Catherine Weetman
Catherine Weetman MSc FCILT FRSA - Director, Rethink Global Catherine gives talks, workshops and advice on the circular economy and sustainability. Her award-winning book, A Circular Economy Handbook for Business and Supply Chains, published by Kogan Page, includes wide-ranging examples and practical tips. Catherine has over 25 years' experience in contract logistics, manufacturing, retail and supply chain consultancy, and her career spans food, fashion and logistics, including Tesco, Kellogg's and DHL Supply Chain. She is a Visiting Fellow at the University of Huddersfield, and a Mentor and Regional Organiser for the Circular Economy Club
Supply chain risk
The coronavirus is already highlighting supply chain risk and creating major headaches for many businesses. How can you protect your business in the face of the next mega-disruption, whether driven by extreme weather, disasters, or even geo-politics? We explore how those businesses working towards a circular economy are mitigating these potentially fatal flaws. They aim to recover their own resources, to prioritise local supply and decentralised production, and to slow down consumption instead.
Episode 20 – How to be a problem-hunter
In this episode, we focus on the ‘how’ of making your business circular, looking at the different ways people were getting to grips with the problem they wanted to solve. We also get an update on the new subscription model for ApparelXchange, and get some ‘bonus’ circular economy examples from David Greenfield (aka Dr Resources of the Circular Economy Club London).
How do we find a linear problem that needs a circular economy solution? Bec Evans, author of How to Have a Happy Hustle: the complete guide to making your ideas happen” suggests starting with what’s bugging you, and become ‘avid problem collectors’. We look at how our guests in the last series hunted down their linear problems and got clear on what the customer needed – the ‘job to be done’ in ‘Lean’ terms.
Circular Economy Insights #14
Inclusive capitalism | Circular economy behaviour change | Circularity Gap Widens | Circular Bricks | Peter’s blog, Podcast 19, Davos and more
Episode 19 – Åsa Stenmarck of IVL on how to create circular behaviour
We talk to Åsa Stenmarck, of IVL, the Swedish Environmental Research Institute. Åsa works on projects that aim to create more sustainable consumption (including reducing consumption overall, sharing, waste minimization, recycling and so on), and she is particularly interested in plastics and food. We talk about return systems for food containers, food waste, behaviour change, ‘weasel words’, and how people expect both governments and companies to make ‘good choices’ easy for us.
Circular Economy Insights #13
From problems to solutions | Circular Baby Clothes | Renting is the ‘new normal’ | Consumer attitudes
The ‘new normal’ – why renting clothes is better for us, our planet, and our babies
Renting clothing and fashion is going mainstream. We look at why it is better for people and planet, and how Eve Kekeh, founder of Bundlee, built a successful babywear rental subscription business by helping parents choose high-quality, sustainable options and get more value for money. We unpack the linear economy mindset of ‘sell more’, explaining why it’s a race to the bottom…
Episode 18 – Eve Kekeh of Bundlee
We talk to Eve Kekeh, the founder of Bundlee, the UK’s first baby clothing rental subscription. Eve started Bundlee to give parents a sustainable alternative to buying clothes that will be outgrown very quickly. With Bundlee, parents can rent their baby’s wardrobe and swap clothes for the next size up whenever they like. Outgrown clothes are professionally cleaned before being sent to the next family. We find out how Eve researched to problems associated with babywear, uncover some surprising obstacles she had to overcome, and hear about some of the advantages of the rental and subscription business model – for the business and its customers.
Episode 17 – Nancy Bocken of Homie
Nancy Bocken co-founded the company HOMIE, which is developing circular services for pay-per-use home appliances, starting with washing machines. Nancy has an academic background, and she is professor and research coordinator in Sustainable Business Management and Practice at Lund University in Sweden.
We talk about how Homie got started, and how the service works. Nancy tells about some of the challenges they faced, and the benefits of pay-per-use for customers, the business, and our environment.
Nancy gives us some great tips for those of you thinking about circular projects or startups, and we hear how Homie has built relationships with its customers so that a lot of the marketing is by word-of-mouth.
Episode 16 – Sophie Thomas, of Thomas.Matthews ltd
Sophie is an established leader in communication and design, and in the investigation and promotion of circular economy design principles. She has been working in the fields of ethical design, behaviour change and material process through her design agency, Thomas.Matthews ltd, for nearly 20 years.
We find out how Sophie uses her experience in sustainable and ethical design to help people understand more about the circular economy. We talk about the groundbreaking Great Recovery Project, which looked at the challenges and opportunities of the CE, through the lens of design. Sophie explains the importance of thinking about the system you are designing for, not just the object or product itself.