Candice Lawton
Special Projects Manager

Candice Lawton is a circular economy leader with more than a decade of experience driving sustainability and systems change at the intersection of business, community, and the environment. Her work spans continents, but always comes back to people and real-world impact.

Her journey into sustainability started with a plot of soil. In college, she co-founded a community garden that transformed an empty lot into a shared space for growing food, building relationships and reconnecting with nature. That hands-on experience rooted her commitment to systems thinking, community action and the belief that change starts locally.

Since then, Candice has worked on some of the most urgent and complex challenges in sustainability, from building circular infrastructure in plastic pollution hotspots to creating recycling solutions for items once considered impossible to recover, like diapers and cigarette butts. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she helped launch programs to recycle disposable masks and PPE, tackling an emerging waste crisis in real time.

She has held senior leadership roles at pioneering circular economy organizations like TerraCycle and rePurpose Global and led the Community Partnerships team at Philabundance, where she managed a network of more than 350 partners distributing rescued and surplus food across the region.

Candice’s work is grounded in operational excellence, strong partnerships and a deep understanding of how systems shape outcomes. She has built new programs from the ground up, advised startups and global companies and helped turn sustainability goals into tangible progress and business value.

Based in Philadelphia, Candice is focused on helping cities like hers lead on circularity by making it real, practical and inclusive. In simple terms, a circular economy is about rethinking how we make, use and reuse things. It is about keeping materials in use, cutting down on waste and designing systems that are built to last so that communities, businesses and the planet can all thrive together.

She regularly speaks on industry podcasts and at leading events including Sustainability in Packaging, Sustainable Brands and Trellis. She serves on the board of the Arrupe Center for Business Ethics at St. Joseph’s University and is also a board member of Campus Race to Zero Waste, a nationwide initiative that supports waste reduction and circular practices on college campuses.