhode Island School of Design and now at startup Automattic - Maeda says design has changed forever. Design truly can change the world, from tackling ineq...
Jul 11, 2018•33 min•Ep. 15
What is the goal of economics? Does GDP really tell us all we need to know about a country's wealth and well-being? Our guest in this show argues that our economic system should be designed to meet everyone’s needs, while living within the means of the planet. Kate Raworth is the author of the acclaimed book ‘Doughnut Economics’. We spoke with Kate to explore a new 21st century economic model, and why she believes so many economists have got it wrong for so long. Recorded at DIF 2017. Find out m...
May 16, 2018•33 min•Ep. 14
What is it people really want: a car, with all the costs of ownership and maintenance, or mobility, the service that car actually provides? A circular economy, characterised by a smarter use of materials, energy and information, will prioritise access over ownership of products. These are called product service systems, or sometimes 'performance contracts', and they could mean that customers can ride the wave of constant innovation at a lower cost than outright ownership. In this episode we're j...
Apr 13, 2017•39 min•Ep. 13
The information technology revolution has only just begun, yet it is removing jobs faster than its creating them in a global economy which has faltering growth, social tensions, unemployment and resource issues. What are the consequences, what needs to be done? In this episode we hear from Nikki Silvestri, a social entrepreneur who knows we have to nurture society through these disruptions. Nikki was recorded at the launch event of the Disruptive Innovation Festival 2016. This podcast was record...
Mar 30, 2017•26 min•Ep. 12
How well do you know the circular economy? It's not a new idea, but a term that has gone from relative obscurity only five years ago, to one which any serious CEO now has on their radar. Understanding the concept is one thing; implementing a framework which requires whole systems change is quite another. Join the Ellen MacArthur Foundation as we discuss both the concept and how businesses and governments have begun to take it on. This podcast was recorded as part of the 2016 Disruptive Innovatio...
Mar 15, 2017•42 min•Ep. 11
Google believes that business has a key role to play in being part of the solution to move from a global economy based upon ‘take-make-dispose’ to one that is based on designing waste out of systems. Google’s goal is to embed circular economic principles into the fabric of its infrastructure, operations, and culture. We speak with Jim Miller, Google's Vice President of Global Operations to find out from him about what the circular economy can do for this leading contemporary's business. This pod...
Feb 28, 2017•34 min•Ep. 10
Before the middle of this century, the world's cities will face challenges like never before. A projected 50% growth in world population, hand-in-hand with the concentration of people in urban centres, means our cities will have to be prepared for the social, environmental and infrastructural challenges coming their way. 100 Resilient Cities ( 100RC ) is an organisation dedicated to helping cities around the world become more resilient to the physical, social and economic challenges of today and...
Feb 14, 2017•32 min•Ep. 9
What do we mean by low to middle income economies or emerging markets? Why has there been so little research on the circular economy opportunities in these contexts so far? How can economies dependent on intense resources extraction take advantage of a new regenerative model? Seb Read is joined by Luisa Santiago, CE100 Brazil Programme Lead at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, where she conducts circular economy business research initiatives in the Brazilian context. This episode accompanies the p...
Jul 13, 2016•23 min•Ep. 8
In public discussion, the circular economy is often described as a way to allow technical products and their components to be used as endlessly as possible. But we can't forget about the biological cycle - how does it work when we come to the system that sustains life: agriculture? In this episode, Hunter Lovins argues that we need a 'circular economy of the soil' to feed a growing population, restore soil quality and ultimately reconcile farming systems with natural cycles. L. Hunter Lovins is ...
May 31, 2016•17 min•Ep. 7
The pattern in which cities have grown is predictable across the world, and it’s based on the economic relationship between the centre and the edge. There are some clues that this pattern is changing, driven by advanced information technology. But what may happen to the city if we develop regenerative activities by internalising energy and material flows? In this episode Michael Batty elaborates on the future developments of cities. Michael Batty is Bartlett Professor of Planning at University C...
May 23, 2016•16 min•Ep. 6
What can traffic lights tell us about how our economy could work? It may seem a strange question to ask, but Dirk Helbing, is the person who makes the connection. In this episode, he explains what we can learn from complex dynamic systems and how that knowledge can help us understand and implement a feedback-rich circular economy. Dirk Helbing is Professor of Computational Social Science at the Department of Humanities, Social and Political Sciences at ETH Zurich. Listen to the previous episodes...
May 16, 2016•17 min•Ep. 5
How does a country go through a renewable energy transition? Well, no country has done it before and there is no blue print to follow, but Germany is leading the world in this front. In this episode Patrick Graichen provides a comprehensive picture of the situation and explores future developments. Patrick Graichen is executive director of Agora Energiewende, a think-tank and policy laboratory working towards the success of the energy transition or Energiewende. Listen to the previous episodes o...
May 04, 2016•17 min•Ep. 4
Our agriculture system is under a greater strain than ever before. The growth of global green yields has fallen behind global population growth, and artificial fertilisers and pesticides are reducing the soil's ability to renew. “We need to take a different direction”, say Martin Stuchtey and Morten Rossé, who explore ways to reshape our food system. Martin Stuchtey is the Director of the McKinsey Center for Business and Environment. Morten Rossé is an Expert Associate Principal with McKinsey’s ...
May 02, 2016•22 min•Ep. 3
Remanufacturing allows us to use product components again at high quality while reducing energy demand by - in some cases - 80%. Given the material constraints we face, why this is not happening at a wider scale? In this episode, Nabil Nasr puts forward what he sees as the issues holding back remanufacturing. Nabil Nasr is Associate Provost for Academic Affairs and Director of the Golisano Institute for Sustainability at Rochester Institute of Technology; he is also founder of the Centre for Rem...
Apr 25, 2016•14 min•Ep. 2
The circular economy is inspired by living systems and one of the schools of thoughts that explores this model is Biomimicry. In this episode Michael Pawlyn explains why ecosystem thinking is key to a regenerative circular economy. Michael Pawlyn is director of the architecture practice Exploration and author of Biomimicry in Architecture This podcast series presented by Colin Webster explores the recently published book A New Dynamic 2: Effective systems in a circular economy. Each programme fe...
Apr 19, 2016•17 min•Ep. 1
