Special Collections:
The Circular Economy
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Throughout history, technology has driven significant advancements in food production. The ongoing digital revolution now provides a wealth of new tools, offering unprecedented opportunities.
The critical task is to effectively leverage these innovations to improve our food system. Simultaneously, we must establish robust precautions to prevent any negative, unintended consequences.
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Current food production methods are severely degrading the planet, a crisis intensified by a global population expected to reach 10 billion by 2050. This unsustainable trajectory demands urgent alternative solutions, particularly in how technology and design can reshape our food system.
Alternative proteins offer a promising path forward. Join us to hear from Laura Wellesley (Chatham House), an expert in alternative proteins, and Daniel Jones (Feedback), who will discuss technology's role in developing a sustainable food system.
This broadcast, multistreamed with Restream.io, explores the vital role of small businesses in the circular economy. While multinationals often lead, smaller entities are key innovators. However, they face unique challenges, including securing finance and forming partnerships with larger organizations.
We are joined by Natalia Agathou from the London Waste and Recycling Board, William Neale from the European Commission, and Stuffstr CEO John Atcheson. John will share how Stuffstr successfully collaborated with larger entities to gain investment and forge effective partnerships, offering valuable insights for overcoming these hurdles.
Discover circular design principles, a global shift in product development. This live conversation explores how designers worldwide are incorporating these principles into their work and products.
Join designers Isatu Harrison (Sierra Leone) and Maxwell Mutanda (Zimbabwe), alongside Hannah Robinson from the British Council, as they discuss the circular economy in Sub-Saharan Africa. Topics include its proponents, design's role in this transition, and its impact on the rapidly growing youth population.
The session will also share practical examples of ongoing projects. This event is multistreamed via Restream.io.
Multistreaming with Restream.io
Does circular economy terminology create misleading understandings, hindering its real-world implementation? Businesses and policymakers frequently discuss the challenges of transitioning to this new economic system, grappling with barriers like finance, policy, and supply chains.
While these are crucial, an often-overlooked challenge lies in the words and terminology themselves. This group will explore why choosing the right terms is as vital to the transition as finding alternatives to single-use plastic, identifying influential words and phrases.
As businesses increasingly adopt circular economy strategies, understanding and measuring their success is crucial. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation introduces Circulytics, a new company-level analytics tool. Developed in collaboration with 13 Global Partners and tested by over 30 companies, Circulytics reveals the extent of a company's circularity across its entire operations.
Learning Designer Ilma Stankeviciute explores this innovative tool and speaks with an early adopter, Tom Giddings from DS Smith. Jarkko Havas, Lead of Data and Metrics, spearheads the Foundation's efforts to accelerate the circular economy transition. A shortened version of the original live stream is available, with the full recording accessible here.
Join members of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation team for a live conversation exploring the circular economy. This compelling concept presents a clear business case for redesigning everyday products and establishing fundamentally new operating models for businesses.
The discussion will delve into critical questions: How does the circular economy differentiate from sustainability or advanced recycling? Is its primary focus on efficiency or effectiveness, and does that distinction matter? Should it be implemented as a top-down or bottom-up approach?
This broadcast features Seb Egerton-Read, Stella Chavin, Sarah O'Carroll, and Laura Franco Henao, who will discuss the underlying values and relevant topics of the circular economy.
As businesses increasingly adopt circular economy strategies, measuring success is crucial. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation created Circulytics, a new company-level analytics tool. It reveals a company's circularity across its entire operations, moving beyond just products and material flows. This tool supports decision-making, highlights strengths and areas for improvement, and offers optional transparency to investors and customers.
Developed with Global Partners and tested by over 30 companies, Circulytics helps organizations understand and advance their circular economy adoption. Key figures involved include Ilma Stankeviciute and Jarkko Havas from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, and Tom Giddings of DS Smith, who has been instrumental in its assessment and use.
This video explains the circular economy, outlining the transition from current models with practical examples beyond simple recycling. For further reading, recommended books include *The Circular Economy: A User's Guide* and *Cradle to Cradle*.
Sustainability Illustrated creates engaging educational videos. Find more at sustainabilityillustrated.com and youtube.com/learnsustainability. Subscribe for updates (alturl.com/jc8u6) or support us on Patreon. Connect via Twitter and Facebook. Videos are by Alexandre Magnin, a sustainability consultant and artist (amcreative.org).
Circular food systems are essential for a global transition towards a people, SDG, and planet-centered paradigm. This shift requires awareness, education, culture change, entrepreneurship, cooperation, and innovation, alongside crucial support for bottom-up projects from markets, the third sector, and individuals.
This session highlights the pioneering ideas and individuals shaping the future of our food systems. It will feature diverse global case studies from numerous countries across various continents, showcasing real-world initiatives.
