This video explains the circular economy, outlining the transition from current models with practical examples beyond simple recycling. For further reading, recommended books include *The Circular Economy: A User's Guide* and *Cradle to Cradle*.

Sustainability Illustrated creates engaging educational videos. Find more at sustainabilityillustrated.com and youtube.com/learnsustainability. Subscribe for updates (alturl.com/jc8u6) or support us on Patreon. Connect via Twitter and Facebook. Videos are by Alexandre Magnin, a sustainability consultant and artist (amcreative.org).

Circular food systems are essential for a global transition towards a people, SDG, and planet-centered paradigm. This shift requires awareness, education, culture change, entrepreneurship, cooperation, and innovation, alongside crucial support for bottom-up projects from markets, the third sector, and individuals.

This session highlights the pioneering ideas and individuals shaping the future of our food systems. It will feature diverse global case studies from numerous countries across various continents, showcasing real-world initiatives.

Spending 90% of our time indoors negatively impacts health more than diet or exercise. Hexagro Urban Farming, an Italian startup, addresses this by creating a modular, nature-inspired system. Mimicking honeybee hives and tree structures, their solution transforms interior spaces into beautiful gardens, increasing access to healthy food.

Hexagro's automated indoor garden is modular, scalable, and utilizes high-pressure aeroponics, LED horticulture lighting, and environmental sensors. Join this session, streamed via Restream.io, to discover the first automated indoor garden designed to deliver abundance for everyone.

Preparing children for a sustainable future requires a collective effort from parents, teachers, and the wider community. It's not enough to simply help them understand environmental challenges; we must also take immediate action and lead by example, especially as young people like Greta Thunberg demand change.

We need to transform our own mindsets and behaviors to ensure a cleaner, greener planet for the next generation. By doing so, we empower children to become responsible stewards of our precious Earth.

Originally livestreamed via Restream.io, this session addresses the critical issue of clothing waste. Annually, New York landfills 200 million pounds of clothing. Globally, 73% of materials used for garments are landfilled or burned, with less than 1% recycled into new clothes.

To combat this, campaigns like Wear Next (New York) and Love Not Landfill (London) encourage diverting clothes from waste streams. They advocate for swapping, selling, donating, or recycling to prevent garments from ever becoming waste.

Join this session to understand why these initiatives were launched, their execution, and key learnings.

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The circular economy is increasingly vital for addressing global challenges, yet the finance sector's engagement remains in early stages. While industry leaders recognize the power of circular solutions, accelerating and scaling these initiatives urgently requires capital and services from financial institutions.

This session highlights how Intesa Sanpaolo has integrated the circular economy into its core strategy. Learn how this financial services company supports businesses, especially SMEs, in making this crucial transition.

A new era of consumption is emerging, driven by increased consumer awareness of product origins and environmental impact. This shift is moving us towards innovative consumption models beyond traditional purchasing.

Within the circular economy, rental and subscription models are gaining prominence, as recycling alone has proven insufficient. The next generation will demand service-based solutions over one-time purchases, prioritizing both convenience and positive social-environmental impact.

Fast fashion has drastically shortened clothing lifespans, increasing consumption while ~70% of closets go unworn. Extending garment life is crucial to reduce the industry's impact, cutting new production and textile waste.

The "Switching Gear" project, supported by C&A Foundation and Circle Economy, helps four apparel brands pilot rental and recommerce business models by 2021.

Join a session with innovators from the Switching Gear Enabling Network (SGEN), a global network of over 50 circular solution providers. Discover how pioneers like The Renewal Workshop and Stuffstr are disrupting norms with rental and recommerce, exploring their latest innovations, opportunities, and challenges.

Plastic pollution poses a severe environmental threat. Plastic packaging constitutes nearly half of global plastic waste, much of it single-use. This plastic can take up to a thousand years to decompose, entering our food systems and projected to outweigh fish in oceans by 2050.

Ecoware confronts this challenge by producing 100% biodegradable and compostable packaging. Made from agricultural waste, their affordable and sustainable tableware, packaging, and medical products offer an alternative to single-use plastics.

