26. Trends in circularity that every business should know

Circularity has become a major theme for businesses of all shapes and sizes. The circular economy encompasses new business models, materials and products, repair, remanufacturing, reuse, recycling, and innovation. The GreenBiz circularity conference brings together circular economy professionals to advance the transition to a more circular economy. The conference covers various sectors and activities related to circularity, with sessions in different formats, including tutorials, workshops, panels, and networking opportunities. To accelerate the circular economy, companies should integrate circularity into everyone's performance metrics and be willing to try new initiatives. It is important to celebrate small wins and learn from challenges.

Takeaways

• Circularity has become a major theme for businesses of all sizes
• The circular economy encompasses new business models, materials and products, repair, remanufacturing, reuse, recycling, and innovation
• The GreenBiz circularity conference brings together circular economy professionals to advance the transition to a more circular economy
• The conference covers various sectors and activities related to circularity, with sessions in different formats
• To accelerate the circular economy, companies should integrate circularity into everyone's performance metrics and be willing to try new initiatives
• It is important to celebrate small wins and learn from challenges

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Transcript

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We know we need to move towards a more circular economy. So where is the space of circularity going and how do we get there? Welcome to the circular future. Your access to thought leaders and innovations to help you be a business sustainability champion. Even if it's not your car job. I'm your host Stephanie McLarty, head of sustainability at Quantum Lifecycle Partners.

It wasn't long ago that the circular economy seemed some far -off concept, you know, mostly theoretical with some bright spots of action. Now circularity has become a major theme for businesses of all shapes and sizes. With me to understand the evolution and future of circularity is John Schmeha, VP of circularity at Greenbiz.

John had successive roles in corporate sustainability before moving to Green Biz, which is a media and events company that accelerates the just transition to a clean economy. He's also the key organizer of Green Biz's circularity conference in May. Welcome to the podcast, John. Thanks, Stephanie. I'm happy to be here. Well, I'm excited to get into circularity as a whole and specifically around the event that you organize.

But first of all, as we always do, let's take a peek into your world. What would be three things that the world wouldn't know about Green Biz? Yeah, this is, this was a fun question to do some research on. I think a lot of people know us for our events and our website, but interestingly, Joel McCower, one of our co -founders started this company as a blog about 20 years ago. So sort of very early corporate sustainability blog.

and newsletter that he sent out to a group of people that he knew and it grew out grew out of that. So that's that's the first one. Second, I think one of my favorite parts of our business is we've hosted a peer to peer learning network for sustainability practitioners working at large companies for over 17 years now. That network has grown to almost 200 member companies, and we offer them virtual and in person meetings to help learn from each other.

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learn from what challenges they're facing, what accomplishments they have as businesses. We bring in external experts to speak to them. So that's a fun part of the job to be able to connect directly with all these corporate sustainability professionals from a bunch of different areas, including circular economy about the work they're doing in their companies. And then third, we have five in -person events now. We have our Green Biz event that's around corporate sustainability and strategy.

We have circularity, which is the event I host on the circular economy. We have green fin where we talk about finance and ESG investing. We have verge, which is our climate tech event. And then we have a brand new event called bloom. That's all about nature and divert biodiversity. But I think the coolest thing about having those five events is actually three of them spun out of our first two events. So they were tracks or small conferences or summits within our first two events that eventually became their own. Um, so it sort of shows how we're sort of.

following the evolution of corporate sustainability as it grows and broadens and deepens and all the things that's happening right now. Well, and to that point, I've been asking around recently with other ESG professionals, what are you watching? What are you listening to? What are you reading in terms of staying up to date? And Greenbiz ranks at the very top of that list. So it's probably because of staying on top of everything, staying on top of trends that that's the case. So that's really cool.

Yeah. So we're talking about circularity today. And I feel like the first question that we should tackle is what it actually means. So John, in your world, what does circularity mean? What does it define does for you? Yeah, I think in some ways, we think of circularity as synonymous with the circular economy. But when I think about it, I think of circularity being all the stuff that happens within a functioning circular economy, right? So

It's the new business models, the materials and products that people are developing, the repair, remanufacturing, reuse, recycling sort of infrastructure that gets built up. And of course, all the innovative innovation that supports a circular economy. So, you know, as we know, the three sort of tenets of the circular economy are eliminating waste, keeping products at their highest and best use and regenerating nature. And when I think of circularity, I think of that being like,

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all the ways that we accomplish those three goals of the circular economy. I love this question too, because just last week I was on a standards committee meeting and we were looking at circular economy terms and circularity came up and it was officially proposed to be defined as the ability to be aligned with the principles of the circular economy. And I knew I was going to be talking with you, so I thought perfect, I'll be able to test that definition against what you said.

