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My experience with the circular economy comes kind of from that cradle to cradle idea that,

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you know, instead of thinking about products and services in this kind of linear fashion way,

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you extract something from Earth, you create something, you sell it to somebody, and then they ultimately dispose at end of life.

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How can we create a system where the end product goes back to the beginning, kind of that circle of life ideas, not having enough work.

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Climate change. Lending. Finance. Air shortages, fresh water and.

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Large scale social disorder, antibiotic resistant diseases.

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Education. Quantum computing.

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In this episode,

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we're talking about different business models and how some business models might be more appropriate and more fit for the future by the planet,

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for people and for shareholders.

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And later on, we're going to be talking to Charmaine Love, who was one of the people who brought B Corp movement to the U.K.

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But before we do that, we I'm just sitting here with Michael Butler, who is not only one of the producers on the feature business podcast,

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but also has a real interest in this area and has spent a lot of time thinking and reflecting on it.

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So before we dive into a bit of a conversation, an introduction to some of the topics are going to be talking about today.

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Might have. Would you give us a little background on you?

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What what were you up to if we came to business school and what I guess sparked your interest in this area?

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Yeah. So I used to work in the carbon offset space,

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so it was an alternative business kind of looking at how we can use the forces of capitalism for environmental good.

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And so we were protecting a big rainforest in the DRC and then using that to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

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And I've been quite interested in business school because I think for a lot of

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us that are passionate about seeing kind of social and environmental justice,

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there's a lack of understanding that that business is oftentimes the language and the catalyst for making that happen.

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And so I came to business school to learn that language better. Mm hmm.

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And while you've been here, what areas have you particularly kind of spent some time thinking and reflecting on in amongst all of the markets?

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I was just reflecting on on that question this morning as I was coming in.

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And the business school experience has been so scattered.

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But I think where I've gotten to kind of ponder the most and have actually been in conversations

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with other students who have deep backgrounds in particularly the circular economy,

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but that we're getting to later and thinking about kind of bringing alternate ways of thinking in with alternate business models as well.

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As we talk a lot about design thinking, I've really been enjoying that process.

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Okay. And so for someone who is a lady, we would be doing Charmaine and we talk about we talk about because we talk about cycle economy.

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One of the risks for those who are thinking about these subjects is that we use

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a language which alienates those who aren't thinking about these subjects.

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So give us a bit of a glossary. What are the what are the kind of what are the drivers, the B Corp movement?

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What is wrong about, you know, in its simplest terms, what's wrong now?

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That means that we need something like because. And when you think about because what are the kind of things we should be thinking about?

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Yeah, brilliant. So I think in terms of the the sort of glossary about that B Corp movement kind of was birthed out of a frustration with

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this idea that shareholder value is the primary purpose of businesses and that the business of business is business.

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And that alone and it ignored the fact that businesses are out there.

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There's this term externalities, right?

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Businesses, by the very nature of, you know, producing widgets or whatever they're doing are putting carbon into the atmosphere,

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are putting fertilisers into rivers that are going down and creating algae blooms.

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And the B Corp movement is one amongst a kind of spectrum of kind of optimistic reiterations of capitalism, I would say.

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Mm hmm. Kind of along the lines of, as I mentioned, the circular economy.

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Conscious capitalism is another name that's kind of thrown around there.

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Responsible business mutuality is one that's come out there.

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But but really what they're all aiming for is holding businesses responsible for their actions, not only to shareholders, but also to stakeholders.

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So anybody that is impacted from and the person kind of way down on,

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they're producing the raw materials to the person that's ultimately going to be buying it.

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So these are models which are not trying to wholesale chunk the baby out of the out with the bathwater,

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but within the kind of capitalist tools that we have trying to rethink how they can be slightly restructured and rejigged.

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And I guess for that, because they attack that through a kind of governance, a corporate governance perspective.

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Was that kind of accurate? Yeah, exactly. Okay.

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So I think. What's different about B corpse and kind of conscious capitalism from the charity sector is that the idea is financial sustainability.

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So we're not continuing to go back to do gooders and philanthropists and saying, you know, please, out of the goodness of your heart,

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give us this money so that we can do this cool project and help, you know, save these people or whatever.

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It's I'm saying we we need to find sustainable mechanisms to make this the natural course.

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So instead of kind of offsetting the bad that we do, just not doing that bad in the first place, right?

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Right through the kind of, I guess, fundamentals of of what the business does.

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Exactly. So when we think about these models and think about them kind of critically as as we should,

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what are the some of the outstanding questions that should be in our mind when we're having these conversations, some of the outstanding questions.

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So I think some of the things that have come up. A lot through the course of this MBA.

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Ah, and you know, is it too little, too late?

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And I think many of us have are wondering, you know, what is this just a drop in the bucket?

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And are there ways to scale this such that all business is done differently,

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or the businesses that are kind of radically changing their approach to to kind of have their impact expand much more,

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more quickly and to kind of also how do we create continuity, right?

