The Future is Circular: Transforming Jewellery with Sustainability

In today's episode of the Climate Confident podcast, chatting with Caroline Chalmer, CEO of Finematter, a platform transforming the jewellery industry.

Caroline brings a unique perspective to the table, sharing her journey from the fashion world to championing sustainability in jewellery. Finematter isn't just a brand; it's a mission to revolutionise how we perceive and interact with jewellery. With their circular economy model, they're setting a new standard – focusing on made-to-order pieces, repairs, remodelling, and importantly, recycling.

We explore the challenges of making an industry known for its lavishness more sustainable. Caroline's insights on circularity - reducing production waste, repairing to extend product life, and recycling existing materials - are a blueprint for other industries.

One of the most striking points was the significant CO2 emissions from gold mining, underscoring the importance of recycling in reducing environmental impact. Caroline's discussion on the tangible and emotional value of jewellery, and how recycling can be a meaningful process rather than a transactional one, was particularly thought-provoking.

We also touched on how Finematter is changing perceptions about recycling gold, traditionally viewed as a desperate measure. Caroline highlights how their model allows customers to repurpose their assets, retaining emotional value while contributing to a more sustainable practice.

Lastly, Caroline's vision for the future is inspiring. With plans to expand globally and make circularity in jewellery commonplace, she's paving the way for a more sustainable and conscious consumer world.

DOn't forget to check ut the video version on YouTube, and remember to stay Climate Confident!

Transcript

Caroline Chalmer: 0:03

our vision is ready to expand to, to all of the jewelers in the world and all of the consumers in the world, and, you know, eventually to power a movement that will make, mining virgin gold obsolete.

Tom Raftery: 0:14

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you are in the world. This is the Climate Confident podcast, the number one podcast showcasing best practices in climate emission reductions and removals, and I'm your host, Tom Raftery. Don't forget to click follow on this podcast in your podcast app of choice to be sure you don't miss any episodes. Hey everyone, welcome to episode 148 of the Climate Confident podcast. My name is Tom Raftery and before we kick off today's show, I would just like to welcome a new supporter of this podcast, Roger Arnold. Roger signed up over the last couple of days to support the podcast. Thank you so much for that, Roger. Much appreciated. If you're not already a supporter, I'd like to encourage you to consider joining our community of like minded individuals who are passionate about climate. Supporting this podcast is easy and affordable with options starting as low as just three euros or dollars a month. That's less than the cost of a cup of coffee and your support will make a huge difference in keeping this show going strong. To become a supporter you simply click on the support link in the show notes of this or any episode or visit tinyurl. com slash climate pod. Now, without further ado, with me on the show today, I have my special guest, Caroline. Caroline, welcome to the podcast. Would you like to introduce yourself?

Caroline Chalmer: 1:40

yeah. Thank you so much, Tom for having me. Thanks for inviting me on. My name is Caroline. I'm the founder and CEO of Finematter. We're a circular platform for, for jewelry powered by the world's best independent jewelers. So we work with them to really sort of enable made to order jewelry orders, repairs, remodeling, and recycling of jewelry. And we're put in the world to help make the jewelry industry better, and it's a super exciting, exciting space to be in. And I'm excited to chat with you about it today.

Tom Raftery: 2:10

Okay. And the jewelry industry isn't one that has a great name when it comes to sustainability. So, you know, , how, how did you, how did you decide to get into that space and then decide to make it more sustainable?

