168 Matt Paneitz of Long Way Home: Hero School – transforming trash into useful buildings

Long Way Home’s Hero School in Guatemala is a community-rooted educational initiative that transforms local trash into useful buildings. Matthew Paneitz first visited San Juan Comalapa, Guatemala, as a Peace Corps volunteer in 2002, and was deeply affected by this rural, Indigenous Maya community where 64% live in poverty and 27% in extreme poverty. People lacked clean water, reliable sanitation, resilient homes, steady employment, and quality education, and the air, water, and soil are all contaminated by waste and pollution. Unable to put this out of his mind, Matt returned in 2004 and founded non-profit Long Way Home. One of its major projects is Hero School, a project-based, community-rooted educational initiative grounded in Education for Sustainable Development. Between 2008 to 2025, the LWH team transformed 550 tons of trash (including 35,000 used tires) into the Hero School green-built campus.

Lisa and Mary O’Riordan are co-founders of HaPPE Earth, a circular business providing compostable Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) with an end-to-end waste management system that creates a nutrient rich fertiliser using this PPE, combined with the client’s food waste. The HaPPE Earth solution is ideal for a range of sectors including healthcare, food processing and other manufacturing industries. HaPPE Earth is replacing a highly problematic product made from single-use plastic, and helping to bust big myths around plastics and hygiene, which were strengthened during the pandemic. I met HaPPE Earth’s co-founders when I did some work for last year’s CIRCULÉIRE Circular Ventures Accelerator, funded by the Irish Government. HaPPE Earth was one of the supported ventures, and I’ve been super-impressed by how Lisa and Mary have used their systems-thinking, technical and entrepreneurial skills to win their first clients and set out bold ambitions for their business and the value it creates for people, planet and local economies. We’ll hear about their detailed criteria for the choice of raw materials, the systems they’ve created to make sure this circular solution is super-easy for clients, and how all the different users and decision makers are reacting to compostable PPE. Mary and Lisa tell us more about their career backgrounds and what led them to start HaPPE Earth, how they’ve overcome those misperceptions about the benefits of plastic, and how they plan to develop local supply chains to avoid PPE posing a major risk to resilience, as it did across many countries during the pandemic. And we hear about some of the shocking, unethical practices that encourage unnecessary consumption of plastic PPE.

Matthew Fraser of Circle Economy and David Rakowski of Deloitte unpack key insights from the 2025 Circularity Gap Report. The Circularity Gap Report aims to provide a comprehensive 'report card' for the global circular economy, and shows that we are still a long way from achieving good grades. Although the circular economy concept has gained traction—and more policies have emerged to support it—progress has stalled. You might remember the headline numbers from the first report in 2018, that the world was only 9.1% circular, described as a massive Circularity Gap. The gap has grown bigger, with the latest global circularity metric at just 6.9%. Circle Economy sees a need for urgency: to expand access to its data and insights, dig deeper into what’s driving the decline, and to scale support for those in a position to make change happen. Matthew Fraser is a recognised expert in the circular economy, with over a decade of experience advising governments on measurement and strategy. Matthew specialises in translating complex resource flows into actionable strategies, supporting governments in integrating circular principles into policy and investment decisions. David Rakowski is a partner in Deloitte's Sustainable and Resilient Supply Chain business with a focus on circular economy and sustainability. He began his career in sustainability over 10 years ago, and as a systems engineer by trade, he brings together product, business, supply chain and digital design to develop sustainable solutions. We’ll start with a quick intro to the report’s origins and purpose, and the partnership between Circle Economy and Deloitte. Matthew talks us through the key findings from the 2025 report, the challenges for policymakers, and the barriers and opportunities for businesses. David unpacks some of the challenges for startups and big corporates, and the importance of making circular economy strategies both actionable and exciting. And, we discuss how the shifting sands of resource availability, supply chain disruption and geo-economics are helping businesses see that circularity can boost resilience and reduce risks.

Christina Schwarzkopf is co-founder of Prolong, a business-to-business white-label software solution enabling fashion brands and retailers to offer and manage circular aftercare and aftersales services. Those services could include repair, cleaning, personalization, exchanges, and refunds. Christina combines her commercial, strategy, and sustainability expertise built over a decade of fashion experience with brands like Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, and Zalando. Prolong works with brands like Belstaff, The North Face, Veja, and Fusalp, covering apparel, outdoor, footwear, and jewellery, as well as multi-brand retailers. Brands use Prolong to digitize and automate service journeys across channels, reducing operational complexity, increasing customer satisfaction, and driving loyalty. The platform integrates logistics, communication, and brand operations to simplify often fragmented service processes. By linking customers, brands, and service providers, Prolong enables circularity at scale and helps brands move from one-off sales to ongoing, service-driven relationships. This makes aftercare a strategic business opportunity that’s aligned with sustainability and regulatory demands. We’ll hear how the Prolong platform combines complex workflows into a single system, helping brands extend product lifespan and build stronger customer relationships, improving customer satisfaction and loyalty. Christina talks us through the value proposition for brands and service partners, and explains how Prolong supports service partners by providing steady business and connecting them to a growing global network. Christina also shares some of the challenges and opportunities for brands, and offers tips on how to help customers discover, and access repair and aftercare services.