Spending 90% of our time indoors negatively impacts health more than diet or exercise. Hexagro Urban Farming, an Italian startup, addresses this by creating a modular, nature-inspired system. Mimicking honeybee hives and tree structures, their solution transforms interior spaces into beautiful gardens, increasing access to healthy food.
Hexagro's automated indoor garden is modular, scalable, and utilizes high-pressure aeroponics, LED horticulture lighting, and environmental sensors. Join this session, streamed via Restream.io, to discover the first automated indoor garden designed to deliver abundance for everyone.
Preparing children for a sustainable future requires a collective effort from parents, teachers, and the wider community. It's not enough to simply help them understand environmental challenges; we must also take immediate action and lead by example, especially as young people like Greta Thunberg demand change.
We need to transform our own mindsets and behaviors to ensure a cleaner, greener planet for the next generation. By doing so, we empower children to become responsible stewards of our precious Earth.
Originally livestreamed via Restream.io, this session addresses the critical issue of clothing waste. Annually, New York landfills 200 million pounds of clothing. Globally, 73% of materials used for garments are landfilled or burned, with less than 1% recycled into new clothes.
To combat this, campaigns like Wear Next (New York) and Love Not Landfill (London) encourage diverting clothes from waste streams. They advocate for swapping, selling, donating, or recycling to prevent garments from ever becoming waste.
Join this session to understand why these initiatives were launched, their execution, and key learnings.
The circular economy is increasingly vital for addressing global challenges, yet the finance sector's engagement remains in early stages. While industry leaders recognize the power of circular solutions, accelerating and scaling these initiatives urgently requires capital and services from financial institutions.
This session highlights how Intesa Sanpaolo has integrated the circular economy into its core strategy. Learn how this financial services company supports businesses, especially SMEs, in making this crucial transition.
A new era of consumption is emerging, driven by increased consumer awareness of product origins and environmental impact. This shift is moving us towards innovative consumption models beyond traditional purchasing.
Within the circular economy, rental and subscription models are gaining prominence, as recycling alone has proven insufficient. The next generation will demand service-based solutions over one-time purchases, prioritizing both convenience and positive social-environmental impact.
Plastic pollution poses a severe environmental threat. Plastic packaging constitutes nearly half of global plastic waste, much of it single-use. This plastic can take up to a thousand years to decompose, entering our food systems and projected to outweigh fish in oceans by 2050.
Ecoware confronts this challenge by producing 100% biodegradable and compostable packaging. Made from agricultural waste, their affordable and sustainable tableware, packaging, and medical products offer an alternative to single-use plastics.
Learn how Ecoware achieved this and if their model can be replicated in a session.
The UK's oil platforms require decommissioning. A circular economy approach offers a significant opportunity to capture economic value by reusing the vast quantities of steel, rather than simply recycling it.
While the systemic benefits of this reuse strategy are clear, aligning incentives for all stakeholders presents a key challenge. The central question is how to effectively convince every actor to prioritize reuse.
Fast fashion has drastically shortened clothing lifespans, increasing consumption while ~70% of closets go unworn. Extending garment life is crucial to reduce the industry's impact, cutting new production and textile waste.
The "Switching Gear" project, supported by C&A Foundation and Circle Economy, helps four apparel brands pilot rental and recommerce business models by 2021.
Join a session with innovators from the Switching Gear Enabling Network (SGEN), a global network of over 50 circular solution providers. Discover how pioneers like The Renewal Workshop and Stuffstr are disrupting norms with rental and recommerce, exploring their latest innovations, opportunities, and challenges.
The DIF explores disruptive ideas, stories, and innovations related to the circular economy. But what exactly is the circular economy, and how does it impact you?
Join the Ellen MacArthur Foundation team for an interactive session delving into the circular economy's fundamentals and underlying value questions. Share your insights on the interactive red pen graphic before, during, and after the session.
The future of fashion and its transition to a circular economy rests with creatives across all roles, from designers to marketers and editors. Their diverse contributions are crucial in shaping this industry-wide shift.
This session explores how a new narrative can redirect customer desire from wanting more to prioritizing better, sustainable fashion. We will examine how industry creatives can apply circular principles to their storytelling, fostering a circular economy. Tune in to discover more.
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The Thinking Game | Full documentary | Tribeca Film Festival official selection
“The Thinking Game” is the inside story of DeepMind's groundbreaking AI research, culminating in the Nobel Prize-winning AlphaFold breakthrough. Filmed over five years by the award-winning team behind "AlphaGo," this documentary explores co-founder Demis Hassabis's lifelong pursuit of artificial general intelligence and the rigorous scientific journey from mastering strategy games to solving the 50-year-old protein folding problem.
Following its world premiere at the Tribeca Festival, "The Thinking Game" is now available to watch for free. For those interested in hosting a screening for a classroom, community, or workplace, visit: rocofilms.com/films/the-thinking-game/.






















