The food industry is one of the biggest drivers of biodiversity loss and accounts for a third of global greenhouse gas emissions. But what if food could be designed to regenerate nature rather than harming it?

That’s the vision behind the Big Food Redesign Challenge.

In this episode of The Circular Economy Show, our guest host Lucy Parker, Senior Partner and Sustainable Business Global Lead at Brunswick Group, explores how we can take learnings from the Challenge to create a food system that is better for people, nature and climate.

We hear from:

• Jonquil Hackenberg, CEO of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, who shares insights about the Big Food Redesign Challenge and what it has helped achieve
• Wendy Schmidt, President and Co-Founder of the Schmidt Family Foundation, who supported the Challenge, explores the power of philanthropy as a catalyst for innovation
• Douglas McMaster, Michelin-starred chef and owner of the world’s first zero waste restaurant, Silo, who was a participant in the Challenge, tells us why it’s important to ask the question ‘what if we could do the whole thing differently?’

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review or a comment on Spotify or YouTube. Your support helps us to spread the word about the circular economy.

Learn more about the Big Food Redesign Challenge and explore products that keep nature in mind.

Find out more about the Challenge participants, or watch a video version of this episode, on our YouTube channel.

Circular design is a hot topic, but moving beyond the buzzwords to practical implementation can be a real challenge. In this episode, we go deep with Joe Iles, Head of Design Activation at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, to unpack the essential principles and skills every designer should have in their toolkit.

Joe shares a compelling perspective on circular design - it's not just about creating durable products, but rather reflecting the complex, interconnected systems that make up our world. He explores why circular design ideas often struggle to scale, despite the abundance of innovative concepts out there.

He also shares the key design competencies that are crucial for driving the transition to a circular model, from systems thinking to prototyping and collaboration.

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review or a comment on Spotify or YouTube. Your support helps us to spread the word about the circular economy.

Links mentioned in this episode:

• The Circular Design Guide
• The Jeans Redesign
• The Circular Buildings Toolkit
• From ambition to action: an adaptive strategy for circular design

In this episode of the Circular Economy Show we meet Zero Waste Scotland, who are working with government, businesses, and communities to make the shift to a circular economy as easy as possible for all.

We're joined by Peter McCafferty, Business Support Manager at Zero Waste Scotland, and Dr Michaela Hruskova from the University of Stirling. Together we'll discuss the barriers that are stopping businesses from adopting circular practices at scale, informed by the findings of their report: ‘Scotland’s Circular Economy Practices Ecosystem.’

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review or a comment on Spotify or YouTube. Your support helps us to spread the word about the circular economy.

Read the report ‘Scotland’s Circular Economy Practices Ecosystem'.

How do we move from pilots and beyond the ESG hype bubble to scale the implementation of the circular economy and how do businesses lead in this space? In this episode of the Circular Economy Show, host Seb is joined by Lindsay Hooper, CEO for the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL), and Joe Murphy, Executive Lead of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s business network.

Together, they’ll explore the insights from CISL’s Competitive Sustainability report and the Foundation’s business network, offering perspectives on the state of the circular economy and related efforts. What will it take to scale? Join us to find out!

Read the full report discussed in this episode: Survival of the Fittest: From ESG to Competitive Sustainability.

Join Fin, Lou and Pippa from the Circular Economy Show as we look back at a year in the circular economy.

In this episode, the team shares highlights from this year’s show, and talks about some of the moments you might have missed.

Thanks for listening to the Circular Economy Show from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Help us grow our audience in 2025 by sharing your favourite episode with your friends and colleagues.

If you’d like to get in touch, email us at podcast@emf.org

Explore the episodes discussed:

Ep 159: How to build a nature-positive circular economy for Europe

Read the paper.

Ep 157: Inside the world of industrial symbiosis

Ep 149: Scaling refill and return with GoUnpackaged

We also mentioned our episode with Vincent from Dunia Bora - who features in episode 150: Creating nature-positive nutrition from cacti with Dunia Bora.

Watch the Redesigning Food Series, which Fin mentioned.

In this episode of the Circular Economy Show we discuss Arda Biomaterials' journey of transforming beer by-products into sustainable materials. Brett Cotten, co-founder at Arda, details the company's origins, challenges, and successes, including raising pre-seed investment in 2023 and scaling operations. Amy Tsang from The Mills Fabrica highlights their 360-degree support for innovators, emphasising investment, collaboration, and showcasing technologies. Both discuss the importance of scalability, impact measurement, and the commercial viability of biomaterials, with Brett noting the potential of chemistry-based approaches and Amy highlighting innovative startups including Epoch Biodesign.

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review or a comment on Spotify or YouTube. Your support helps us to spread the word about the circular economy.

In this special episode of The Circular Economy Show, we’re sharing a conversation between Ellen MacArthur and Christiana Figueres from the climate podcast Outrage + Optimism.

Christiana was Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change from 2010 to 2016, where she oversaw the delivery of the historic Paris Agreement. In this episode, the pair reflect on the outcomes of the INC-5 negotiations for a global plastics treaty, the role businesses play in addressing plastic packaging pollution, and why a global, legally-binding treaty is necessary to address this global challenge.

Listen to episode 165 to find out more about why the INC-5 negotiations matter, or visit the Ellen MacArthur Foundation website.

Find out more about a circular economy for plastic.

Check out the Outrage + Optimism podcast.

In this episode, we discuss the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s latest publication, The circular economy: A 'triple play' solution for achieving China's climate objectives. We’ll explore how adopting a comprehensive circular economy framework can play a pivotal role in achieving both China’s climate and economic goals.

Lei Chen and Seb Egerton-Read highlight the triple play benefits of applying the circular economy in China. These include reducing greenhouse gas emissions in line with the country’s climate goals, securing the supply of critical raw materials for the renewable energy transition and transition to electric vehicles, and the increased resilience of China’s economy.

Head over to our website to read the full report mentioned in this episode.

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review or a comment on Spotify or YouTube. Your support helps us to spread the word about the circular economy.