Circular Economy Podcast

What if a circular packaging solution could fit seamlessly into existing systems, provide a better user experience, and deliver important sustainability benefits?
Victor Ljungberg is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Meadow, a Stockholm-based startup that is collaborating with major packaging companies to provide refillable, recyclable solutions for big brands.
Meadow's packaging solution transforms aluminium beverage cans into refillable cartridges combined with reusable dispensers. The system aims to reduce single-use packaging and plastic waste, by leveraging aluminium's high recyclability and low material use. Meadow’s system focuses on convenience and premium user experience, and is designed to be scalable and compatible with existing supply chains.
Victor Ljungberg is an entrepreneurial leader with a background in marketing and sales, and a passion for social impact. Victor is also a founding board member at Sparks Generation, a social impact platform that helps young people discover and explore their passions, to avoid isolation and fight mental illness.
The MEADOW KAPSUL™ offers a lightweight, user-friendly alternative to linear packaging across multiple industries, including personal care, beauty, food, and beverages. We’ll hear how partnering with global leaders like Ball Corporation enables Meadow to deliver scalable, sustainable packaging solutions that combine environmental impact reduction with enhanced consumer experience.

Sean Petterson explains how Supersede delivers a true 1:1 replacement for plywood and OSB that outperforms wood on durability, safety, cost stability, and supply predictability, without the need for manufacturers to change how they build.
Sean Petterson is Supersede’s Co-Founder and CEO, and after beginning his career in construction, Sean has developed and secured multiple patents in manufacturing systems, material science, and applied technologies, with a focus on scalable production and real-world deployment. His experience spans polymer engineering, high-volume manufacturing, and commercialization of hardware and software systems.
Supersede is an advanced materials company transforming how structural building products are designed, manufactured, and deployed across marine, RV, specialty vehicles, and construction.
Supersede’s products are made from extruded industrial plastic waste, reducing supply chain risk, avoiding import tariffs and providing consistent pricing and reliable availability. Currently, Supersede is focusing on the boatbuilding, recreational and specialty vehicle markets, with additional verticals--including housing construction--coming soon.
Sean explains how Supersede’s combination of durability, circularity, and operational efficiency makes sustainability economically compelling for its clients – it solves multiple problems and improves on the existing alternatives for performance and price.
We’ll hear about some of Supersede’s many innovations, including micro-plant production units and its offcut buy-back programme, and how its local approach appeals to employees, clients and feedstock providers.

We’re all seeing how geoeconomic tensions are affecting the supply of key resources, including mined minerals and fuels together with food and other biological resources.
My guest, Dr Jack Barrie, is the lead author of a recent World Economic Forum white paper, The Future of Materials Systems: cooperation opportunities in a Multipolar World. In the context of today’s world of competing regions and powers - where the multilateral system is really struggling to make progress – Jack and his contributors set out to answer an important question: how do we keep progress going?
Dr Jack Barrie is an independent global advisor and researcher specialising in the circular economy, with more than 15 years’ experience working at the intersection of policy, international trade, and material value chains.
Most recently, Jack led the Global Materials Collaboration at the World Economic Forum, developing scenarios for international cooperation on materials and circularity to support economic resilience, climate action, and nature-positive outcomes. He has held several global advisory roles, including as a member of the UK Government Circular Economy Task Force and as a specialist advisor to UNECE on ESG traceability of sustainable value chains in the circular economy.
Jack is also a member of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development’s Global Circularity Protocol. He holds a PhD in circular economy innovation policy from the University of Strathclyde, alongside further degrees from the University of Cambridge, the University of Edinburgh, and Aalborg University.
We’ll discuss the findings of the World Economic Forum white paper, including its key recommendations and how we make those tangible. Jack also shares some surprising insights about how governments are using the circular economy, and why he sees some of those strategies as deeply problematic.

When we look closely, we can see that circular solutions can end up compromising - or even cancelling out - sustainability benefits. In this episode, we’ll discuss research into the psychological concept of moral licensing, and the rebound effect.
Dr. Meital Peleg Mizrachi works at the intersection of sustainable fashion, consumer behaviour, and public policy. She is a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University and an adjunct professor at the University of Connecticut, and her research focuses on the environmental and social implications of global fashion systems, including overconsumption, second-hand markets, and regulatory frameworks.
Meital explores how policy design, behavioural insights, and economic structures shape sustainable consumption patterns. She is a board member at the Sustainable Fashion Consumption Research Network, and her work has been published in leading academic journals and featured in global media outlets.
We’ll discuss unintended consequences of circular economy solutions in fashion, including the rebound effect associated with second-hand consumption.
We’ll also talk about her research into the global flows of used clothing with fieldwork in Ghana.

We’re thinking about the business case: how the circular economy addresses the problem—reducing negative impacts from business—and how it provides benefits – or, in business terminology – how it provides “value”.
One way of looking at that is to think about the return we get on our manufactured assets—all the products and packaging we send out through the factory gate.
When we look at value, we can think about different aspects, including creating value and retaining existing value in products and materials, as well as how our solution might avoid the destruction of value, compared to existing, linear alternatives.
We'll look at why it's important to design solutions that solve real problems and make a positive impact along the whole supply-chain for 3 dimensions of affected parties: including the business, its workers, supply chain partners and investors, as well as future generations.
But those who we need to support this, to buy into the business case, and to buy the product or service itself, may not be aware that there is a problem. For example, does everyone know how chemicals in plastics and other products are affecting human health?
And, even if they're aware of the problem, they may not think that solutions a possible, or know where to find them. As we'll hear, that's where behavioural change and Schwartz's concept of the ‘buyer’s journey’ come in.