The annual Circularity conference, hosted by Trellis Group, is the premier gathering of circular economy professionals in the U.S. Our co-founder and Interim Executive Director Sam Wittchen traveled to Denver for what turned out to be three days of sessions highly relevant to the work Circular Philadelphia does and seeks to do in the future. Like last year, the conference also presented a fantastic opportunity to connect in person with colleagues across the U.S. who are working to advance circularity in their cities. The energy and hope present at the conference was palpable as speakers shared many success stories of what we’re getting right about circularity while also offering insight on what the future might look like, and why we must continue to strive to do better.
Day 1 started with a masterclass on how to do circular economic development at the state level in a session led by Circular Colorado and its dynamic founder Laurie Johnson. We’ll talk more in depth about the learnings for us here in Pennsylvania in the second part of this blog series, but some key takeaways highlighted the importance of supportive state policies, having a dedicated funding stream from the state to support enterprise circularity, and a collaborative environment among many different stakeholders to make circular economic development possible.
After connecting with CP board member Dennis Wilson at lunch, the day continued with the first keynote sessions, with a standout talk from Lyla June, an indigenous musician, scholar and community organizer, about the wisdom and know-how indigenous communities can offer us when it comes to building a circular society. She shared many examples of circularity across indigenous cultures and challenged the audience to learn from those examples.
Another highlight from the keynotes was the GOAT, Bill McDonough, known for his book introducing the concepts of circular design to many, Cradle to Cradle. Bill posed the question, “How do we love all children of all species for all time?” and advocated for us to take the approach of designing for next use — not end of life or end of use. His thoughts on rethinking the language we use to discuss circular topics, such as calling extended producer responsibility extended producer opportunity really resonated with Sam as she and CP’s Communications and Outreach Coordinator, Ash Tryba, continue to discuss how best to make circularity accessible and attractive to a wider range of people.
A session on how institutional investors are evaluating investments in the circular economy followed lunch. Brendan Corbett of Goldman Sachs shared that having a secure supply chain is of interest right now — something that circularity practices are well positioned to help with. Aly Bryan of Closed Loop Partners reinforced that it’s a tough time to be seeking investments in climate and circularity, and investors tell her that they can’t find good deal flow. And Eva Gladek of Metabolic introduced the concept of system investing, layering capital in tranches to invest across the value chain instead of one-off investments which rarely lead to market transformation.
Day 1 concluded with a happy hour meet-up among our colleagues from the Circular Cities Network, including some new recruits that Network member Ashima Sukhdev (Seattle) stalked…er, encouraged to join…from Sunnyvale, Oberlin, Richmond and Denver! As always, it was great to see these colleagues in real life instead of in little boxes on a computer screen. The group continued to strengthen relationships over the next two days through shared meals and attending each other’s sessions. It is rewarding to see how the Network and camaraderie among its participants has grown over the past year-plus!
Day 2 continued with a highly informative session on resale, a sector Circular Philadelphia would like to bolster in the Philly region, that included heavy hitters from eBay, resale tech company Archive and VF Corporation, parent to brands such as The North Face and Smartwool. One fun fact Sam learned at the session was that eBay sells more Nikes than Nike does! There were so many great nuggets of information in this session, but Sam’s major takeaway was that resale is only going to continue to grow. From the looming tariffs already causing an explosion in sales on eBay to Archive moving into supporting brands selling everything from furniture to housewares to toys to launch resale programs, the infrastructure and the demand are rapidly converging to mature the resale market and drive real value for brands.
The second day’s keynotes were just as engaging as the first, but the best part of the session was unexpectedly hearing CP founding member Bennett Compost mentioned from the keynote main stage by John Williams, owner of Wastewell, a composting company serving Chester County and Delaware. John spoke from the heart about the opportunity Tim Bennett and Bennett Compost gave him as a re-entering citizen to build a new career in composting. Good things happen in Philadelphia, and we were so excited to see Bennett recognized on a national stage (literally) for leading the way when it comes to making the circular economy transition equitable and accessible to everyone regardless of their background!
After lunch, it was on to another session about fundraising for circular ventures, which echoed the prior day’s session on institutional investing by reiterating that it’s a tough time to be raising money. The general consensus from the panel, which included investors and start-ups, was that enterprises seeking money need to achieve profitability and focus on revenue generation in a market vertical. In short, they need to demonstrate market fit for what they’re selling through real sales.
The final session of the day featured a panel discussion among the key players in getting Colorado’s extended producer responsibility (EPR) legislation passed. The session provided insight into the playbook that legislators and advocates used to make Colorado the third state to pass EPR legislation. We’ll discuss this more in Part 2 of this series, but the major takeaways described the importance of building a coalition and activating that coalition outside of the capitol building to make noise about their support for the legislation. Unlike Colorado, we in Pennsylvania face the challenge of having a split legislature, but in Part 2, we’ll discuss some of the advice proffered by the panelists to overcome that.
While Circularity is a professional conference featuring serious conversations about the circular economy, one of our favorite parts of it is the afterparty on Day 2 where attendees get to cut loose and enjoy some karaoke with old and new friends. Since former co-director Nic Esposito wasn’t there this year to sing some Oasis, Sam was forced to carry the torch with some B-52s after encouragement from Circular Cities Network pals Jamie Harkins (Boulder) and Cathi Lehn (Cleveland). Who says we can’t also have some fun while we’re building the circular economy?
After spending two days in conference rooms, Sam was excited on Day 3 to get out of the Colorado Convention Center and take a tour of the very impressive resale operations company, Tersus Solutions. When they say they are the backbone of resale, they truly mean it. As an engineer and at-home sewist, Sam was blown away by what she saw at Tersus. Between their extremely well-run resale enablement operations and the partnership they have with Archive to manage the tech side of resale, they’ve developed an end-to-end solution for apparel brands to stand up resale that only left Sam wondering how we get them to expand to the Philly region?
After three days of being in community with and hearing from circular economy practitioners from across the U.S. about their work, the message is clear. While the future is still coming into focus, the circular economy isn’t just a trend or the latest buzzword. The circular economy is here, and it’s here to stay.
Stay tuned for Part 2 of this series, where we’ll discuss in more depth the insights and lessons specifically learned from how Colorado is spurring circular economic development through collaboration and a multi-pronged approach that marries policy with funding and infrastructure development.
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