Healthy soils provide the foundation for life on our planet, and yet most agriculture degrades soil. Nurturing soil should be at the top of all our priority lists, and Louis De Jaeger—author of the new book ‘SOS: Save Our Soils, How regenerative farming can save your health and the planet’ — helps us understand why it’s so important, and what we can do about it. Louis says his life mission is to regenerate 550 million hectares of land, to cool down the planet, save biodiversity, end hunger, and create world peace. For the past twelve years, Louis De Jaeger has travelled extensively through North America, all the way to Panama, through Europe, South America and Africa. Along the way, he’s visited farms and interviewed a wide range of people, from pioneering regenerative farmers to corporate lobbyists, and explored one central question: How can we feed the world without destroying it? Louis says, “To be honest, it really took a while to find clear answers on what the best way is to shape the future of food.” He is grateful for insights he couldn’t have dreamed of, and he shares them in SOS: Save Our Soils. Louis says the book is a manifesto, a global quest, and an invitation for all of us to step into the most critical conversation of our time: the future of food.” Healthy soils are probably the most important element in our system – they are essential for nurturing us, nurturing the living systems we depend on, for drawing down carbon, for providing clean air and water, and much more. Every one of us, and every business, depends on soil – Louis De Jaeger explains why this is an SOS, and what we can do about it.

We dig into the complexities of textile recycling with Patrik Frisk, who is working to create a circular economy for textile-to-textile polyester regeneration. Patrik is the CEO of Reju, a recent startup enabling polyester to be recycled at speed and scale. Patrik has over thirty years’ experience of working in the apparel and footwear industries for globally recognised brands, joining Reju after 5 years as CEO at Under Armour. Patrik has extensive experience in textiles, including senior leadership roles at VF Corporation (the owner of outdoor brands including The North Face, Timberland, JanSport), the Aldo Group and W.L Gore & Associates, the makers of Gore-Tex. Reju itself is a materials regeneration company focused on creating solutions for regenerating polyester textiles and PET waste. Reju is owned by Technip Energies and, as we’ll hear, it is using technology that originated from research by IBM. Patrik explains the size of the problem, and the many complexities of trying to effectively recycle end-of-life clothing and textiles. We hear how brands and policymakers are responding to the growing issues caused by fast-fashion, including some legislation changes that are encouraging organizations to think differently, and to consider investing in proper recycling (not downcycling) technologies. We discuss the challenges around logistics, infrastructure, how to deal with mixed fibres, and why being able to recycle mixed textiles into a clean, high quality polyester output is such a groundbreaking innovation.

In episode 162 we discuss design skills and why it’s crucial that design for circularity goes beyond the design of the product itself, to cover the materials, the customer experience, the supply chain, the collection of data for KPIs, and much more. Helping us think about this are Rachel Bronstein, a Senior Programme Manager at the Design Council, and Barry Waddilove, who is supporting the Design Council’s “Design for Planet” initiative as a Sustainable Design Expert. The Design Council is the UK's national champion for design, across all design disciplines, and it aims to showcase brilliance, lead on new thinking, evidence value and influence policy, so that design can thrive. Design for Planet will feature on a global stage this September, when the Design Council hosts the World Design Congress. The Design Council’s Skills for Planet mission aims to close a critical skills gap, highlighted when research found that while 66% of designers designed for planet, yet only 43% felt that they had the capabilities they needed. So the Skills for Planet mission is to help designers develop the skills to design places, products and services that regenerate the planet. Rachel Bronstein is leading the delivery of Skills for Planet aiming to upskill 1 million designers in green design skills by 2030. Rachel has a multidisciplinary background from her work across the private, public and third sector. Barry Waddilove has over 30 years’ experience in design and sustainability with brands and organizations across 25 countries. Barry has been working on circular economy projects since 2014, and most recently he’s has been working for the Swedish Consumer Electronics company Electrolux Group, as Head of Circular Economy and Partnerships in the global sustainability leadership team in Stockholm. Rachel outlines the Skills for Planet Blueprint , co-created with over 100 design experts across industry, education and government. It provides a cross-disciplinary set of eighteen Green Design Skills across six interconnected areas: Regenerating Nature, Embedding Circularity, Eliminating Emissions, Empowering Green Communities, Influencing Green Behaviour, and Evaluating Green Impact. We’ll hear more about the blueprint, the broader role of design in business and why it’s so important that business leaders understand the role of design and how it can support change projects, particularly around the circular economy. We talk about the challenges in designing for circularity, and the opportunities that can come from partnerships and new business models. Barry and Rachel highlight a range of areas where design can play a key role, including making use of digital tools and data. We discuss the importance of embracing complexity and the need for systemic approaches, and how to think about some of the conflicts and trade-offs that come up when we’re trying to design circular solutions.

