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Circular Economy Podcast - 94 David Peck – navigating Critical Raw Material risks

94 David Peck – navigating the risk of Critical Raw Materials

David Peck, Associate Professor at TU Delft, explains why we need to know more about critical raw materials – what they are used in, and how we might navigate the future challenges they present.
David Peck is Associate Professor, Climate Design & Sustainability, Circular Built Environment and Critical Materials, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft).
David researches and teaches in the field of circular design, focusing on remanufacturing and critical materials. He is a founding member of the Circular Built Environment Hub and works cross disciplinary on circular challenges, in particular on digital, ICT, mobility and renewables fields.
David explains how critical raw materials are defined, helping us understand why they are ‘critical’ from the perspective of different countries or regions, and how they are assessed and scored.
We discuss the pressure on CRMs, particularly from the perspective of low-carbon technologies, and how this presents ethical dilemmas around ‘fair shares’ for countries, and even across different industry sectors.
I ask David about the conversations he’s having with businesses and policymakers, and whether he’s noticing positive trends towards a good understanding of CRMs, and a recognition of the complex issues and risks.
We discuss the ethics and other issues around mining, and David unpacks the dangers of over-simplifying the arguments for avoiding more mining.

Circular Economy Podcast Episode 81 René Bethmann – circular designs for outdoor sports gear

81 – René Bethmann – circular designs for outdoor sports gear

How do we navigate the tensions of having brilliant products that help us enjoy outdoor activities, yet which are difficult to repair and recycle? René Bethmann specializes in textile and apparel technology, and is leading new approaches to the design of more circular products and materials at Vaude Sports. René focuses on emotional durability, repairability and renewable or recyclable materials. Plus, if we focus on defossilization, not decarbonization, we can unlock new ways of thinking about textiles, coatings and other materials.

Circular Economy Podcast - Episode 80 – evolving and scaling

80 – Evolving and scaling

If you are a regular listener, you’ll know that every 10th episode, Catherine zooms in on one or two of the common themes from the last series of interviews. In the last series, we’ve heard from 4 businesses and 3 social enterprises, based in Australia, The Netherlands, France, Spain, the UK and the USA.
What stood out this time was how circular solutions develop as they mature – that might be evolving to improve the range of solutions, to strengthen the offer or the business model, and maybe even having to pivot when a major barrier or issue crops up. Businesses and community initiatives might also want to expand their scale, so they can make a bigger positive difference.

Circular Economy Podcast - Ep 79 Jordi Ferre – creating value from wine waste

79 Jordi Ferre – creating value from wine waste

You may be surprised to learn that, Instead of becoming waste for landfill, grape skins and other unused parts of grapes from the wine-making process can then go on to create important ingredients to support healthy living, which are used in supplements, foods and beverages.

Alvinesa Natural Ingredients based in Spain, is a “circular economy” leader of sustainable plant-based ingredients. New Chief Executive Jordi Ferre is leading the expansion of Alvinesa’s plant-based ingredients into the global food and nutrition markets. Jordi is an accomplished C-suite business leader who brings a strong commercial and operations background in the food sector, covering B2C as well as value-added food ingredients and agritech.

Circular Economy Podcast Ep78 Colin Church IOM3 Complex Material Challenges

78 Colin Church – complex challenges for materials

Colin Church, Chief Executive of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining, the global network for the materials cycle – also known as IOM3, guides us through topics including critical materials, the complexities of modern supply chains, transparency and Life Cycle Analysis, the challenges of how we ensure fair shares of finite resources and much more.

Circular Economy Podcast Ep76 Isolde de Ridder – Circular Jewellery

76 Isolde de Ridder – Circular Jewellery

Isolde de Ridder is a circular jeweller and goldsmith. She founded her business – Isolde de Ridder Sieraden, in 2017, to create high-end jewellery with the greatest care for both people and planet. Isolde gives discarded metals and other materials a second life, contributing to a better world for future generations.
Isolde began her education to become a goldsmith in 2006, to combine her passion for gemstones, creativity and working with her hands. She’s inspired by Nature, gemstones, ancient civilizations and also more recent art movements.
We talk about why reusing discarded precious metals is more complicated than it sounds, and how Isolde is encouraging people to bring old jewellery back to life, using her storytelling and design skills to help people repurpose jewellery and other materials into things they will treasure, and that remind them of their loved ones.
Isolde tells us about her early interests, and how they led her to start this business, how she became disillusioned with the ethics of Fair Mined and Fairtrade Gold, and how that sparked the ideas for becoming a circular economy jeweller.
Isolde describes some of the kinds of jewellery she designs, and how she uses old objects to embed precious memories into the finished product.

Circular Economy Podcast Episode 74 Charles Ross on Outdoor Clothing

74 Charles Ross on Outdoor Clothing

Charles Ross is a specialist in Performance Sportswear Design & sustainable matters, focusing on issues like Forever Chemicals (highlighted by the movie Dark Waters), the Plastics-in-the-Ocean, ReGenerative Agriculture. We discuss a range of sustainability issues related to Outdoor Clothing designs and materials, including the issue of over-consumption

Circular Economy Podcast Episode 69 Jo Godden of RubyMoon - circular fibres for activewear

Episode 69 Jo Godden of RubyMoon – circular fibres for activewear

RubyMoon, based in Brighton in the UK, is already using recycled fibres from Ocean Plastics to make its active wear products, and now wants to go further through research projects that overcome the technical challenges of recovering and recycling the kind of textiles commonly used in swimwear.
Jo explains that this project focuses on two key fabric elements, Nylon 6 – a strong, durable polyamide, and Elastane, that makes the fabric stretchy so it fits well and supports activites like swimming and other sports.
The challenge is how to find mechanical and chemical methods of breaking down polyamide elastane, that are both cost-effective and environmentally sound.
There’s a second ambitious project too, developing a nano trace to embed into the material so that it can be identified and recovered, to make sure it goes back into the closed loop system.

Circular Economy Podcast Episode 67 Megan O'Connor Of Nth Cycle

Episode 67 Megan O’Connor Of Nth Cycle – a big leap forward for metal & mineral recovery

Megan O’Connor is co-founder and CEO of Nth Cycle, a metal processing company that has developed technology to enable a clean, domestic, and streamlined supply of critical minerals for the clean energy transition.
Megan tells us how she came up with the idea for using electro-extraction, a technology developed by her co-founder for a completely different application, and how she then pivoted the entire focus of her PhD to develop this.

Circular Economy Podcast Ep66 Alyssa Couture - Healthy Fashion

Episode 66 Alyssa Couture – Healthy Fashion is better for all of us, and our planet

Alyssa Couture is the author of Healthy Fashion: The Deeper Truths. Alyssa’s book is all about fashion for mental health, physical health, spiritual health, and energetic health.
Alyssa brings a radical new perspective to fashion, looking at everything from the textiles and dyes we use, to how our clothes can improve our mental and physical health. Alyssa’s work shows how all of this is connected to our environment and improving sustainability.
We’ll start by asking Alyssa to share some of her research on textiles and dyes, and then discuss a few of the insights from her book, including what ‘unhealthy fashion’ is, and how fashion can evolve to be circular and healthier for us, and our living planet.