Learn how Ecoware achieved this and if their model can be replicated in a session.

The UK's oil platforms require decommissioning. A circular economy approach offers a significant opportunity to capture economic value by reusing the vast quantities of steel, rather than simply recycling it.

While the systemic benefits of this reuse strategy are clear, aligning incentives for all stakeholders presents a key challenge. The central question is how to effectively convince every actor to prioritize reuse.

The DIF explores disruptive ideas, stories, and innovations related to the circular economy. But what exactly is the circular economy, and how does it impact you?

Join the Ellen MacArthur Foundation team for an interactive session delving into the circular economy's fundamentals and underlying value questions. Share your insights on the interactive red pen graphic before, during, and after the session.

The future of fashion and its transition to a circular economy rests with creatives across all roles, from designers to marketers and editors. Their diverse contributions are crucial in shaping this industry-wide shift.

This session explores how a new narrative can redirect customer desire from wanting more to prioritizing better, sustainable fashion. We will examine how industry creatives can apply circular principles to their storytelling, fostering a circular economy. Tune in to discover more.

Plastic offset is an emerging environmental paradigm designed to combat global plastic pollution. It aims to fund underfunded waste management social enterprises in the developing world, which offer ethical solutions but struggle to scale.

Inspired by carbon credits, plastic offset provides a transformative funding mechanism to accelerate a circular economy. Achieving meaningful impact is challenging, given the complex interplay of consumer responsibility and producer accountability, but entirely possible.

This initiative will explore local needs and global systems governing waste, from Mumbai to New York.

The built environment consumes half the world's materials, with global construction projected to add Paris-sized floor space weekly by 2060. This necessitates the industry's urgent adoption of circular principles on a large scale.

This session, livestreamed via Restream.io and featuring experts from Arup and GXN Innovation, will explore how to implement these principles and present a compelling business case to drive industry action.

Less than 1% of clothing is recycled, leading to a truckload of textile waste entering landfills every second. However, some designers and brands are challenging this linear "take-make-waste" model by embracing sustainable practices.

A prime example is Rapanui, founded by two brothers on the Isle of Wight. They create clothing from natural materials using renewable energy, designing products for circularity. Worn-out items are recovered to make new ones, and t-shirts are produced on-demand to eliminate overproduction. Rapanui also provides a free platform for global access to their supply chain and technology.

Discover more about their ambitious journey to redesign the fashion industry. Multistreaming with Restream.io.

Five years ago, Lactips pioneered the world's first environmentally friendly plastic, crafted from industrial casein and natural additives. This 100% biosourced, biodegradable material boasts specialty plastic properties, including gas barrier, water solubility, and edibility.

Its unique, patented technology offers a significant opportunity to transform non-biodegradable flexible packaging and substitute single-use plastics in detergency, food, and building applications.

Explore Lactips' journey, scalability, and challenges with founder Marie-Hélène Gramatikoff. Watch the session here.

This session, streamed via Restream.io, addresses the pressing environmental impact of takeaway coffee cups, focusing on wastefulness and recyclability challenges. There's growing demand for improved design, reuse, and recycling solutions to combat ocean plastics and other waste concerns.

Join us to learn how DS Smith is tackling this problem. They developed a scalable coffee cup recycling solution for standard paper mills and launched their innovative Coffee Drop Box. We'll also hear from the Head of Environment at a major UK coffee retailer, discussing the challenges of single-use cups and the roles of reuse and recycling in changing consumer habits.

The Los Angeles fashion industry is substantial, comprising over 11,000 businesses and 38,000 employees. Mayor Garcetti's Green New Deal (GND), an update to the city's 2015 Sustainability pLAn, aims for zero waste and net zero carbon emissions by 2050. The GND specifically mandates engaging the textile and apparel industry to implement zero-waste manufacturing strategies and divert unwanted garments from landfills.

This session will explore current city-level initiatives and how LA-based brands and manufacturers are adopting zero-waste strategies and operating within a circular economy framework.