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So Unilever is often used as an example of a business that's really trying to redefine the way that it does business.

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And it, you know, it's famously switched to annual reporting and stuff like that.

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But but still, some of its product lines are problematic in different parts of the world.

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Right. And and so I think that leads into another question of, you know, to what degree do we hold people accountable?

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And is there a process that we're allowing people to go through as they're developing and changing their business model?

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I think for me there's also the question of environmental and social justice.

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Ah, and it's often kind of one or the other. You're oftentimes a little bit more focussed on how do we reduce our carbon footprint or, you know,

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reduce the plastic or whatever and and or kind of wholesale focus on how do we get people jobs that wouldn't otherwise get jobs or,

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you know, how do we make sure that this is slavery free or whatever?

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And I think for me, that's one of the other big questions is how to how do we bring consistency in in that part of the business as well?

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So is is like, which I thought was quite interesting about these sort of, you know,

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Unilever is often held up as the standard bearer for these types of movements mostly and should be said is not be corp but is looking at it.

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Is there a sort of acknowledgement yet among cycles that none of these organisations

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are going to be perfect and even the Beatles wouldn't all necessarily be perfect?

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Like, you know, Ben and Jerry's is a B Corp, but it also sells ice cream, right.

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You know, which is not, you know, absolutely love it and don't want to get rid of it, but is not something we should be using all the time.

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Right. So is there a kind of acknowledgement that this is a process and we can't expect

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all businesses to be perfect all the time and every time we think they are,

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you know, they're then there's the kind of the latest scandal of one form or another.

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So is there sort of a what standard we hold in to?

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I guess what I'm asking and and within the circle of people that you speak to and debate these things with,

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is there a sort of acknowledgement that it's okay to know that they're not going to be perfect immediately?

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You know, I think it's I don't think there's a consensus thought on it.

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I think there are a lot of kind of backseat drivers.

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And it's really easy to kind of stand on the outside and say, you know, look, yeah, Ben and Jay's is flawed for these reasons.

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And, you know, what about the sugar that goes into it? And what about obesity, all this stuff?

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And it's much more difficult to be the man in the arena that is, you know,

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trying to put out fires on all these fronts while shifting their fundamental business model and all that kind of stuff.

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And I, I think one of the reasons that there's really not consensus is that.

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We as consumers haven't really owned up to our demand driving business practices right now.

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And I certainly wouldn't go so far as to say that it's all on the consumer to pressure businesses into changing.

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I think but I think it needs to be more of a conversation and it tends to be more binary.

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I think a lot of critics I've met have kind of said, while, you know,

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that if if there were businesses that I, I could buy from that I felt good about, I would.

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Right. But they aren't. And so. So I just kind of do whatever.

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And similarly on the businesses and they're saying people still buy ice cream.

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And as you mentioned, I, I still I was as I was, you know,

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pulling all nighters and writing my papers, I think I went through like three or four pints.

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And so I think I think I suppose at this juncture, the consensus is there's a lot of criticism.

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And my hope is that we move into a more nuanced conversation about what what is acceptable,

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what is an acceptable process of transition for businesses and what's an acceptable process of transition for consumers as well.

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You know, does are we expecting people to move from 0 to 60?

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You know, so zero being they're using tonnes of plastic, they're flying, they're driving to,

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you know, I cycle everywhere and I buy everything in bulk and like glass.

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Right. Right. Or I grow myself, you know something? And, you know, how do we how do we create space for people to be in that continuum?

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Hmm. That. That's my hope. And I. But I don't think that we're there.

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Do you think that there's a kind of a fear of being accused of being a hypocrite,

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which stops some businesses doing more or at least being more public about what they are doing than they might otherwise?

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I think so. So in in the States, there's quite a few really big businesses that are pretty active in patenting technology.

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And so I went to a presentation by Walmart actually a number of years ago about

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how recycling for them is really just a matter of practicality and saving money,

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which is in line with, you know, they're kind of save money, live better ethos.

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But then they used up all of their old coat hangers for from, you know,

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the really cheap coat hangers that you get clothes on and they recycle those once they break into the filling for their dog beds.

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You know, so so it is baby steps like that. But I only heard about that in a kind of a smaller presentation setting because, you know,

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it would be too off brand for them to really start talking about it and would, I think, draw more criticism for them.

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And then it would be worth. Right. And and I think a lot of other companies are kind of caught in that space,

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especially because the ones name brand because are, you know, kind of Patagonia, Ben and Jerry's method.

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So that are fast moving consumer goods. And maybe there's a sense that a lot of the companies that are kind of public because are FMG's fast moving

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consumer goods and there's a perception that okay it's easy for easy in quotes for them because you know,

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there's a very clear supply chain and it we understand the steps that it's going to take for them to have an ethical business.

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What do you do if you're an accounting firm? What do you do if you're a graphic designer?