Caroline Chalmer: 2:27

Well, so I have worked in the, in the fashion industry for most of my career. I've always been a person that was very interested in the, in the creative field. So I went into, into fashion because I was excited about that. But I also sort of quite quickly realized while working in fashion that the consumer goods industries have got a massive problem when it comes to, sustainability. In particular in 2016, I joined an N G O or fourth leadership organization called Global Fashion Agenda that was working with sustainability in, in fashion. So that was back when the whole conversation around sustainability was still fairly fairly nascent. And what we were trying to do while I was there was we were trying to get the most influential and forward-thinking CEOs from the fashion industry, from companies like H&M, and Caring and Nike and so on, to really lean in and work together to create a sustainability agenda for the entire industry and really sort of try to bring attention to what are the topics that CEOs that lead fashion companies can work on to try and make the companies more more sustainable and their business models more more sustainable. And so in this role and working within fashion and sustainability and sort of trying to make sense of that, I was really like immersed in this whole world of sustainability at a time when all of that was coming together. And a lot of the knowledge was, was really being, developed, and trying to figure out really sort of how to minimize the environment environmental impact of something that at its core is really sort of, quite extractive and quite a wasteful supply chain if you think about it, sort of making consumer products, whether it's fashion like I was working on, or, you know, a whole range of other, other consumer products that that are extractive in their nature and that rely on consumption. And some would argue over consumption by consumers to really function and to to make money. And I guess you could say that like many others working in this space and sort of becoming more, more aware of these challenges. And like a lot of other millennials in general, I suspect. I was really struggling with this concept of consumption and really sort of trying to think about how can I, you know, reconcile my desire to minimize my environmental impact as an individual and as a consumer with you know, consuming the things that I need in life that I want in life to make life better, whether that's fashion, furniture, electronics whatnot, how does that sort of marry and come together? Because inherently, you know, consuming anything is unsustainable, right? If you sort of really take it that far to the extreme, you know, the lightest footprint you could have would be to consume nothing, to extract nothing. But, you know, I'd argue you can't really live like that even if you, even if you wanted to. So, how do you solve that conundrum? I'm not sure I have sort of the, the full answer or the right answer even, but I think for me, sort of while I was working in this field I really started to see circularity and the concept of the circular economy as at least part of the answer. And really sort of the best answer that we have to answering that dilemma really sort of, you know, seeing the core tenets or the core principles of circularity of reducing, first of all, so producing with less waste and. reducing consumption, but also repairing to improve longevity of products and recycling what's already there and what's already been extracted to create new products as really like a big part of the answer to how we, and how myself as a consumer could consume more, more sustainably. And while I was sort of in this frame of mind and thinking about, I guess you could say these big existential problems, I was also alongside that helping out my mom with her jewelry business which was a nice sort of you know, it was a an alternative thing that I was, I was working on as well. And while I was doing that, I was speaking to a lot of jewelers. I was researching a lot about about jewelry and being in contact with a lot of jewelry manufacturers as well. And I kind of realized that jewelry is you know, inherently a circular product because it's made out of precious metals. Mostly gold, which can last a lifetime. It can be endlessly recycled, reshaped into, into something else. And moreover, like the jewelers that make jewelry and that make up the, the majority of the jewelry industry apart from these sort of like big big jewelry jewelry brands, but they're really sort of what make up the bulk of the jewelry industry. They work in a way that's inherently circular. So if you go to a jeweler they will make jewelry for you on a made to order basis with minimal waste. They will take all of the scrapings off of their work bench and they will recycle that. They will repair the jewelry that you own already. If you bring that into a, a store, they'll be able to turn that into a, a new product as well, even with a new design, but reusing the, the materials, but they'd also be able to recycle the, the gold for you or the metals for you quite simply and enable you to put that towards the cost of, of something new or the production of something new. So, With that in mind and with all of that sort of coming together, I thought there was a really, really exciting opportunity to, to create a new kind of business that would really sort of make those kind of circle of services available for consumers like myself that maybe weren't aware that that was a, even an an opportunity or a possibility in the jewelry space. And by the same token, also really sort of try to, to shape the jewelry industry in a more circlulor way and try to encourage the the longevity and the, the recycling of of metals and and materials in, in that space.

Tom Raftery: 8:17

Cool. And just can you give some context on, you know, how much is extracted per annum? So what the kind of potential for reducing this is.

