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Ellen MacArthur Foundation

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation welcomes you to The Circular Economy Show, a podcast about a new way to design, make, and use things, and how we can build an economy that's fit for the 21st century.

The Circular Economy Show Podcast

It’s easy to look at the news headlines and feel like everything is going backwards, but in this episode we ask you to look a little deeper and see the story beneath the headlines. Progress is possible and happening everywhere from plastics to fashion to the automotive sector, and even at COP.

Listen in to hear:

 • Whether COP still matters, and if so, for what?
 • Why Honda’s circularity center in Ohio is an important step
 • What we learned from Patagonia’s first ever environmental and social progress report
 • Why many of the world’s biggest brands are backing a new agenda for plastics

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Explore the articles Seb mentioned in this episode:

1) Circular economy thematic day at COP30 (Circular Online)

https://www.circularonline.co.uk/news/cop30-marks-first-ever-circular-economy-day-as-global-climate-talks-intensify/

2) Honda opening its circularity center (Trellis)

https://trellis.net/article/honda-recycling-ohio-plant-opens-circularity/

3) Analysis of Patagonia’s environmental and social report (Trellis)

https://trellis.net/article/patagonias-comprehensive-plan-counter-rising-emissions/

4) Reuters on businesses supporting the Foundation’s 2030 Plastics Agenda for Business

https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/boards-policy-regulation/global-companies-push-regulation-plastics-reduction-report-shows-2025-11-04/

Circular Snapshots | COP30 and progress in the circular economy

Recorded live at Climate Week New York, in this episode we ask ‘why should retailers embrace the circular economy?’

The global food system is responsible for a third of greenhouse gas emissions, and is vulnerable to supply chain shocks. 

Our guests discuss why circularity must be easier, more convenient, and more irresistible than the linear option, and why retailers and brands need to invest in shared solutions to scale a circular economy for food.

Joining the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Executive Lead for Retail, Reniera O’Donnell, are:

 • Nate Hurst, Chief Sustainability Officer at Visa
 • Burgess Davis, Senior Vice President and Chief Sustainability Officer for North America at PepsiCo
 • Scot Case, Vice President of Sustainability for the National Retail Federation

Learn more about retail and the circular economy

Sign up for the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s North America newsletter

Help us spread the word about the circular economy! If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with your colleagues, or leave us a review or comment on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube.

Why should retailers embrace the circular economy? | Conversations from Climate Week New York

Recorded live during Climate Week NYC, this episode explores how technology can accelerate the transition to a circular economy, not as a bolt-on fix, but as a built-in business strategy. Host Danielle Holly, Executive Lead for North America at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, is joined by Jen Huffstetler (Chief Sustainability Officer, HP), Jim Sullivan (Head of Product Management, SAP), and Vrushali Gaud (Global Director of Strategy and Operations for Net Zero, Water, and Circularity, Google).

Tune in to hear:

 • Why AI and digital growth make circular strategies essential to meet rising material and energy demands
 • How companies such as HP and Google are embedding circular design and open data into products and services
 • What it takes to move from ‘bolt-on’ fixes to ‘bolt-in’ circular systems across business and finance
 • The biggest blockers and how collaboration can help solve them
 • Why pragmatism and focused collective action are key to turning ambition into measurable impact

Listen back to the series on why circular business models fail to scale

Sign up for the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s North America newsletter

What's tech got to do with it? | Conversations from Climate Week New York

This is the fourth and final part of our mini series on the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s new report: How not to fail: Avoiding 10 common pitfalls when scaling circular business models.

In this episode, the report’s lead researchers, Maddy Oliver and Ella Hedley, explain how success at scale demands more than a strong model – what really matters is who is empowered to deliver it and how well are they aligned.

If you enjoyed this series, then please share with your colleagues, or leave us a review or comment on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube.

Why do circular business models fail to scale? Going it alone

Circular business models can drive new revenue streams, build brand strength, customer loyalty, and market traction, while also unlocking value through resource efficiency, cost savings, and reduced risk to supply chain volatility. But there is often too much focus on short-term gains in revenue or sustainability and waste reduction metrics, while overlooking their full business value. 

In the third part of our mini series on the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s new report: How not to fail: Avoiding 10 common pitfalls when scaling circular business models, we hear how, when circular business models are pitched primarily around sustainability, internal commitment is lower.

Pippa is joined by the report’s lead researchers, Maddy Oliver and Ella Hedley, to explore why circular business models rarely scale without a strong, broad financial case. 

They also talk about the need for more commercial collaboration. Find out more by listening to episode 196, HolyGrail: see it, sort it, scale it, to learn how one business-led partnership came together to align on the technology and achieve scale.

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review or a comment on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Your support helps us to spread the word about the circular economy.

Why do circular business models fail to scale? Relying on a narrow business case

Circular business models often fail when they’re designed without factoring how the business works, what the customers want, and what the product requires. 

These need to be considered together, not in isolation, to ensure that delivery, adoption, and revenue generation are possible at scale.

Thinking about fit might feel obvious, but in this episode, we hear how many businesses often overlook these elements.