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I actually ran across a graphic designer in the UK that's a B Corp and that was really exciting because they were thinking about it.

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Okay. Well, you know, a lot of what we do is on the Internet, how do we how do we go green with our Web hosting and what does that mean?

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And, you know, is that different models of cool things like that.

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And yeah, I don't think that I think there's not clarity in these more service oriented business on what that can look like,

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because we're used to kind of tangible, tactile as consumers, at least.

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And I think for a lot of. Certainly not wholesale, but I think for a lot of people,

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the B Corp movement is about kind of putting a stake in the ground and saying this is what we believe in.

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And then it kind of attracts a flock of like minded consumers.

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And so it is a yeah, it's it's a label.

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And so if your business isn't kind of one that. People interact with in that way and on a grocery store, store aisle.

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Do you do you need that label is worthwhile? And I think that's also a conversation that's worth having.

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Yeah. Brilliant. You've set us up fantastically to speak to Charmaine in a bit.

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Thank you all so much for joining us today. We are here to talk about beagles, which is something I know you've dedicated a lot of your life to.

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But before we do that,

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I'd love if you maybe give us a bit of an introduction to you and your background and also how you came to be a business school as well.

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Oh, excellent. Yes. So my name is Jeremy and Love. I feel like I've been floating around this business school for actually quite a long time.

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So without doing a whole article sort of bio because it was the highlight actually pretty boring.

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So I guess I'd describe myself as a bit of an entrepreneur.

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So I had the great privilege of starting a business when I moved here to the UK from Toronto with John Elkington,

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who's one of the sort of thought leaders around sustainability and systems innovation,

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as well as Pamela Hartigan, who was the former director here at the school centre.

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And we started this business called Volandes back in 2008, which was a really fun it is a really fun business which focuses on sort of systems change,

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breakthrough innovation and a whole lot of really interesting dynamics that are happening in the world.

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I stepped away from my CEO role a couple of years ago in order to support and really

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be involved in sort of getting the B Corp movement up and going here in the UK,

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which I'm excited to talk to you about today.

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And the reason why we did that was actually one of the really important milestones for us at four months,

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right when I was there was certifying as a B Corp and we were the second business in the UK to do that.

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So I'm happy to share a little bit more about Scripps, but I hang out now at business school.

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I spent my time in what I like to call a cocktail of different roles,

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and the reason why I call it cocktail is actually there's a whole lot of

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different roles that are not quite distinct or differentiated from one another.

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They're actually really wonderful and intoxicating because they're all mixed together.

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And actually there's a couple of really common themes through them. So B Corp is one of them and I chair B Lab UK.

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I'm also on the board of B team here in the UK serving in advisory council to the ICW because I believe accountants

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will save the world and I'm on an investment committee committee actually at the London Waste and Recycling Board,

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which has a circular economy route map.

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And then I spend time here as an entrepreneur in residence and general tours and circular economy and all sorts of other projects.

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So I'm doing the conversation. We're also hoping to talk about the economy as well.

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But just as a quick aside, just to kind of, I guess, shots out of France as well.

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And John Abbington, for those who don't know and haven't come across that work before, it is awesome.

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And so we were pulling some stuff in description so that people can follow up on that sort of jumping speak what's I mean,

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one of you said joking before that, you know, for those who know, you really know and speak to this sort of extraordinary thing,

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but there are maybe people who haven't come across it before.

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And how do you describe that? You know, if you're breaking it down as most fundamentals, each describing it to a child, how would you describe it?

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Because yeah, it's a really good question. And I'm trying to think about how I talk about what I do.

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And it really speaks to my kids who are five and seven. Right. They're not quite tenured.

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Yeah. And it's interesting. I actually recently asked them, you know, Hey boys, what do you think Mummy does for work?

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And my son, one of my sons said, Well, Mummy you're, you're be the change.

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And I think that's I mean I was really proud of that and I thought,

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well that's a really great thing for my kids to think about how I spend my time when I'm not with them.

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And I actually think that that boils down to actually a really interesting insight about the B Corp movement,

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because one of the frames to the B Corp movement is the change.

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And and I think the way that I would explain it a little bit more deeply to say that, you know, we all as people want to do good things.

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And actually businesses are an organising feature that allow us to think about ways in which we can make good things happen.

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And so I think the B Corp movement, which is, you know,

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about businesses that have met a certification or a certain level and standard in terms of how they operate and

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what they're in the business of doing are a great manifestation of that idea of we as people can be the change,

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and actually businesses can be a vehicle by which that change can be expressed.

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That's so awesome. And and one of the things that's kind of interesting about because is that sort of like part of a variety of different words,

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which is used to describe, you know, a whole kind of panoply of responsible business paths like business shovelling, you know, etc., etc., etc.

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How do you see them fitting into that kind of overarching, I guess, what is that range?

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Yeah. So essentially I'm actually in the midst of a project right now which is looking at a movement of movements.