Caroline Chalmer: 8:30

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, so you started by saying that the jewelry industry doesn't really have like a reputation for being particularly sustainable. And I think you're right in, in saying that, but actually sort of when you consider the, the numbers, there's quite a significant CO2 emission impact from, from the jewelry industry, from, from gold mining in particular, which is really what makes up the bulk of the, of the emissions. And you know, by the same token also an opportunity to, to reduce that. So to put that into numbers and context for you a little bit, you know, the, the gold the gold industry is estimated to emit around 145 megatons of CO2 on an annual basis.

Tom Raftery: 9:11

Mm-hmm.

Caroline Chalmer: 9:12

And if you compare that to to other sectors, you know, I always like comparing it to bitcoin mining for instance, because that's received so much, you know attention for emitting a lot of CO2 and not being very sustainable. But by comparison, Bitcoin mining on a global annualized basis emits roughly half of that, of what gold gold mining does. So you can really see that sort of, you know, by, by an order of, of magnitude. It's, it's quite significant. If I also link it back to my previous role, you know, it's close to the, to the emissions of, the cotton industry, which is notorious for being a high emitter as well, which emits more than 200 megatons a year. So, sort of order of magnitude. I think we can really see that there's a, there's a big opportunity here.

Tom Raftery: 9:57

Okay. Okay. And talk to me a little bit about how gold recycling then would work. Is it just that, you know, you have this latest I don't know, trend in fashion.'cause it's all about fast fashion these days. And you buy this, I don't know, costume jewelry, but no costume. Jewelry is not real gold. So you buy a couple of gold rings, couple of earrings, whatever, and then you decide actually don't like those anymore. I'll take them back and get something else that's now fashionable made from them. Is that the kind way it would work?

Caroline Chalmer: 10:28

Well, I mean, you'd be forgiven for thinking that way, but actually sort of the way we, we think about it is, is actually mostly from the jewelry that's or the gold that's already been mined that the jewelry that's already been quote unquote consumed. So if you look back and you think about sort of all the gold that's been mined in the history of all time, because gold has got these phenomenal properties whereby it doesn't sort of corrode and it doesn't degrade as a material. That all still exists. It exists above ground. And you've got about 200,000 tons of gold that's been mined in the history of, of gold mining. And that's, that's there, you know, it's lying around in central bank reserves, of course, but also to, to a large extent in jewelry that's been produced and gifted and handed down to, to people. And, you know, maybe they're wearing it. But for a large part, it's also laying around in jewelry boxes in people's, in people's homes and drawers. And I think it's that sort of reserve that we're trying to say, well, if we recycle a little more of that, we could increase the share of recycled gold. And by the same token, reduce the need for, for virgin mine gold to be produced every year. Because in fact, it's only about a quarter of all the gold supply that's recycled right now, despite the fact that you can very easily recycle recycled gold. So about three quarters of the world's gold supply is still mined on an annual, annual basis, which I just find sort of, you know, ludicrous given given that we can recycle gold and that we've got all of this gold above ground already.

Tom Raftery: 12:05

Okay. There's a lot of code used in electronics as well. Do you think that's recoverable?

Caroline Chalmer: 12:10

Well it is, but know, first of all, right now it's only a sliver of recycled gold that comes from electronic products. So it's roughly, roughly 3% of the, of the gold that's currently being recycled comes from electronics waste. That could potentially increase. But the recycling processes for electronics waste and some of these sort of products are a lot more complex than, than just recycling what's called like high value sources. So gold from jewelry because you need to disassemble, you need to sort, you need to refine the, the metals as well. So it's a little bit more of a complex supply chain. And therefore it also is a little bit of a higher CO2 emitter than if you, if you just take the the, the gold that's there in jewelry, and you melt that down essentially, which is what the recycling process consists of. It consists of smelting, the gold and any sort of workbench jeweler could actually take, you know, a few grams of gold and they could heat that up at their workbench. And there you go. It's recycled.

Tom Raftery: 13:12

And just doesn't matter of interest. What's the melting point of gold? You know, does it require special smelter to melt it or could it be melted quite simply on a, on a benchtop smelter?