And it's very aligned. Yes. So you have a really great view of the evolution of circularity. And you explained how your event circularity actually came out of one of your other events. It was spun out to be its own. How have you seen this whole space evolve over the last number of years? Yeah, I think I think a couple of different ways. You know, it started our first event, our first

sort of standalone circularity event in 2019 that I attended but wasn't working at Green Biz at that point, really had a lot of focus on plastics and packaging, consumer packaged goods, the kind of things you buy, you use once and then you dispose of. And I think it's sort of, it's broadened in a couple of ways over the last five or so years since then. One is that we brought a whole bunch of new sectors into the conversation, right? So,

Instead of it being mostly focused on consumer packaged goods, now we've got retailers, we've got consumer technology, we've got apparel and fashion, building products in the built environment, infrastructure, transportation. So basically every sector in the economy is now talking about circular economy in one way or another. So there's been this broadening out. And then in addition to that, we've also seen it sort of, the best way to describe it for me is up and across.

So every company that is working on sustainability has pushed initiatives around sustainability and circular economy up in their companies towards the C -suite and the board, but also across into other functions, right? So R &D, supply chain, sales, marketing, everybody now has that. If in the successful companies that are moving forward fastest, they have that within their functional responsibilities. So we've really seen this like broadening out and a

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and sort of up and down in organizations that is, I think, exciting. We have now people with circular economy in their titles, where that wasn't very common five years ago. We have companies having whole groups devoted to it or circularity, sort of supply chain people working in their companies. So we've seen we've seen just a big expansion in a lot of directions. That's really neat. And it reminds me about really why we started this podcast, because at Quantum, we've seen

questions that we're getting around recycling and around sustainability aren't just coming from sustainability folks anymore. They're coming from finance and procurement and operations and right across the board, as you say, this really broadening. Everyone's got a stake in this game now. And so they have questions and we can help answer that. Well, and especially in circular economy, I was just going to add that, you know, we're starting to see it looks...

at not only through the lens of sustainability, but also through the lens of risk, right? So investors, supply chain people now thinking about like, oh, what are our risks here around sourcing materials, disposing of materials, etc, going into the future. So yeah, it's, it's, it's, the questions are coming from all over the place now. Yeah, and you've really got to speak to it in terms of their lens, right? Dealing with risk, dealing with, you know, the financial impact, you know, positive or negative, and all of that.

So tell us about your event. What is this event called Circularity? Yeah, so the event is a two and a half day event. We move from city to city every year. So last year we were in Seattle. This year we're in Chicago at the end of May. And really what the event is is we think of it as the sort of premier convening of circular economy professionals in North America, right? So we want to bring all the people from the biggest companies and the best innovators together.

to talk about how we advance the circular economy beyond where we are now. I think some of the most recent news, specifically things like the circularity gap report by the Circle Economy Foundation is showing that we're actually maybe going the wrong direction on circularity. We need to actually really accelerate the work we're doing to get back towards a more circular economy. And that's the goal of this conference is to bring as many people as we can together to learn from each other.

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collaborate, build partnerships to accelerate that transition. And how do you how do you break it down? I mean, circularity is such a big broad topic, as you've mentioned. How do you break it down over those two and a half days so that it's, you know, it's it's meaningful for people, they can wrap their heads around it and actually do something about it? Yeah, this is maybe the trickiest part about putting the content together for this event, because it is so broad. And also, there's different

sort of, there's different nuances and considerations sector by sector. And, you know, depending on what part of the business you're talking to, what part of the sales process it fits into, et cetera. So the way I tend to think about our content is in, I envision it as sort of an XY matrix where along the X axis, you have all the different sectors of the economy. And along the Y you have all the different, all the different activities that can support a circular economy like.

new business models or sharing certain product as a service, you have repair remanufacture, you have recycling, you have new materials and product development, you have all these different ways that you can move a circular economy forward in your company. And so when we try to build content, we want to build it either along the X axis or along the Y axis, but we want to make it

If we're threading a needle where it's got to be specific enough that people can walk away with something they can take back to their daily work, but also broad enough that it's not only for one small subset of the audience. And so we'll build sessions, maybe where, you know, we have content that's about a specific sector and addressing all the different ways that that sector can talk about circular economy. Or it could be about one method within the circular economy and talk across sectors. And.