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Right. And I wonder if that's kind of in the direction of.

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Here. And and the movement of movements actually speaks to this idea that, as you say,

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there's a lot of different organisations that are exploring new economic systems, new models,

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new sort of social contracts,

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like what is all this change that's happening in the world mean and how do we inspire surges and movements of people to engage in them?

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And so I think, you know, A,

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B Corp and the B Corp community kind of represents a one element of sort of this movement of of people who are using business as a force for good.

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The community of B Corp are quite interesting because what they are are businesses that have, as I said,

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met a very sort of high standard in terms of how they operate as well as what they're in the business of doing.

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And they actually have to score 80 out of 200 to even be considered to becoming a B Corp.

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And I know for a lot of listeners, 80 of 200, you know, that's not even that's not even 50%.

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But actually, it's a really, really hard assessment and it's designed to be really, really hard.

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You know, some of the things that are covered in the operational side of it are things like, you know, what's your governance like as a business?

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How do you engage with your workers? How do you gauge with your local community what is your environmental footprint around you?

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Think about environmental conservation through your business and as well as on the impact business model side.

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So like what your businesses in the business doing at a strategic level like it's so interesting to look at what these different models are,

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where businesses are actually creating new positive externalities through what they do.

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The second step to becoming a B Corp as well is once you get that score of 88 or 200, you actually have to change your legal articles.

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And that's a really important thing that I think is a key definition of of the B Corp community,

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because actually it's it's embedding these principles really deeply into your DNA as a business.

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And so I do think that, again, there's this whole incredibly vast movement of movements that is emerging.

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And each of these movements have their own sort of, you know, elements that are kind of core to their model.

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And I think that, again, this assessment and this legal change and the fact that it's sort of really engaging in this concept

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of continuous improvement because you have to recertify to become a B Corp every couple of years.

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You don't just do it once. You have to sort of be on this pathway to constantly be aware of the things that you can do to improve.

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I think those are things that are kind of core to what the B Corp community is raising.

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And just very quick questions anyone ever got to know?

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Actually, I think not that I know, actually. I think I would know if they did.

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Yeah, there's some people that have pretty high scores. Yeah. But again, it's set up to be a very, very sort of aspirational.

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Right. Right. And so can you give us maybe a little bit of the history, you know, how did you.

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One of the things I'm sort of I guess, you know,

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really strikes a chord with me is both a very stringent but also a universal set of criteria and objective assessment.

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Because my background is, is from social impact and thinking about measurement of different,

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you know, the endless obsession with measuring outcomes between different charities and nonprofits.

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And, you know, the idea of finding something that universally works across a bunch of different models.

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Is it sort of like a pipe dream that the sector in my world thinks they're going to get cheaper?

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Probably never will. And then suddenly, because someone on I know we have 200 things which applies to any business.

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So how did you get to that point? Because that's I don't know. That was very interesting to me.

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Well, to be clear, I mean, there is a lot like the assessment itself, but when you sign into the sort of the online assessment tool, which is,

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you know, free and available for anybody to try, we will actually you know, you're asked a couple of dating questions upfront, right?

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Skating questions are to gauge which version of the assessment is most appropriate for your business.

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So I need to say it front. Like, you know, we're size and sector agnostic.

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Like, you know, it doesn't really matter how big or small you are as a for profit business.

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If you are interested in that journey, then we will be we will have an assessment that is is suited to you.

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So I guess I would say it's not that it's one standard across the board.

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I should say it is one standard.

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It's just different assessments of, for example, how many people you have working with you, what region, what industry you're operating with.

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Then in a how straightforward was that process of putting those criteria together?

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Because I think often it's easy to really toss or not say little kind of minutiae, these kind of quite complicated free ones.

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Yeah, well, there is really rock star standards team, right, that has been working on this for over ten years.

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I mean, B Corp movement has been around sort of for a decade now.

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And and I think what they again have embraced is this idea of continuous improvement.

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And so every couple of years, new versions of the assessment come out and they are very much building on feedback that's collected.

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Or the community. So when you're going through the assessment, you can actually say, here's a question that doesn't really make sense to me.

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Or is there you know, are there reflections on what some of these questions are about and that feedback is

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taken into account and then incorporated into the next round of developing the versions.

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We also have a Standards Advisory Council which is made up of like world leaders around some of these topics, and they're involved in this process.

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And so I want to kind of maybe talk through a couple of cases of kind of examples,

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because one of these is sort of interesting is, you know, you could imagine B-class is becoming the city's.

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The thought leaders or even just leaders in that particular field and bring along with them a kind of flock of others

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who maybe don't themselves become because of that kind of transport and influence to grow with them as suppliers,

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customers, etc. When someone becomes a people, they obviously start on this journey.

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It's a continuous process. It isn't that kind of final destination.

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What then happens to that competition in that business?

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Do you start to collect that kind of data around what happens next?