Caroline Chalmer: 13:26

Well, that's the thing. It can be recycled at the, at the workbench. So, you know, it can, it can be done at a very small scale. It can also be done at a, at a larger scale and in refineries, of course, where it's, where it's being done at a larger industrial scale. But essentially it's a quite straightforward process.

Tom Raftery: 13:41

Okay, good, good. And where do Finematter fit into all this?

Caroline Chalmer: 13:48

Well, so, you know, I really sort of, see an opportunity for us to to open all of this up to, to consumers and create an opportunity for them to be a part of this circular economy and circular movement. Starting with the, with the jewelry industry and starting with making that available for a product that is incredibly important to a lot of people. You know, many people have a lot of sort of emotional connectivity with their, with the jewelry. It's one of their most important physical assets next to their home, perhaps their house, right. You know, a lot of people would think of, of their jewelry as some of the most priceless possessions that they, that they own. And I, what I'm really excited about is sort of, you know, allowing people to participate in this movement while still retaining a lot of the emotional connectivity with the, with the jewelry that they may own. And I think that's why a lot of people may have shied away in the past from parting with their jewelry and with recycling because, you know, they might have thought, oh, you know, I have a lot of memories tied to that that ring or that necklace, or it's been gifted to me by somebody that's very important to me in my life. And they may not have thought that that was an option, but I think a lot of people don't really realize, well, you can turn that into something else and maybe the physical representation. And the design changes maybe into something a little bit more modern that makes it easier for you to, to wear. But the, but that connection is still there. So I am, I'm sort of really excited about linking people with really talented jewelers and enabling them to, to do that and carry that that meaning forward. I'm also excited about removing, like a lot of the stigma around around selling gold or recycling gold because, you know, typically that's been something that you could only do by going to a, a pawn shop or you know, cash for gold site, something like that, which to a lot of people feels quite seedy for, for lack of a better word and

Tom Raftery: 15:53

people associate

Caroline Chalmer: 15:53

uh, In a.

Tom Raftery: 15:54

that kind of thing with falling on hard times, I guess.

Caroline Chalmer: 15:58

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Which, you know, there is some truth to that because, you know, some people are triggered by needing to raise cash and, and part with their, with their assets. To do that, but it doesn't need to be, you know, the only reason why you would recycle your gold. On the contrary, you know, it might be to carry forward a, a memory or even just to reduce the, the cost of purchasing something new. Say you're getting married and you have, you know, things that you've inherited or that are in your jewelry drawers that you could put towards the, the cost of the engagement ring or the wedding band. I, you know, I find that meaningful and that doesn't need to to mean that you've fallen on on hard times to, to do that. You know, I think that's a very sort of, what can I call it? The earnest or

Tom Raftery: 16:47

I mean, the, the, the difference is if you're going to somewhere like a, a, a pawn shop or one of these cash for gold places, it's that you're getting rid of it because you can't afford to hang onto it.

Caroline Chalmer: 16:57

Yeah, exactly.

Tom Raftery: 16:59

if you're recycling it, that's not the case at all. What you're doing is you're repurposing it rather than getting rid of it.

Caroline Chalmer: 17:05

exactly. Exactly, So you're really putting it forward and putting it into to something new, whether that's you know, being repurposed for something that you will own and wear or something that somebody else will, will own and own and wear. I think there's a lot of beauty in sort of imagining that. That journey carrying, carrying forward and is not just about the cash and the, and the value of it. That's of course an added benefit for, for consumers, right? That there is value, in their gold. But it's definitely not the, the sort of, the sole the sole reason or the sole incentive that you might have for, for recycling gold and yeah, you asked where do we fit in. I sort of, I'm excited about offering up that opportunity and educating people around those opportunities and changing the narrative and changing the, the, the picture of, of what that looks like.

Tom Raftery: 17:53

Yeah. And you mentioned being a millennial and that's important. Do you, do you think that millennials and younger people in general would be willing to recycle jewelry or buy recycled jewelry? You know, and, and there thereby reduce their, their footprint.