In the second part of our mini series exploring the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s new report: How not to fail: Avoiding 10 common pitfalls when scaling circular business models, Pippa is joined by Maddy Oliver and Ella Hedley, who led the research on the paper.

You’ll hear about three common pitfalls around strategic misalignment, and how to avoid them.

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review or a comment on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Your support helps us to spread the word about the circular economy.

Why do circular business models fail to scale? Strategic misalignment

What makes circular business models fail to scale? In this new four-part series, we’ll be exploring the common mistakes businesses make on their journey towards circularity.

Based on the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s new report: How not to fail: Avoiding 10 common pitfalls when scaling circular business models, Pippa is joined by Maddy Oliver and Ella Hedley, who led the research on the paper.

You’ll hear about the experiences of pioneering companies, and learn about the practical steps that businesses can use to avoid common pitfalls and enable circular business models to reach transformative scale.

In this episode, we explore:

 • What opportunities circular businesses can offer
 • How the report came about, and why it focuses on failure
 • Why lacking a plan of scale from the outset is the first pitfall and some solutions to consider
 • What happens when circular business models don’t align with the existing strategy of the business, and how to avoid this

Explore the report

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review or a comment on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. Your support helps us to spread the word about the circular economy.

Why do circular business models fail to scale? Don’t think too small

Have the current political and economic shocks actually created enormous opportunities for change?

Can businesses currently working on transforming themselves, work together on driving an entire market transformation?

And what role can the rest of us play in resetting the system and helping to shape that change?

In this episode, Jonquil Hackenberg, CEO of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, and Lindsay Hooper from the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership discuss how catalysing market interventions and designing out competitive disadvantages can work to reshape our system.

We know that complete market transformation is possible, we have already seen renewable energy progress, but no single business or group can do this alone. 

In this episode hear how:

 • Market transformation differs from the incremental changes we’ve seen so far

 • 
 • A system change will require building pre-competitive coalitions who all have a vested interest in change and supporting market making value chains

 • 
 • By harnessing the power of both business and the private sector, we can work together for real transformation

Learn more about commercial collaboration

Read CISL’s report Competing in the Age of Disruption

Stop minding your own business

Scaling the circular economy requires more companies to launch circular products and services, but many competitors transitioning towards the circular economy face similar barriers to scale.

One way to address this is commercial collaboration, where businesses work together on issues that are not tied to their competitive advantage.

In this episode, we’ll hear from Sarah Dodge and Mark Buckley from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation about how this can help to scale a circular economy.

We’ll also explore how one initiative has helped address a bottleneck in post-consumer recycling. 

Hear how companies from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation's Plastics Mission worked together to develop a unified vision and enable high-quality plastic waste sorting at scale with HolyGrail 1.0. This evolved into HolyGrail 2.0, where joint investment in R&D was crucial in helping it get from concept to market in just a few years.

To discuss the project, Sander Defruyt, Lead of Strategy & Thought Leadership for the Plastics Mission, is joined by Gian De Belder, Technical Director of Packaging and Sustainability at Procter & Gamble, and Margherita Trombetti, Project Manager at the European Brands Association (AIM).

Watch or listen to the full episode to learn how:

 • Cross-value chain collaboration was essential to align on the technology and achieve scale
 • Growing interest allowed participation to grow from 31 companies in HolyGrail 1.0 to 176 in 2.0 
 • The European Brands Association (AIM) facilitated the governance, confidentiality, and communications of 2.0

Learn more about this business-led partnership, which was funded through member contributions and philanthropic funding from the Alliance to End Plastic Waste and the City of Copenhagen.

Explore the full commercial collaboration collection

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review or a comment on Spotify or YouTube. Your support helps us to spread the word about the circular economy.

HolyGrail: see it, sort it, scale it

It was a busy summer for the circular economy. In this episode, Seb brings you up to speed with some of the headlines and all in less than 10 minutes!

Listen in to hear about:

- The latest EU policy breakthrough: EPR for textiles

- How new business models continue to gain traction across the retail sector

- Why a group is advocating to scrap VAT on repairs in the UK

- Why all of the news around critical minerals makes the circular economy an even more urgent solution around the world

- What happened at the latest round of Global Plastics Treaty negotiations in Geneva

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Explore the articles Seb mentioned in this episode:

1) EPR in EU (Vogue Business)

2) Wider circular economy momentum in retail (The Conversation | BBC News | Trellis

3) VAT on repair (The Guardian)

4) Critical minerals geopolitics (circular economy link) (BBC News | Hindustan Times | BBC News)

5) What plastics treaty talks mean for circular economy and high ambition countries and businesses (BBC News)

Circular Snapshots: EU policy breakthrough

In 2018, the Foundation alongside the UN Environment Programme launched the Global Commitment, the biggest global voluntary effort to tackle plastic waste and pollution. In this podcast episode, we hear from Sander Defruyt, Plastics Lead at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, who reflects on the progress and learnings to date from five years of the Global Commitment, the need for a legally binding global treaty to end plastic pollution, and what makes him feel optimistic about the last five years.

 

Learn more about the Global Commitment Five Years In

Progress, challenges and solutions: Learnings from five years of the Global Commitment with Sander Defruyt

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