This tutorial is now full. Space may become available, so please plan to arrive early on Tuesday, October 16, to join a queue for available seats. In the meantime, we recommend pre-registering for your second-choice tutorial.

This half-day tutorial, designed for attendees from all sectors and backgrounds and presented by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, will provide a foundational understanding of the circular economy — a model that fundamentally reimagines the traditional “take-make-waste” linear industrial model in favor of a system that designs out waste and pollution, decouples economic growth from natural resource consumption, increases resource productivity and regenerates natural systems. 

The first part of the tutorial session will tour through our circular economy journey to date. From theory through to action, The Foundation team will start by explaining the guiding principles and then take participants through a series of case study examples which illustrate circular design spanning products, business models, and system level innovations.

To some, the circular economy concept can feel academic and detached from reality. The second part of the session will take a more in depth look at how we can 'sell in' and convince stakeholders to invest in circular economy initiatives. Much of the work concentrating on the circular economy to date has centred on deep analysis of the broader economic opportunity. Translating the theory into practical opportunities for colleagues working at the coal-face of operations, or executives faced with competing priorities, can present a critical challenge.

Fortunately,  the circular economy is a big idea with many entry points. Significant work has already been completed by many diverse organisations of all sizes to demonstrate that the theoretical upside can be translated to real commercial opportunities today. Some of these organisations are already taking giant leaps towards circular economy models. 

Dragon Rouge, an award-winning global creative agency and CE100 member, spoke with several of those leading organisations to understand what is working, and launched a report on the topic. During the second part of the session, The Foundation Team and Dragon Rouge representatives will distil insight on how you can effectively 'sell' the circular economy into different parts of your organisation.

Learn from experts turning ideas into action as they discuss successfully integrating circular strategies to optimize waste stream management, product manufacturing, and industry engagement to reduce the carbon impact of construction. Explore approaches that promise to herald new innovations in the built environment — helping to prevent the "outsourcing of pollution" by reinventing the market for typically carbon-intensive products and processes in the building industry. 

The impacts of drought, population growth, aging infrastructure, climate change, and other challenges threaten the long-term availability of water and by 2030, the world’s demand for fresh water is projected to outstrip supply by 40 percent. For companies, it's increasingly difficult to access the water they need to meet growing customer demands, local governments are finding they’ve under-invested in water strategies or allowed existing structures to deteriorate. These stakeholders also often find themselves competing for access to water. 

In this context, businesses continue to set targets at the corporate level but most have not yet been able to operationalize those goals at the local-level. A 2017 survey by GreenBiz and Ecolab showed that although 75 percent of companies have water-related targets, most do not integrate water into their planning processes, and 82 percent lack the tools and strategies to turn water data into action. 

In this session, hear from companies and cities tackling their water management with a circular approach. Learn about the tools and tactics they use to establish and operationalize circular water strategies that are economically beneficial, environmentally sustainable and socially equitable. 

To efficiently manage water in the built environment, we must think beyond the boundaries of buildings. This session will discuss some of the most innovative and regenerative water infrastructure projects that design for abundance, take the burden off of aging infrastructure and reimagine the flow of water in cities. 

Join Billy Grayson, Executive Director, Center for Sustainability and Economic Performance at The Urban Land Institute (ULI) for a discussion of emerging technologies that leading real estate companies are piloting TODAY that will likely be rolled out across portfolios soon. We will discuss some of the most promising near-term technologies in smart buildings, on-site energy production and storage, and advanced building materials.

About VERGE Guru Lunches: Join like minded attendees for interactive moderated lunch discussions around a particular topic. Each table discussion will be led by an expert or thought leader, held at roundtables of up to 10 participants. These are freeform discussions, so bring your own challenges, questions, and ideas to talk through and get to know your fellow conference participants.

Learn about the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s InSPIRE study into low-impact solar development and pollinator-friendly solar from two leaders involved in the work. Meet previous VERGE presenter Rob Davis of the Center for Pollinators in Energy at Fresh Energy and Organic Valley’s Stanley Minnick and discuss the NREL study’s results to date and opportunities for new partners.

About VERGE Guru Lunches: Join like minded attendees for interactive moderated lunch discussions around a particular topic. Each table discussion will be led by an expert or thought leader, held at roundtables of up to 10 participants. These are freeform discussions, so bring your own challenges, questions, and ideas to talk through and get to know your fellow conference participants.

As product lifespans shrink across industries, some companies are exploring innovative approaches to capitalizing on a product's embedded quality through reuse cycles. From partnerships and industry-wide collaboration, to reimagining the end of a product's life as the start of a new one, to leveraging connectivity and technology to bridge the essential communication gap between stakeholders— this panel will provide a prototype for powering circularity at scale, with triple-bottom line impact. 

Circular design doesn’t happen in hindsight: designers must integrate ideas around the circular economy from the inception of the product design process through to the end of a product’s useful life, ensuring true circularity for the materials, components and systems involved. Materials lie at the heart of this process: safe, circular materials choices form the foundation of successful circular design, but not all materials are safe enough or suitable for a circular economy.

Join this interactive session with Cradle to Cradle Products Innovation Institute and Ellen MacArthur Foundation to explore ways to reframe the material health challenge as an opportunity for successful circular design, ensuring your work promotes a safe, circular economy.