Caroline Chalmer: 18:14

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I can just speak from what we're seeing in, in our business, right? I mean, we've seen a tremendous appetite for repairs and and recycling. So since starting the business a couple of years ago, we've had thousands of people come through wanting to repair and recycle their, their jewelry. We have one super user who's had 18 pieces of jewelry repaired through the, through the platform which I find really exciting. And you know, we've had users come through who've accumulated more than thousands of pounds in, in credit and value from recycling recycling their gold. You know, whether that's wedding bands that are no longer in use or it's gold chains or a single earring where the other one's been dropped and lost and so on. We have somebody who now has three and a half thousand pounds sitting in their, in their account and their Finematter account from, from gold that they've, they've recycled.

Tom Raftery: 19:08

Okay. And . So this, this is a, this is a new wrinkle we've just brought into the, the podcast. You can have a Finematter account. How does that work?

Caroline Chalmer: 19:18

Yeah, absolutely. So we we've, we've set this up to allow you to recycle gold that you already own and then put that towards working with a jeweler on something new. So you can either ask the jeweler to work with that specific gold and then we would we would send that gold to them and they would work on that specifically. Or you can send it back into circulation for the industry as a whole. We would make sure that it goes to one of the jewelers that we, that we work with. But you know, you may just be looking to recycle for now and then build up your, your credit because you're looking to buy something further down the road or, you know, you're keen on just doing this because it's exciting for now. And then who knows what you might end up getting. But, but knowing that it goes back into circulation as, as recycling gold and that you still retain the value to spend further down the road.

Tom Raftery: 20:05

Okay. Nice. So you're almost like becoming a bank

Caroline Chalmer: 20:10

Oh, . I don't like banks much, so I wouldn't I wouldn't go as far. But but yeah, we are trying to encourage people to recycle more and to show them the value of, of doing so.

Tom Raftery: 20:23

Okay. And you mentioned wedding bands. So is there an increase in divorce rates or something that, you know, there might be a sudden, a sudden boom in the amount of wedding bands that are getting recycled? Or is it, is that kind of flat all the time or, you know, I, I know myself with my wedding band, I've had to have it resized 'cause I've put on a few kilos and But that speaks to the repair aspect rather than the recycling. But it's all, it's all part of the same thing.

Caroline Chalmer: 20:57

Yeah. Well, you know, it's funny when you work with a, with a product like jewelry because it's something that stays with people throughout their entire lifetime and sometimes it even spans generations, right? So you have to think of it as something that will morph and change and, and follow you through life's ups and downs. So what that means, like in your case, you know, adjusting the size of a, of a wedding band or, you know, for women when they become pregnant, the size of their fingers change as well. It's good to be able to, to do that, but still be able to, to wear your, your jewelry and the things that that matter to you. But also, you know, in the case of of weddings, let's say, you know, I gave the example before of we're seeing quite a lot of, of young people coming through wanting to buy their engagement ring or wedding band from one of the independent jewelers that we work with on the Finematter platform and they're looking for ways to make that more accessible to them. How do I make, you know, the exact ring that I want and that I want to wear for the rest of my life? How do I make that accessible when recycling is one way of, of doing that? By the same token when people do get divorced, and that of course happens. What we hear from, from our jewelers as well is that, you know, they are looking for ways to make that slightly less stressful experience and easy ways to recycle the, the wedding band and turn it into something, something else can maybe help do that.

Tom Raftery: 22:21

I can imagine for women as well. Engagement rings are another thing that you know, if, if, if an engagement breaks up or a wedding breaks up, then the engagement ring can be repurposed into something else. No?