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Yeah, we are starting to collect some of that data and here in the UK we do a lot of surveys to understand the dynamics happening in the companies,

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how we know, how are things going when they become part of the community.

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I think the way I would like to answer that question is maybe a little bit around the sorts of

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values that some of the big groups are able to capture once they are part of the community.

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And what I get really excited about is the collaboration that starts happening between B Corp to find each other

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because they have sort of a shared sense of right values and they kind of all come and made it through this process.

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And it's kind of like that community of, again, shared values and respect and and trust for one another,

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I think is a really great platform for for deeper, deeper levels of collaboration.

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So I love it when I see that B Corp find each other and find ways of actually working together and as a collective or as a community.

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So there are two more questions, both which I'm sure you get asked all the time, but I still want to ask you.

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The first one is, can any business become a people?

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Any business can be on a journey to become a B Corp.

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I mean, the assessment is again available for anyone to go online and look at ways in which they can sort of benchmark themselves,

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look at the questions that they're they're being presented to think about are these

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things that they'd want to involve in their business and ultimately be on a journey.

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But I mean, are there some types of business activities which would prevent one ever making the AC out of 100?

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So I can't answer that question actually, because I think I know where you're going with that one.

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Couple of years ago, there's this interesting thought leader in Canada.

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His name's Paul Klein, and he wrote this really interesting piece.

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And it was sort of back casting Exxon and it was saying, you know, excellent has had this big announcement in 2025 or 2030.

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And it is it finally exited from sort of all this very heavy carbon and fossil fuel industries.

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And the question you asked was, how do we get there?

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I sort of then looked at what are the things that a company like Exxon would do in order to reach this sort of quite momentous achievement?

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And there are a few things on that list, things like they hired a new CEO who had been with the EDF Environmental Defence Fund.

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They sort of transitioning their, you know, petrol or gas stations into mobility stations.

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They started issuing a new share class, which was about the social and environmental returns, and they became a B Corp.

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And and I think what's interesting about that story is to say that that, you know, you almost don't want to ever say no.

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The company can never become a big part because, you know, it's actually designed to be a tool to try and help businesses improve.

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And I think, obviously, there are some industries out there that have, you know,

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that are not necessarily creating positive externalities, don't necessarily have those elements today.

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But actually, if they can use the assessment to be on a journey to improve their operations, to improve what they do and ultimately reach a point,

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then I think we would embrace and celebrate the use of the assessment tool to get them there.

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I love the hope and optimism that you approach that question with because,

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I mean, you know, that's exactly the the the use case that I was looking for.

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But I think that's fantastic if that's the way you approach it.

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Well, and I should also say, I mean, I think it's one of the values that I find so exciting about the B Corp movement.

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Actually exciting. And it is exciting, but it's what makes me feel so spirited and so connected to this movement.

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And that's this idea that, you know, people standing for something, not against something.

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Yeah. And actually, in a world where there's a lot of negativity, I think having something that's hopeful,

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that's positive to focus on actually is really important direction of travel.

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And it's not to say that we kind of ignore sort of the big challenges that are out there, the fear.

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But it's actually to say that we we use the direction of travel that we want to move and something that's hopeful and positive of opportunity.

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The word that I learned a couple of years ago,

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that's kind of my mantra with this is this concept of heliotrope and heliotrope is a fancy sounding word,

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but gardeners often know it because it comes from botany and it's a concept.

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Helios is sun. The sun, yeah. Trapping is is turned towards.

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And I just when I hear that word, I visualise. A field of sunflowers.

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And I just I can imagine the blossoms, the flowers of that, some of those sunflowers just literally following the sun across the sky.

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And and I think that that again, that that movement, that following of something that is light and full of positivity,

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that heliotrope, which is what we see expressed in botany, I don't think we're that different as humans.

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I think and I believe actually that we will grow stronger and taller and faster when we are motivated by things that are full of light and positivity.

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Again, it's not to ignore the challenges and the fear and despair that's out there, but it's in step.

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But it's to use the energy of positivity to help us find the direction of travel to go in.

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And I have to say that that's what inspires me about the B Corp movement,

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is that it reflects businesses and people that are operating within those businesses that are focussed on that hope, that solution, that positivity.

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And so that's why that where Heliotrope has become important to me and I found that alive in the B Corp community, that's so cool.

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Just jumping off that enthusiasm, you know, and sort of maybe thinking, you know, we do entrepreneur hat a bit.

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If I, you know, were all wrapping up and being now, you know,

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and then if I think about some of my friends who are going off to start their own businesses or even have already started their own business,

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how quickly can you become a peak? You know, how much can you can you kind of go right out of the box, right?

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This is how we're going to do business? Or is it something where once you've kind of made some profits, you know, got some customers,

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you kind of think, oh, hang on, I'm not quite sure about the way I'm doing this right now.

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I need to become bigger. At what point in the journey does it come?

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And so to become a certified B Corp, you have to have been trading for at least a year.