Part of the reason we build it that way, it actually goes back to my days working in corporate sustainability, where I always felt like if I went to a conference that was only people in my own industry, I didn't learn very much about the sustainability work I was doing. But if I got to hear from people in other industries, other sectors, working on different problems, I could walk away with these like nuggets of information that I could pull forward into my work. And so that's kind of how we try to build the event is let's get people excited about the things that everyone else is doing.

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and hopefully walk away with some actionable content that they can take back to their own jobs. Yeah. So that cross pollination, I think is what I'm hearing. The more you can see ideas, and it happens to me all the time, some of my best ideas come from having nothing to do with whatever I'm working on. It's something in life or talking with someone else completely separate that I can see connections and connect those dots. So I notice you have different themes or tracks.

in circularity and there seemed to be some that really hit on a whole bunch of different areas. One was business innovation and strategy. And I'm really curious about this space because I've really seen at Quantum, we've named the planet as one of our key stakeholders. And so we've got actions on our corporate scorecard where we are doing several projects to support that.

but also on our personal scorecards as well as employees. And I'm really curious to see what are the trends that are happening in the space around business strategy? Is this something like the kinds of things that companies are taking on or what are you seeing from your side? Yeah, I think we're starting to see it a little bit more in a couple different areas. You know, one way I like to think about this, I actually ground and...

Whether this is right or wrong, I ground a lot of the ways I think about business models for circularity in the auto industry, right? Like they're a great example of, of, of an industry that's been doing, you know, they've been doing new product sales, used product sales, repair and remanufacturing, but then they also have leasing, rental, you know, they've got all of these different models built in that have actually supported a circular economy, even though we haven't often thought about that. So when I think about new, the way that industries,

that haven't historically worked within the circular economy are starting to implement those. We're starting to see some progress. For example, there's now outdoor apparel and running shoe companies that will lease you product as a service for some amount of money per month, the product that you need, whether it's your running shoes or your jacket or whatever you need for your outdoor activities. So that sort of leasing model,

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that new way of connecting with consumers that's not only a one -time transaction, but is now an ongoing thing. And you can get feedback from that. You can get your products back so that you can reuse those materials, et cetera, et cetera. So that kind of stuff is starting to get really interesting. The other one that we see that is really exciting to me actually is the way that established companies, large companies are starting to look for

partners to support this work. So in some cases that could be a small, maybe a startup that they need within their supply chain now to build a new circular economy. One example I like of that is in the fashion and apparel industry, you've got all these companies that are rolling out tech platforms for re -commerce, right? So Patagonia, REI, the North Face, they all work with partners to resell products through a third party managed platform.

And that's exciting, but even more exciting than that is now there are other companies within that, that universe that support that whole work. So Tersys solutions out of, out of Denver, for example, they are sort of the, the non -glamorous backbone of the fashion re -commerce. Everything gets sent to them. They inspect it, they clean it, they repair it if they need to, they give it a grade or a condition for resale. And then they're the ones that will actually send it out to a new customer when that person buys it.

And without companies like that, it can be really difficult to implement new circular economy business models within your organization. So I think, you know, we're starting to see the big companies buy into some of these new business models, but we're also starting to see this like infrastructure, these companies build up underneath that, that can support all that work going forward, whether it's tech or whether it's actual hands -on handling of product. And that stuff's really interesting to me and really exciting.

Yeah, I think that's exciting too. It's sort of the meeting of both worlds and you need the big players, you need the smaller companies, the infrastructure to really make change. The other one I was going to ask you about is the whole supply chain transformation theme as part of the conference. I know at Quantum we're really working on our scope three emissions, our supply chain emissions and finding challenges as part of that is such a complex issue. Is that the kind of thing that you'll talk about at the event?

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Yeah, we'll talk about, um, we'll talk about ways to engage with your current suppliers to try to, you know, uh, innovate around materials, use recycled content, repair, remanufacture, things like that. So new ways to engage with your existing supply chain to try to make it more circular and in many cases, thus lower your scope three emissions, right. Um, but then we'll also talk about, uh, sort of new partnerships that get built as some of these innovators start to scale. Right. So as you.

