We kicked off our new webinar series, The Power Series, two weeks ago. Yesterday, our fifth episode, called The Power of Circularity, went live with an amazing panel of thought leaders. To celebrate Earth Day, our panel included the CEO and founder of TerraCycle, Tom Szaky; founder and CEO of The Restory, Vanessa Jacobs; founder of Converted Closet, Kate McGuire; and co-founder of Linde Werdelin, Jorn Werdelin.
The panel shared their thoughts on how the current crisis has accelerated the inevitable response of businesses rethinking their models. They also discussed the seven Rs of sustainability: remove, reduce, reuse, renew, recycle, revenue, and read, led by questions from Positive Luxury CEO, Diana Verde Nieto.
Diana began the conversation by asking the panellists how we can move away from linear production models. “Our whole goal is to transition from linear system to circular ones,” said Tom. “We asks companies: is the object a product or a package? We work with a variety of brands, form Chanel to P&G. And if today a package is not recyclable, then we set up national platforms to collect and recycle it.”
Next, Diana asked each of the panellists to define circularity. “When we started making timepiece back in 2007, it was always part of our DNA to think about how we treat the planet,” said Jorn. “We started thinking about how we can get away from constantly making new stuff, new timepieces, new straps, new boxes, to treat the customer from cradle to grave. Once we have made a watch, we will customise it, we will buy it back, we will facilitate pre-owned. We were the first company to do that. It’s about servicing the individual customer rather than making new pieces all the time.”
When Diana asked about shifting to circularity and scaling that business model, Vanessa said, “It’s hard, and it’s taken us a long time to crack it. It came down to collecting data and colours and paying attention to makes and models and finding the materials they use and identifying fakes. So it’s a lot of data and a lot of patterns we seek through that data.”
Kate’s advice for people looking to make this change was all about careful consideration. “You start with where you’re at, and you have to make a decision that you want to take a different approach. And I think even by taking those actions, you will be influencing everyone around you with creativity and inspiration and that’s infectious. If we all start doing it, it can have a seismic effect on the way we consume.”
For more from each of our amazing panellists, including advice and the Q&A responses, watch the entire webinar by clicking on the button below. Then, register for the next episode in the webinar series on Thursday, 30th April, The Power of Wellness, here.
WATCH IT HERE
If you want to connect with us and have stories to share, please email us at hello@positiveluxury.com. Stay well and stay positive.
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