Episode 99: The Marketing Playbook for a Circular Economy - Ready to be part of the Shift? …with Andrés Oliva and Neda Hashemi, Ellen MacArthur Foundation

Round and round and round it goes, where it stops nobody knows… and that’s a really good thing if it means it doesn’t end up in the unmanageable waste landscape we humans have created for ourselves.

In our 99th episode we’re joined by Neda Hashemi and Andrés Olivia from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation where we explore why Marketers are key facilitators in the transition to a circular economy.

Neda and Andrés talk about their latest research and explain the different ways that the circular economy can future-proof and scale businesses, drive efficiencies, reduce emissions and help to ease the burden we place on biodiversity and the planet.

Andrés explains that their are many different ways to implement circularity, “the first one is about selling access rather than ownership for example, a washing machine, what if you rented it instead of owning it? We also have monetising of product through life extension for example selling repair services. And finally, and this is the last resort, once products are no longer fit use, reuse or repair can they can be recycled and turned into new products?”

Neda and Andrés share how B2B is leading the charge when it comes to circularity, but in the B2C world, whilst there is plenty of innovation - it is not scaling at the levels required. A reason for this Neda explains is “the demand isn’t happening because behaviours are not consistent.”  She goes to say, “don't be intimidated by the concept of the circular economy and circularity, all need to do is understand the simple premise of what the business model entails, which again, they have been doing forever and inject their creativity and human understanding into it. And then the potential is huge for them to engage with it.”

It’s not rocket science, when you remove the word circular economy and focus on what people value and want, then there’s plenty of scope to unlock the opportunities.

Tune in to hear us talking about how:

• Bringing in the marketing function as problem solvers and the key communication interface between the brand, the organisation and the consumer is key.

• The role of education and how Marketers are critical in driving this.

• The key areas coming out of the research including their “Four Action Pathways”

• How Marketers can make circularity desirable, irresistible and remove the barriers for adoption.

• The ‘Why’ we need to build a circular economy.

• How focusing on upstream demand should bring in multiple perspectives to take the innovation forward and bring everybody together to organize themselves around the common objectives.

• Metrics – from circular sales to increased loyalty and lifetime transaction values. Core resilience of the business is often not brought into the business case for circularity.

For more information and resources visit the Ellen MacArthur Foundation

The Marketing Playbook for a Circular Economy you’ll find here.

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