As an innovator comes out with a, whether it's a software solution, a new business model, a sort of support or infrastructure sort of piece, how big companies can engage with them to not only help the new company scale, but also help support the large companies circular economy initiative. So it's a little bit of, it's a little bit of how do you change the relationship with your current suppliers to make it more circular? And also how do you go out and find new suppliers and innovators and how do you invest in them and support their growth?

So we talk about both those things. We also want to talk about how supply chain professionals can work with these new companies, right? So like how what is a good partnership with an innovator look like? Hmm. That's cool. I'm really curious. How has the conference changed over the years? Like are you having were you having these types of conversations when you first started? Or is it very different now? It's it's similar in the that.

of solutions we're talking about, I think where it starts to vary or where it starts to change over time, and this is hopefully not just wish casting on my part, is that we're talking about more action, right? Less theory, more action. Like what are companies actually doing to implement circular economy solutions within their businesses? So our hope is that we're talking less about what a company will do and more about what they are doing or what they're trying.

Or even where they've tried and failed, right? We want to hear the different ways that companies, innovators, governments, nonprofits are sort of interacting with the circular economy to try to push it forward. And then, like I said earlier, I think the other big way that it's changed is that we just have a lot more industries represented now and a lot more people interested in this topic. One example of that is historically we've had.

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One, maybe two sessions around the built environment and what they can do to become more circular. You know, things like adaptive reuse and product design for take back and reuse, et cetera, et cetera. And this year we have two full sessions, a full three hour tutorial, another two and a half hour workshop. Like we're really building a lot more content around these new industries as we hear more demand from those industries. It's part of the way that, that.

we try to build our content around what our attendees need. Yeah. And it sounds like you deliver the content in different ways. If you've got tutorials and workshops and sort of lectures and I know podcasts. Yep. Yeah, there will be podcasters there. We have these 60 minute breakout sessions that make up the bulk of the programming, I would say. But the nice thing about those is they also come in different formats, right? Some of them are more hands on. Some of them are more panel discussion.

talking to the audience. Some are ask an expert where we might have one person that's really, you know, really into one topic around the circular economy that we can just have an ask the expert with for an hour. But then we also build in these three hour tutorials, both the first and last days, where we can get more in depth on a topic over a longer period of time. We have our keynote program where everybody comes together in one room. And that's all fast, you know, no more than eight minutes per person sort of quick talks, you know,

hopefully ideas to get people inspired. Um, and then we also, uh, the other, I think very important piece of content we build in is networking. Uh, we have hour or hour long breaks between every session so that people can talk, network, connect with the people they were just in a session with, or just heard speaking, et cetera. So that's often, uh, some of the feedback we get is like, that's people's favorite part of the conference and that's what they want more of. So we try to build in as much conversation time as we can as well. Yeah.

connecting with others, like so important to really, to really make the connections to do actions and find new partners. Like that's all part of it. John, before I forget, what is the link to the conference? Where can we find out more information? Yeah. So people can go to just green biz .com it's green B I Z .com and we have a big events button right at the top. And that's where that's the easiest way to get to our circularity homepage, um, where you can find more about registration and events that are happening in and around.

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and what content we've already got planned. I think we've got, you know, most of our sessions are on the site now for the May conference. So people can start to see what it's going to look like. Neat. And we'll post a link in the show notes as well. Okay, let's move on to our rapid fire how -to section where I ask you how -to questions and you can answer them short or long, whatever feels right to you. My first question is about the conference.

promise, and I'm really curious about this, how to accelerate the circular economy. This is a great question because it's difficult. I don't know if I have a perfect answer, but I think what we're seeing now as more and more companies start to implement circular economy initiatives is that you have to be willing to try things. And in one sense,

Pilots are really great because they can inform decisions moving forward, but also in one sense, they make it really difficult because they can often skew results. When I think about reusable packaging, for example, a pilot program could be an interesting way to learn what consumers are thinking, but it's also a really poor way to tell how it would operate if it was fully implemented, right? Because it's an inconvenience for people if they're only doing it in one place for one type of reusable packaging. So I think the best way in my mind to accelerate

This transition is to try things and work to scale them and not give up on them right away. And that can be challenging in our, uh, our sort of the way businesses run on quarterly profits and yearly earnings. Uh, so it's a little bit of a challenge, but I think people just really need to keep trying things, start trying more things, et cetera. It's, it's, it's a big one. And I think we, we serve to try to accelerate it by bringing people together so they can learn from each other.

Right. A lot of people that are working on the transition to the circular economy with their company, maybe the only one, right. It may be the only person that is dedicated to circular economy in a 10 ,000 person company. So trying to make sure that they have the ability to listen and hear from other people that are struggling with the same things is important.