Dan Vukelich, President of the Association of Medical Device Reprocessors, has spent 25 years campaigning and working to encourage reuse and remanufacturing of ‘single use’ medical devices, first in the USA and now in Europe and other countries. To give you a feel for the scale of this, in 2024, over 55 million single-use devices were reprocessed and reused across 17 countries in Asia-Pacific, Europe and North America. By doing that, hospitals saved the equivalent of over USD 450 million. The interest in reprocessing and reuse really took off during the pandemic, and since then, supply chain disruption has become more of an ongoing risk for hospitals. The Association of Medical Device Reprocessors (AMDR) was founded in 1999. It supports its members around regulation, legislation, and standard-setting, so hospitals and healthcare providers can increase quality, reduce cost, cut waste, lower emissions, and strengthen their supply chains. Dan explains what reprocessing includes and talks us through the categories of devices that are currently reprocessed and remanufactured. He describes how the medical sector has shifted from high-quality materials that could be easily sanitised and reused, to a situation where even very complex and expensive devices are designed to be disposed of after just one use, wasting finite and critical materials. We talk about the ethical and legal issues of reprocessing, and the role of regulations and standardization. Dan helps us understand the challenges for hospitals and how the shift to single-use has added a lot of extra costs to the health system and impacts all of us, either directly or as taxpayers. Dan also points to an important long-term trend, as more and more equipment manufacturers get involved, rather than pushing back on reuse.

One of recurring themes in the new edition of A Circular Economy Handbook (to be published in November 2025) is the importance of systems thinking and systems design. I’ve been reading Seth Godin’s book, This is Strategy, and he says successful strategies depend on two things: being conscious of the change we seek to make and the systems that can amplify or impede our progress. In other words, we must make sure we understand the different systems affecting the things we want to change. There can be multiple systems, many of which we have little control over. It’s also important to find the ‘leverage points’ – those places in complex systems where, as Donella Meadows said, ‘a small shift in one thing can produce big changes in everything.’ Pretty much every conversation in the last series gave me food for thought and insights for the book, and in this episode, I’d like to pick up on some of those. First, we’ll recap on the systems thinking tools and approaches in Martin Tomitsch and Steve Baty’s new book, Designing Tomorrow, and think about the impact of strategies and systems - who we affect, and what kind of impacts we’re responsible for. Then we’ll look more closely at one of the key differences between conventional and circular business models - the role of the customer, and the need for them to be active, rather than passive participants. Finally, we’ll unpick another recurring theme from the book - system value – a term used by the Future Fit Foundation for solutions where businesses address societal needs in a holistic way, while not hindering progress towards a flourishing future. The last series covers episodes 151 to 159: 151 Clarissa Morawski of Reloop Platform: practical policies for circular packaging 152 Markus Terho: The Lifestyle Test 153 Anette Timmer of DESSO: the beauty of circularity 154 Loic Le Fouest of Clarasys: creating circular customer experiences 155 Martin Tomitsch and Steve Baty: Life-centred design 156 Marcus Feldthus: the Post-Growth Guide for businesses 157 Liz Bui of Yulex: safer, sustainable materials 158 Steve Wilson of Compostify: bioplastics that enrich the planet 159 Kyle Wiens of iFixit: the rewards of repairability

Kyle Wiens is the co-founder of iFixit, the international repair community known for open-source repair manuals and product teardown. Kyle is also one of my circular economy heroes! Since it started back in 2003, iFixit has empowered hundreds of millions of people to repair their broken stuff. Kyle led the international coalition that legalized Right to Repair, has testified before the US Congress and the International Trade Commission, and he is helping to develop global environmental standards. Kyle brings us up to speed on how iFixit has evolved over the last two decades, in its reach, offer and engagement. We talk about why we’ve ended up with so many products that are not designed to last and are hard – or impossible to repair, and why things are changing for the better. Kyle explains the importance of the Right to Repair legislation that’s being rolled out, how brands that don’t get on board risk losing out, and explains why we need much more information about product durability and repairability. We discuss some of the ways that brands can improve the design and durability of their products, and how iFixit can help them with that, and he offers a simple suggestion to help us all make better buying choices.