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And that is because actually the verification process to verify the things that

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you're putting into your assessment actually need to have documented evidence.

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And so, you know, it's important to know that that evidentiary process actually is in place.

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And so, for example, if you say you have an employee handbook in your assessment about how you engage with your workers,

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you know, there is a process by which certain of those questions are you need to submit evidence to show that your answers.

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And so for some of those questions, they would be things like, you know, what is your vendor ledger?

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You know, what has your turnover been? How much of your profit or your income has come from certain areas?

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And so to have a year of trading is what you need in order to be able to verify some of those those elements.

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Now that being said, what we've done in the UK is we recognise that there are so many businesses that are starting up and want to embed the

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principles of being a B Corp kind of from from their inception and whether or not those are in your legal documents.

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Again, if you want to become B Corp, you have to make this sort of legal change.

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And actually, instead of changing it, why not start your business with them intact to begin with?

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And, you know, if you're starting a business and you want to make sure you have excellent governance processes from the very start you're engaging,

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you've got worker policies that are top notch. What we don't want to do is to turn businesses away when they're at that sort of inception stage.

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So again, we've created this kind of status which we call pending B's,

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which essentially means that you're doing everything that you would need to do to become a B Corp,

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but you have to wait until that full year trading in order to be fully furnished.

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Oh, very cool. Yeah. I think an interesting Segway might also into the circular economy around might be to

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kind of touch on what are some of the different business models that people can adopt as

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they're thinking about what what it could look like to embed B Corp principles in kind of

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from inception like some of the things that we talked about in the circular economy class.

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I don't know if that is. I did want to change gears and maybe like slightly switch hats for you.

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So during the MBA year, this year you've taught courses like our economy and maybe you could just draw a

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picture for us of how kind of big whoops and then circular economy linked together.

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And also for those who aren't aware of the cycle economy, maybe take us through a little bit of what that means as well.

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That's not the same question, but we're going to do it that way anyway. I love it.

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Okay. So B Corp and Circular Economy, maybe I'll start with a little bit of what is the circular economy?

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Part of me wants to like turn it over to you, because actually, I mean, I'd really love to hear what you took away.

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Like what you picked up as a circular economy.

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Yeah. For me, my. My experience with the circular economy comes kind of from that cradle to cradle idea that,

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you know, instead of thinking about products and services in this kind of linear fashion way,

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you extract something from materials from the earth, you create something, you sell it to somebody,

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and then they ultimately dispose at end of life and it ends up in a landfill where it never decomposes.

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And how can we create a system where the end product goes back to the beginning,

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kind of that circular of our circle of life idea that kind of gets explored in like The Lion King.

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Right. And I think that's really what the circular economy is trying to bring about in in a variety of different industries,

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whether it's I think some of the big use cases are carpets.

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But there's you can think about it in in a lot of different areas.

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I think you're probably a little bit better off to speak about that.

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And I would be oh, my gosh, I love that you mentioned The Lion King and now I'm kind of like kicking myself because we had so much fun in the past,

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or at least I had fun in the class because we started it with music and every day we would

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have like a new song to try and like get the energy up at 830 on a Thursday morning.

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And I was trying to I tried a lot to think about what are relevant songs to the topic.

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So like Hamilton rise up and I'm just, I'm like, oh my gosh, we totally should have played the circle of life.

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I'm going to have to like add that to the course for next year, next year, first class and a big circle of like Elton John, I think.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Beautiful.

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Cause I actually think that that phrase like the circle of light, actually, that is a really amazing way to describe it.

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And you talked about moving from the linear to a more circular system.

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And I think the references to some of the natural ecosystem approaches to this,

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I think are all really kind of key elements to at least my understanding of what, you know, the circular economy is as well.

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I have to say I learned a lot in the class and through the process around like, you know,

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what the definitions are and also what the different implications and applications of those definitions.

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And I think in my kind of couple of weeks since we finished the class in reflecting,

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I think there are a few things that I really have risen to the top for me, and that is things like this is a systems change.

376
00:37:08,410 --> 00:37:14,590
So you remember we talked about like macro maso nomics and like microeconomics that actually like the

377
00:37:14,590 --> 00:37:21,610
systems that we need to to actually to change to to lead to a circular economy are hugely complex.

378
00:37:21,610 --> 00:37:29,439
And I think there's a really interesting role for us to to support, which is around recognising the overall big systems change that needs to happen.

379
00:37:29,440 --> 00:37:33,100
And then what are the steps that can start happening today to get us there?

380
00:37:34,090 --> 00:37:37,719
So I think what was great was we heard from some entrepreneurs that are working in the space.

381
00:37:37,720 --> 00:37:42,160
I mean Tristram from Toast Ale and what he's doing, he's also a B Corp.

382
00:37:42,160 --> 00:37:45,520
So that's why I was kind of this nice little connection there, you know,

383
00:37:45,520 --> 00:37:52,050
Toast Ale, which is taking bread that would otherwise be wasted and like great.