Caroline Chalmer: 22:34

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, a lot of, a lot of people that buy engagement rings, whether as couples where they buy together, which is actually the large majority of couples getting engaged nowadays. Or it's, it's a single person wanting to make it a, a surprise. They're often a little bit concerned about picking the, the size and rightfully so because rank sizing is quite quite tricky. But knowing that it can be quite easily repaired at the workbench by a, by an experienced jeweler, I think gives, gives some comfort and takes some of the, the stress away there. And even some of the stress around picking out a design and, you know, will I wanna wear this in five years time or in 10 years time, or 20 years time? You know, knowing that you could work with somebody to, to turn that into a, a new expression, a new physical expression also takes a lot of, of that stress away.

Tom Raftery: 23:22

Nice, nice. I have to think though, that today not a lot of jewelry is recycled. So how do we change that mentality? How do we get people to, you know, have a, a recycling first attitude to jewelry?

Caroline Chalmer: 23:41

Yeah, that's a great that's a great question. You know, it's something that we spent quite a lot of time talking about, sort of how do we, how do we change behaviors and how do we encourage consumers to, to buy into this and sort of see the, beauty and the attraction of, of, of being able to, to do so. And I think it comes back to some of the things we were talking about earlier around the image of of gold recycling, for instance, or selling, selling gold. You know, I, I think a lot about how can we change that image and turn it around from being something that's seen as being, you know, maybe a little bit, yeah dirty or something that you, you, you wouldn't wanna do because it's just not very, very attractive or it doesn't feel like something that's, that fits with your, your value set as a person and as a consumer. So trying to make that whole space more more honest, more transparent, making it easier for people to to do so without it feeling, feeling seedy in, in any way is of course something that, that we have a responsibility, a responsibility to, to do. And then the, the question around conserving the, the sentimentality of the pieces. So actually sort of, helping people understand that while you're not letting go of the memories, if you recycle jewelry, you're also, you're, you're basically sort of, just changing the physical shape, but the, the memories and the sentimentality is still there. So if you work with a jeweler to repair or to reshape an existing piece of jewelry, you can retain, you can retain that connectivity with the, with the piece, which I think is is an important driver for, for people to know that they don't need to part with the meaning of the, of the jewelry behind it. And then last but not least, I wouldn't forget educating people on the, on the value of gold as well. So, you know, we've reached peak gold value through all time now in 2023. So throughout all the history of gold it was never higher than it was a few months ago. This year actually, we thought, we'd reached peak in 2020 with the, with the Covid pandemic and all of the uncertainty in the world. But, you know, it's climbed even higher. So it's surpassed 50 pounds per per gram in value, which is actually yeah, which is really, really substantial, right? So people are often really, really surprised at the value of the gold jewelry that they, that they own and what they could get out of that in in value. If you take sort of an average wedding band for instance, that would typically maybe be around a five gram mark. So you can see that in, in value five times 50, that's 250. That's quite . It's quite substantial, right? I'd argue. And you could put that towards, towards something else. We've also had a lot of people with gold chains, for instance, and the 18 carat gold chain weighing maybe eight, 10 grams even. It's also quite a, a substantial amount of, of money right there, just in terms of the, of the commodity value of gold. And with everything going on around us, unfortunately in the world right now in terms of uncertainty and so on, I sort of foresee that staying staying quite high for the, for the foreseeable future and, you know, realizing that and sort of understanding what value you already own might help people also be, be more inclined to to recycle their pieces.

Tom Raftery: 27:08

Okay. Interesting. Interesting. Yeah. Jewelry. Is a weird one in terms of price sensitivity, I gotta think. You know, for a lot of things that people consume, they're quite sensitive about the price, but I gotta think with jewelry, there's often this kind of belief that if it's more expensive, it's better, which obviously is, isn't always the case. And is, is recycled gold gonna be cheaper than than virgin gold?