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And I guess too, that's why the networking component of the conference is just so vital because you can make those direct connections and have those conversations. And what also comes to mind is that entrepreneurial motto of fail fast, you know, try, see what doesn't work, but replicate what does and keep going. We're starting to see businesses do that, right? Some businesses are spinning out circular economies, accelerators in their own companies.

to try to try new things and build new things internally before they roll them out back into their business, their bigger business units. So that's really exciting because that's the kind of thing that could really get the ball rolling for a lot of companies. Cool. Okay. Next question. How to get out of theory and into action regarding circularity. Cause it's really easy to talk about stuff, but how do we actually do it and get the buy -in to do it?

Yeah, I think the companies that I've seen do this the best are integrating it into everyone's performance metrics at the company, right? From the C -suites all the way down to the people working in their manufacturing facilities and everyone in between, I think should have these initiatives built in to their performance plans and how they measure their success each year. And the companies that we're seeing actually have success are doing things like this, right? They're building

stage gates into product design, for example, that includes circular economy initiatives, or they're building sourcing goals around, you know, sourcing more circular materials, they're building new sales models, leasing models, product as a service models. So I think what we're seeing is the best way to get out of theory is to actually put some metrics in everyone's performance goals. So they're held accountable for it. Well, it's exactly what I was just saying, the planet.

is a key stakeholder on our company scorecard. So we have actions to take. We are accountable to do those actions to our stakeholder, the planet. So I completely agree. Crucial. Okay, last question. And I'm going to throw a new one out at you that you might not be prepared for this one. How to make the most out of the conference? Yeah. So,

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A couple things, our conference, all the content is going to be up on the website long before the conference comes. So I always thought when I was attending Green Biz conferences before I started running them, I always thought the best way to get the most out of them was to plan ahead, know where I wanted to go, know what I wanted to learn. The other nice thing that we do, we just, over the last couple of years, implemented a new app for our conference that people can get on their phones. And it has.

great features around sort of self organizing small groups, reaching out to individuals that are registered if you want to meet with them one on one. So taking advantage of sort of the networking opportunities within the app and within the conference, I think is one of the best ways to get a lot out of it. The other thing that I think everyone's been guilty of this at one point or another, don't come late or leave early.

There's so much good content at the beginning and the end of the conference. And we always see this like build up towards the middle and then drop off. Um, and it's tough to get, it's tough to get people, uh, to, to step away from their day jobs for a full two and a half days, but it really is the best way to get the most out of the conference because we don't. We don't front load or middle load our best content, right? There's going to be stuff at the end. That's really, really juicy, uh, that people should be there for. Great advice.

I like that. And I've been guilty of that as well, but it's a great reminder that you really miss out. Okay. One more piece of advice I'd love to ask you as we wrap up this conversation is simply, what is that piece of advice that you leave listeners with? I mean, like if there's one thing to take away from this conversation today, what would that be, John?

Yeah, I think when I was, I spent, I spent 10 years in corporate sustainability before I moved over to Green Biz and started leading our circularity team. And I think what I've learned since stepping away that I didn't see in myself before was I wasn't good at celebrating small wins. I was very good at getting frustrated about big losses and really bad at celebrating small wins. And I think, you know, in this transition, as we,

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try to become as companies more sustainable, more circular, taking the planet into account as a stakeholder more, I think it can be easy to get frustrated with a lack of progress. And so my piece of advice that I have now finally taken to heart after 12 years working in sustainability is that you really do need to learn how to celebrate the small victories and shrug off the challenges and learn from them.

So yeah, that's probably, it probably is what drove me out of corporate sustainability and part of what I know now that I could take back if I went back into the area. Yeah, I agree. I mean, focus on what you want, not on what you don't want, right? The universe will give you more of what you do, of what you focus on. So yeah, celebrate those wins. Thank you so much, John. I mean, I learned a lot in terms of, you know, failing fast,

being organized, networking, and then celebrating those wins. Those are some of the takeaways that I had today. So I really appreciate you being on. Yeah, I really appreciate the invite. And remember, if you're looking for a Canadian partner in IT reuse and recycling, we'd love to chat. Head on over to QuantumLifecycle .com and contact us. This is a Quantum Lifecycle podcast and the producer is Sanjay Trivedi. Thank you for being a circular future champion in your company and beyond. Logging off.