384
00:37:52,280 --> 00:37:56,620
It's just a terrible story that he shared in terms of what happens to bread.

385
00:37:56,860 --> 00:37:59,950
And instead he's sort of taking it and creating beer.

386
00:38:00,250 --> 00:38:06,340
And I think I loved about Tristram and his sort of approach to this was he had this great line about if you're going to,

387
00:38:06,370 --> 00:38:10,120
you know, if you want to change the world, you bathrobe better party and the people that are destroying it.

388
00:38:10,120 --> 00:38:14,049
So I mean, he's also kind of pulling in the cultural element to, you know,

389
00:38:14,050 --> 00:38:18,490
the example of of the model of of a sort of a circular kind of business where he's taking,

390
00:38:18,490 --> 00:38:25,330
you know, things would otherwise go in a more linear fashion into a non optimal use case for those materials.

391
00:38:25,330 --> 00:38:29,510
And he's creating a beer and, and he's infusing them that story almost with a,

392
00:38:30,070 --> 00:38:33,550
a like a culture shift, which is about having fun by enjoying these things.

393
00:38:33,610 --> 00:38:40,840
It's funny, I saw an advert on Instagram the other day, which was from Hotpoint.

394
00:38:40,900 --> 00:38:50,080
He makes fridges and they have got a new campaign and a whole new kind of social account all about food waste.

395
00:38:50,080 --> 00:38:56,650
And they've partnered with Jamie Oliver to create a bunch of recipes which are meant to use up your leftovers,

396
00:38:57,010 --> 00:39:01,540
which is I thought was a really interesting kind of move by, you know,

397
00:39:01,540 --> 00:39:05,829
big corporate to kind of say, okay, we're going to target this particular issue.

398
00:39:05,830 --> 00:39:10,420
This is going to be all like social, but social conscience is really very, very interesting.

399
00:39:10,690 --> 00:39:13,480
So when did so let's break this down a little bit.

400
00:39:14,020 --> 00:39:22,630
Maybe if if I if I recycle and I try and use on my leftovers and I have a teacup and a water bottle that I take with me,

401
00:39:23,080 --> 00:39:27,100
I'm engaging in the sector economy. Or does it do I need to be a business?

402
00:39:27,100 --> 00:39:32,790
Does it go you know, how much of it is me as a consumer? How much of it is is the way that I run my business?

403
00:39:32,800 --> 00:39:39,210
So I'm a big fan of concepts of both. And and I think that's actually how we have to really drive systems change it.

404
00:39:39,490 --> 00:39:43,290
You know, I, I think there is a really important role for us as individuals, we can say.

405
00:39:43,650 --> 00:39:53,910
That we can take. And we we need to be taken and we need to be taking them probably even more than just I mean, the cups and recycling are great,

406
00:39:53,910 --> 00:40:01,020
but there's also other decisions we can make in our lives around what we're even choosing to buy, what we need, where we're buying it from.

407
00:40:01,030 --> 00:40:05,370
So I think there is a really there's sort of a range of different ways in which we as

408
00:40:05,370 --> 00:40:10,560
consumers can actually engage in principles of the systems views that we want to see.

409
00:40:11,670 --> 00:40:16,110
But I do think, you know, there are a range of other entities that need to be taking active steps,

410
00:40:16,110 --> 00:40:20,339
you know, and so those are private sector companies. You know, you you talk about one example.

411
00:40:20,340 --> 00:40:25,920
I mean, I think the circular economy is almost like a really sort of expensive journey to be on.

412
00:40:26,340 --> 00:40:32,520
And it's going to take us a long time to get there. So we need actually a whole lot of different sectors and industries involved.

413
00:40:32,520 --> 00:40:35,430
So there's the role for the private sector. We spend a lot of time talking about investment,

414
00:40:35,700 --> 00:40:43,889
like how are investors engaging in funding and fuelling sort of circular economy business models and then of course, the role of government.

415
00:40:43,890 --> 00:40:48,350
So what are sort of the policy levers? So I guess I'd answer that question to say, like,

416
00:40:48,360 --> 00:40:58,740
we need all adds to to help us shift to a systems change which would be embracing the principles of the circular economy and what.

417
00:41:00,370 --> 00:41:07,299
And you know listeners at this point reasoning why you should just take class via the on the kind

418
00:41:07,300 --> 00:41:11,950
of economy side on the economic side and maybe think about the investment and the government role.

419
00:41:12,310 --> 00:41:20,310
What are some of the things that you see those two actors doing or not doing that you'd like them to do so?

420
00:41:20,530 --> 00:41:27,790
So we talked a little bit about the circularity of it and the sort of, you know, it's it's fairly intuitive to understand, you know,

421
00:41:27,790 --> 00:41:33,610
trying to return one product from where it starts back to where it begins and making sure that it doesn't go to landfill or going to waste.