Caroline Chalmer: 27:38

Well, not necessarily because I mean, gold, gold is gold, right? And it's sort of, you know, it's bought based on a purity value expressed in carats. So, There's for instance, 24 carat Gold, which is in its purest form. No jewelry would be made out of that because it's too soft. So most jewelry is made out of 18, 14, or nine or 10 carat gold, and whether it's recycled or the virgin mined, it's essentially the same purity and the same The same value. So you don't have, you know, neither a discount nor a premium for for recycled gold, but you do have that opportunity to, to trade in existing assets if you do have them. And, and thereby reduce the, reduce the price. Sure. But I think like for, for jewelry in general and, and talking about price price sensitivity, you know, when we're talking about real jewelry and the sense of jewelry that, that you would wear every single day. You know, the, the, the cost of that is actually, quite low on a daily wear basis, if you compare that up against a lot of other consumer products, right, like fashion or shoes or bags or, or whatnot, you know, they will typically have a, a limited time span. Whereas for jewelry, that's really something that you can, you can own and wear for an entire lifetime. You can pass it down to, to your kids. And, and hence, you know, I think it's, it's sort of. It's worthwhile paying what, what many would consider maybe you know, a, a, a substantial price tag for something that's real or solid gold compared to something that would that would break after a few wears.

Tom Raftery: 29:18

Okay. Where to next for Finematter. What are your plans kind of three, five years ahead?

Caroline Chalmer: 29:24

Well, so our plans are to, to expand and to make this, offering accessible to people across the entire world. So, you know, we work with, more than 200 independent jewelers right now, mostly across Europe and the States, but we're looking that to open that up for the, for the entire world. We have a wait list of more than 800 jewelers at the moment who've applied to be part of the platform and to help us, power this movement. We have very sort of, stringent selection criteria for who we, we bring on both in terms of the craftsmanship and the quality that they, they work with, but also in terms of their design skills, which I think is important for, for encouraging people to, to remodel and to to order something that they will wear for, for a really long time. So our vision is ready to expand to, to all of the jewelers in the world and all of the consumers in the world, and, you know, eventually to power a movement that will make, mining virgin gold obsolete.

Tom Raftery: 30:21

Nice. Fantastic. Caroline, we're coming towards the end of the podcast now. Is there any question I have not asked that you wish I had or any aspect of this we haven't touched on that you think it's important for people to think about?

Caroline Chalmer: 30:34

Well, you could ask me about, how like jewelry can be a case or blueprint for for other consumer products in terms of baking circularity, into a business model for other entrepreneurs out there looking to to start a consumer consumer business.

Tom Raftery: 30:51

Okay, go for it.

Caroline Chalmer: 30:53

Well, so I argue that, it makes a lot of sense for, for all, entrepreneurs that work in the consumer space, especially with physical products to, to think about the product life cycle in a broader sense than just at the, at the point of sale. And just in terms of selling new products. So really sort of breaking down the product life cycle, life cycle and thinking about, you know, how can you, reduce, production, upstream and the supply chains, can you make to order, or can you produce on a, on a pool model with with less waste. You know, there are companies nowadays that will make t shirts on a on a make to order model, and so on. So I think there are lots of exciting business cases and the other models out there, for inspiration for that, but also further downstream after having sold the product, can you open up for repairs, selling component parts, taking back, materials and, and recycling that. I think it would be super exciting to see, more companies, be created that would tackle that.

Tom Raftery: 31:51

Makes a lot of sense. Cool, cool, cool. Caroline, that's been interesting. If people would like to know more about yourself or any of the things we discussed in the podcast today, where would you have me direct them?

Caroline Chalmer: 32:03

To finematter. com.

Tom Raftery: 32:05

Short and sweet. Love it. Great. Fantastic. That's been fascinating. Thanks a million for coming on the podcast today.

Caroline Chalmer: 32:12

Thank you so much for having me and for, for a good chat.

Tom Raftery: 32:16

Okay, we've come to the end of the show. Thanks everyone for listening. If you'd like to know more about the Climate Confident podcast, feel free to drop me an email to tomraftery at outlook. com or message me on LinkedIn or Twitter. If you like the show, please don't forget to click follow on it in your podcast application of choice to get new episodes as soon as they're published. Also, please don't forget to rate and review the podcast. It really does help new people to find the show. Thanks. Catch you all next time.