Circular Economy Podcasts: A New Dynamic

In public discussion, the circular economy is often described as a way to allow technical products and their components to be used as endlessly as possible. But we can’t forget about the biological cycle – how does it work when we come to the system that sustains life: agriculture? In this episode, Hunter Lovins argues that we need a ‘circular economy of the soil’ to feed a growing population, restore soil quality and ultimately reconcile farming systems with natural cycles. L. Hunter Lovins is President of Natural Capitalism Solutions (NCS) and is co-author of Natural Capitalism: The Next Industrial Revolution.

The pattern in which cities have grown is predictable across the world, and it’s based on the economic relationship between the centre and the edge. There are some clues that this pattern is changing, driven by advanced information technology. But what may happen to the city if we develop regenerative activities by internalising energy and material flows? In this episode Michael Batty elaborates on the future developments of cities. Michael Batty is Bartlett Professor of Planning at University College London where he is Chair of the Centre of Advanced Spatial Analysis (ASA).

What can traffic lights tell us about how our economy could work? It may seem a strange question to ask, but Dirk Helbing, is the person who makes the connection. In this episode, he explains what we can learn from complex dynamic systems and how that knowledge can help us understand and implement a feedback-rich circular economy. Dirk Helbing is Professor of Computational Social Science at the Department of Humanities, Social and Political Sciences at ETH Zurich.

How does a country go through a renewable energy transition? Well, no country has done it before and there is no blue print to follow, but Germany is leading the world in this front. In this episode Patrick Graichen provides a comprehensive picture of the situation and explores future developments. Patrick Graichen is executive director of Agora Energiewende, a think-tank and policy laboratory working towards the success of the energy transition or Energiewende.

Our agriculture system is under a greater strain than ever before. The growth of global green yields has fallen behind global population growth, and artificial fertilisers and pesticides are reducing the soil’s ability to renew. “We need to take a different direction”€, say Martin Stuchtey and Morten Rossé, who explore ways to reshape our food system. Martin Stuchtey is the Director of the McKinsey Center for Business and Environment. Morten Rossé is an Expert Associate Principal with McKinsey’€™s Sustainability & Resource Productivity practice.

Remanufacturing allows us to use product components again at high quality while reducing energy demand by – in some cases – 80%. Given the material constraints we face, why this is not happening at a wider scale? In this episode, Nabil Nasr puts forward what he sees as the issues holding back remanufacturing. Nabil Nasr is Associate Provost for Academic Affairs and Director of the Golisano Institute for Sustainability at Rochester Institute of Technology; he is also founder of the Centre for Remanufacturing and Resource Recovery.

The circular economy is inspired by living systems and one of the schools of thoughts that explores this model is Biomimicry. In this episode Michael Pawlyn explains why ecosystem thinking is key to a regenerative circular economy. Michael Pawlyn is director of the architecture practice Exploration and author of 'Biomimicry in Architecture'.