422
00:41:34,540 --> 00:41:39,010
But on the economic side and the system change side, what does that side of it look like?

423
00:41:39,550 --> 00:41:44,530
If I can kind of disaggregate those two. Well, yeah. And maybe what I'd love to answer that by is talking about,

424
00:41:44,590 --> 00:41:50,530
I think one of the interesting economic components and the forces that are in place, and that's employment.

425
00:41:51,370 --> 00:41:57,760
And, you know, it's funny because I think what we're going to see is a real change in terms of the composition of jobs in the future.

426
00:41:57,790 --> 00:42:03,790
I mean, I'm sure you guys have talked about mission and machine learning and AI in various of these podcasts.

427
00:42:03,790 --> 00:42:09,549
And I think it's you know, it's important to recognise the impacts that those are going to have on jobs.

428
00:42:09,550 --> 00:42:11,560
And jobs are a key part of the economy.

429
00:42:12,130 --> 00:42:19,120
So I guess one of the things I'm really interested in is looking at if people are going to be losing some of the jobs in sectors that exist already,

430
00:42:19,120 --> 00:42:28,419
like what are some of the new jobs that could emerge? And I actually think it's so interesting to kind of reignite the industry here in the U.K.

431
00:42:28,420 --> 00:42:33,790
around key jobs that are going to be required to move us towards a circular economy.

432
00:42:34,210 --> 00:42:37,240
You know, those are jobs that are you know, some of them exist today.

433
00:42:37,240 --> 00:42:43,059
But actually, we should find ways to really dial them up. And there's a great report by BAP, which maybe we can include a hyperlink to it,

434
00:42:43,060 --> 00:42:49,330
which talks about the millions of jobs that there are potential to create around the circular economy in Europe.

435
00:42:50,140 --> 00:42:53,200
Those are, you know, very much aligned with some of the circular economy.

436
00:42:53,200 --> 00:42:57,790
Business models are out there. So, you know, how do you extend the life of products?

437
00:42:58,240 --> 00:43:02,110
How can you create like more of a maintenance and repair model?

438
00:43:02,140 --> 00:43:07,480
How can you use products as a service like the jobs that will be opening up?

439
00:43:07,480 --> 00:43:15,310
If we truly embraced the principles of circular economy as being kind of a defining part of our economic system, I think could be hugely powerful.

440
00:43:15,550 --> 00:43:18,600
So I know I'm probably not answering that question exactly the way you were.

441
00:43:18,670 --> 00:43:28,510
That's no, that's really interesting. But jobs, circular economy, jobs, I think could be an amazing way to to get the circular economy really adopted.

442
00:43:29,020 --> 00:43:33,310
And and again, I think that's where there's a really interesting role for governments to think about.

443
00:43:33,320 --> 00:43:38,649
You know, the industrial strategy and the recent industrial strategy that was launched last November,

444
00:43:38,650 --> 00:43:43,570
I think it was there was a page 248 in that industrial strategy,

445
00:43:43,780 --> 00:43:50,690
not not that I was looking specifically, but they actually talked about the circular economy in that in that you have page 148 frames.

446
00:43:50,900 --> 00:43:58,209
You know, I carry it with me. I have like my circular economy package of like a stimulus where I get a chance to meet with people and pull it out.

447
00:43:58,210 --> 00:44:00,820
And one of them is is page 148.

448
00:44:01,450 --> 00:44:07,120
And another one of them is this sort of image from wrap that shows like what are the different jobs that are available in the circular economy,

449
00:44:07,690 --> 00:44:10,990
have a whole lot of other things in that pile of paper, but that's awesome.

450
00:44:11,950 --> 00:44:20,379
This has been so much fun. Thank you so much. I feel like that's a really great kind of optimistic note to end on because particularly, yes,

451
00:44:20,380 --> 00:44:25,180
we have had some really interesting conversations about the future of work and some of those end up being pretty pessimistic.

452
00:44:25,180 --> 00:44:30,950
So it's really nice to have and I wouldn't expect to have any different three, but a note of optimism and hope, too.

453
00:44:30,970 --> 00:44:34,180
And also thank you very much. Thank you very much. A lot of fun.

454
00:44:35,590 --> 00:44:39,730
Thanks for listening to the Oxford Feature Business Podcast presented by the Site Business School.

455
00:44:40,420 --> 00:44:46,420
If you enjoyed this week's conversation, please check out our other episodes on the future of what carbon bubbles,

456
00:44:46,840 --> 00:44:53,500
blockchain banks of the future, and what marketing can learn from the dark web to make sure you get every episode.

457
00:44:53,680 --> 00:44:56,890
Please subscribe on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts from.

458
00:44:58,210 --> 00:45:04,600
The Future of Business podcast was created by Brady, Middleton, Patrick Cala, Mike Lambert, Paris Abril and Emily Barron.

459
00:45:05,230 --> 00:45:12,550
Thanks for listening and goodbye all your.