Introduction 

Welcome to episode 32 of the Enterprise Excellence Podcast. I am so pleased to have you on the show today. Dr Katherine Whalen or Katie is the host of the "Getting in the Loop" Podcast and a researcher in sustainable business at RISE research institute of Sweden. Katie has dedicated her career to helping create a better future environmentally. Let's get into the episode.  

Summary

Have you got one or maybe four (the Australian average is four) phones sitting in a drawer at your home? Instead of these phones collecting dust in our drawers, a closing loop system would look to companies offering incentives to buy back the phones and recycle them to obtain the precious materials to use again. A Belgium company is doing this and can save one kg of gold from four tonnes of phones. Katie believes the figure for obtaining gold from ore is immensely more than that: 200 tonnes of ore to get one kg of gold. Is it more efficient than collecting gold from phones or ore? Katie says the energy consumption of both practices needs to be analysed! 

Key Take-Aways

The key takeaway from this episode was to think of your organisation's system as a whole when considering ways to improve towards a circular economy. Without doing this, there is a risk that you make a gain in one area that produces an impact in another. There are many techniques you can use to achieve this; one of the best I find is cradle to cradle customer journey mapping. This technique allows you to map your customer's experience, organisations systems and environmental impact in the one approach with the customer front and centre and circularity in mind. It is a great technique to help an organisation innovate and improve, which will create additional value and delight for customers and reduce environmental impact. 

Quotes

05:24min Basically, the idea behind the circular economy is trying to decouple economic activity from finite resource consumption. And the way that circular economy champions that is by modelling the economic system off of natural ones that are regenerative and cyclical.

 11.02min Essentially, slowing can be thought of as extending the useful life of products, and closing is kind of like, extending the useful life of materials.

 18:56min The dominant business logic is this, like, as you said, just pushing things out and having these short cycles. And then you're trying to do slowing and closing loops. It really contrasts with that, and trying to find a way to extend product lifetimes and have your business be financially viable is this contrast with this pushing and with having a new thing every season.

22:12min I sometimes say that I think that circular economy is like design thinking meets sustainability. Because, you know, design thinking is about understanding the user, working towards a solution that is first and foremost desirable from a human perspective but then also feasible and economically viable. And then sustainability is kind of like, how can we make products less fad and how can we do better for the environment? But then, to me, circular economy mixes them together. 

Links

Katherine's LinkedIn Account: linkedin.com/in/katherinewhalen

Website: intheloopgame.com  (Company Website)

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: whalenka

Ebook - Free circular sectors navigator:

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Thanks for your time, and thanks for helping to create a better future.