What are the basic building blocks of the circular economy, and how can they help drive opportunity and innovation across roles and sectors?

Much of the work in the circular economy to date has centered on deep analysis of the broader economic opportunity. This tutorial will help translate the theory into practical opportunities for colleagues working in various functions within an organization and value chain. We’ll explore the basics of the circular economy, from theory to action, from guiding principles to case studies spanning products, business models and system-level innovations. 

The market for products made from captured carbon is worth an estimated $1 trillion a year in the United States alone. Everything from plastics to jet fuel can be manufactured from carbon dioxide drawn from the atmosphere or diverted from industrial emissions. Thanks to new regulatory incentives and technologies, the carbontech market is now taking off. In this session, entrepreneurs, policy experts and investors will showcase their work and explain how your company can capture a part of the carbontech market.

What design attributes must be considered and prioritized when developing circular products?

When prioritizing the circularity of products, businesses face a daunting task: They must balance design, product performance, health and safety, regulatory compliance and cost, to name a few of the countless considerations — and frequent barriers. With an ever increasing demand to deliver products to market with speed, effectively evaluating and prioritizing these attributes is a critical yet challenging hurtle. This panel will help attendees learn how to weigh these considerations, select better materials and design more circular products. Evaluating design principles, this session will help designers and non-designers alike assess the resources and best practices to effectively make circular products at scale.

What are the circular economy opportunities for the solar industry, and what will it take to bring these strategies to scale? 

When we talk about energy in the context of the circular economy, the discussion typically centers on generation. A circular economy must be renewably powered, decreasing our reliance on polluting and finite resources. There’s another opportunity, however, to apply circular economy principles to the industry itself: from materials selection and design to end-of-life management. As more panels, turbines and other energy assets are brought online, there is a growing emphasis on the long-term impact that today’s design decisions will have once these assets are decommissioned. And this attention isn’t just coming from developers; renewable energy buyers are changing their expectations as well.

Join this breakout panel to hear the latest on applying circular economy principles to the solar industry.

The coronavirus pandemic is bringing to life previously abstract threats. Supply chains are straining under changing patterns of consumer demand and producers are struggling to keep their workforces safe. These are immediate challenges but not new issues. As the pandemic evolves, long-standing questions about the resiliency and sustainability of our food system are getting more attention. Join this session to hear a panel of experts explain how to leverage lessons from the pandemic to boost sustainability efforts, and to share experiences on how your sector of the food industry is coping.

VERGE Accelerate is a series of fast-pitch competitions featuring leading clean economy startups. Today’s session highlights five entrepreneurs building solutions related to the circular economy. Hear expert reactions to each pitch and then cast your vote to help determine the winner, who will get to pitch in the main stage finals on Friday, October 30.

What landscape of materials, designs, innovations and trends exist in the circular packaging industry?

An increase in consumer awareness, corporate engagement and regulatory action has led more companies to set ambitious goals to reduce and reimagine their use of plastics and packaging. This session will explore circular packaging best practices alongside trends and innovations, offering attendees a comprehensive look into their circular packing opportunities. Speakers from across the value chain will discuss a variety of circular packaging levers from designing out waste to infrastructure investment to material innovation and beyond.

What solutions and best practices can help to tackle plastic packaging in pursuit of more circular outcomes?

In the world of packaging and sustainability, plastics continue to be a hot button issue. The need to eliminate plastic waste and address the environmental degradation it has caused is clear; but solutions vary from company to company, state to state and industry to industry. Companies are committing to PCR content goals, designing for recyclability and investing in recycling infrastructure, exploring material innovations and piloting innovations like advanced recycling and reusable packaging, among other solutions on the growing list of strategies to address the environmental and social implications of business as usual. Join this session to learn how diverse stakeholders are building comprehensive and cross-cutting strategies to tackle plastic packaging, and how you can drive change within your own packaging supply chain.

What does it take to implement and scale reusable packaging solutions?

Since the day of the milkman, companies have launched untold schemes to skip recycling for its less energy- and material-intensive cousin: reuse. While using packaging over and over again is no new concept, recent business model innovations have seen a resurgence of reuse-inspired services. This panel will explore some of the ways retailers and brands are enacting reuse models, including systems for refill, returnable packaging or optimizing the supply-chain with reusable transport packaging. We will discuss the key considerations when implementing a reusable packaging initiative, including how brands can address contamination concerns head on. Join the session for a deep dive into the opportunities and logistics of reusable packaging. 

Around half of all food waste occurs in the supply chains that link farmers to retailers and restaurants. The complexity of these systems poses a formidable challenges to waste reduction efforts, but over the past few years a roster of new technologies and strategies have begun to make a dent in the problem. In this session, you'll hear leaders at the companies behind these approaches. Come to learn how changes to supply chains and methods for unlocking the hidden value in waste can lead to radical reductions in the amount of food that we waste daily.

What role will tech-enabled tracking solutions play in building a circular future?

From QR codes and blockchain to Circular ID and the IoT, future-forward tracking devices hold the promise of simplified reverse logistics, frictionless user experience, and efficient management of reclaimed materials. Is the wide-spread adoption of these innovations the key to an effective circular economy? What untapped value will these technologies unlock and what innovations will they enable?  Join this session as we explore what a connected future might look like and how we can effectively leverage connection technologies today.

Our global food system is simultaneously a marvel and an enormous problem. Innovations at all levels, from farm to supply to retail, have helped to dramatically reduce the number of people who go hungry. Yet the system still fails to get nutritious food to those who need it. And too often, the food we produce comes with unsustainable impacts on biodiversity and climate. How do we transition this system — which needs to feed almost two billion more people by 2050 — to be more sustainable? In this session, you will hear from panelists who have mapped out the radical changes to diets, food waste, farm operations and many other areas of the food system that can contribute to this transformation.

What does a successfully circular city look like, and how can this model unlock transformational economic, social and sustainable change?

Circular cities hold the key for transformational change, unlocking a new economic model that will transition away from fossil fuels, provide a reliable platform for waste to become a resource and advance more equitable, inclusive value chains for our communities. But what does a circular city look like in practice? What successes have we seen in European cities and what will it take to effectively launch these models in the United States? Join this panel to learn from practitioners leading the charge towards more sustainable, equitable and circular cities.

Companies are working with cities and local businesses to develop circular fueling systems, taking waste feedstocks — like recycled cooking oil, agriculture fats, biogas from decomposing matter — and processing them into fuels for trucks and buses. How do these systems work and how can we scale them?

What can an expert teach you about our national recycling system and how we can collectively improve it? Ask them!

The U.S. needs a more robust and efficient national recycling system, but the current state of affairs and necessary changes can be confusing, to say the least. Prior to the pandemic, the U.S. recycling rate hovered at around 35 percent. Since then complexity and challenges have only grown with the rise of single-use items and their disposal, increased residential waste and strained city and state budgets that fund our recycling programs. How can we improve the patchwork of recycling structures across the United States? What policies are needed to build resilience into our recycling systems? How should companies be thinking about and engaging with these structures and policies? Where do I even begin?   

Bring any and all of your questions to this interactive Q&A with resident recycling expert, Dylan de Thomas, VP of Industry Collaboration at the Recycling Partnership.