Join Seb as he speaks to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s CEO, Jonquil Hackenberg about the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for the circular economy in 2026. What are your priorities for 2026? Let us know in the comments or on our LinkedIn page.
Join Seb as he speaks to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s CEO, Jonquil Hackenberg about the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead for the circular economy in 2026.
What are your priorities for 2026? Let us know in the comments or on our LinkedIn page.
[00:00:00.000] - Jonquil Hackenberg
That's ridiculous, right? Do you have to own the battery if you're owning the car? Probably not. Basing it upon economics, it just makes sense. How do we keep this agenda moving forward despite distractions?
[00:00:12.520] - Seb Egerton-Read
Happy New Year, and welcome back to the Circular Economy Show. In this first episode of the year, I'm joined by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation CEO, Jonquil. We'll be talking about what her expectations are for the coming year, why critical minerals is such an important topic for our work, and the relevance and importance of engaging in the global South on the circular economy.
[00:00:38.500] - Seb Egerton-Read
Jonquil, thanks for joining us on our podcast. You're a year in to your time at the foundation as our CEO. What's that year been like and what are you looking forward to in Year 2?
[00:00:49.160] - Jonquil Hackenberg
Gosh, it's been a year, hasn't it? It feels like it's been 5 years, but in a really good way. What I think we did super well was getting really focused on what are the big problems of our time and how we can address them at the nexus of business and policy and where circular economy is perceived as the answer. I think having chosen our three themes on plastics and packaging, on critical minerals, and of course, on fashion and textiles, that just feels really great and galvanising for this year. That's what I'm excited about this year.
[00:01:27.160] - Jonquil Hackenberg
I'm excited about building on the momentum that we created last year on doing more programmes that are focused around action and implementation and scale up, and using our superpowers of amazing research and convening to help that investment flow to the right areas, so we can point a solution.
[00:01:45.580] - Seb Egerton-Read
I want to pick up on what you said there around where the circular economy is most urgent and most relevant, because obviously the circular economy is a very big idea. In some ways it can apply to many, many different things. That effort to zero in on where does it really matter now and where can it make a difference, one of those areas which is heavily in the news for lots of different reasons, good and bad, is obviously critical minerals. I wondered if you could say a bit about why the circular economy there, what we're starting to think about in that space, recognising it's somewhat nascent as well.
[00:02:17.380] - Jonquil Hackenberg
As you rightly say, this critical minerals, because it's in the news the whole time, because it's such a macro pressing trend, because it's about supply chain, because it's about resilience to that supply, it's the perfect opportunity to really test bed how critical minerals can work and how the circular economy can work for it. We've obviously chosen two specific entry points at the moment. One is around EV batteries and the second is around consumer electronics, and we'll look at more later. Looking at that and looking at the fact, policy is still being shaped in that space.
[00:02:57.620] - Jonquil Hackenberg
If we can imagine using circular economy policies to incentivise reuse of those materials, thinking about new ownership models of the battery, do you have to own the battery if you're owning the car? Probably not. The OEM could own that, the mining company could own that. Thinking about that in a different way, thinking about how do we keep those materials in circulation, they're high value and relatively low volume at this stage, that would allow us to avoid deep sea mining or additional mining until we understand more about it. Looking at that and looking at how we can create second-hand markets in the global South and ensuring a just transition, that's fabulous. It's really exciting and something that we can really do because we haven't yet got the volumes of supply and demand yet. There's a real opportunity to shape that and make circular economy a reality.
[00:03:56.180] - Seb Egerton-Read
There's a couple of things I find really interesting about that. One is that I remember when I was first introduced to the idea of a circular economy and some of the foundations early, literally we talked about the idea of a washing machine, like why do you have to own a washing machine? When you think about critical minerals, it's really like something like an EV battery. Really, why does someone need to be worrying about that as a product to a component when it's a very complex, very highly valuable thing, but it's immensely valuable to the people who manufacture them and people who manufacture cars.
[00:04:23.380] - Seb Egerton-Read
Then the second thing I think is interesting about what you said there is it really shifts the narrative because what I read in the most of the news about critical minerals is a bit like it's that doomerism, really. It sounds like the world is ending, but the circular economy is an opportunity space for critical minerals, fundamentally.
[00:04:41.540] - Jonquil Hackenberg
That's exactly it. It's this whole value creation, and it's what better things you could do whether it's the high value, low volume materials. It's a complete new business market opportunity. If you imagine an EV battery, it might, after 5 years, not have the energy density to still be an EV battery. But of course, it can be used for energy storage in a different market. Maybe it's at a price point in the global South that also helps the global South level up with the global North. I think those are the things that we really want to be looking at. It's really exciting.
[00:05:17.500] - Seb Egerton-Read
Something I think I've noticed you've really driven into the foundation in your time as CEO so far is that focus on the global South, on that local to global connection. I wanted if you could say a little bit more why that's so important and some of the things we might do in that space. I know at the end of last year, we announced a partnership with Clean Rivers in Brazil and plastics infrastructure.
[00:05:40.200] - Jonquil Hackenberg
Absolutely. A lot of the narrative around the economics in general, the economy in general, is, of course, global North-driven narrative. The whole point is we want to try and change the system. We're not going to change the system if it's a one-way street. Looking at the partnership with Clean Rivers and looking at what we've done in plastic, we've moved away from just pointing at this is more plastics than fish in the oceans, which is probably one of our most famous reports that I always reference, to here are the pivotal hurdles around infrastructure, particularly in the global South, reuse and also flexible, so alternatives for single-use sachets, for example.
[00:06:22.280] - Jonquil Hackenberg
If we're looking at those as the pivotal hurdles and pointing to specific countries of what we need to do and pointing to specific solutions, that's how we start to scale and stop piloting everywhere. Our partnership with Clean Rivers, part of the UAE's whole philanthropic landscaper, which is really extraordinary and notable, is to identify the first city in Brazil of about five million people, to see who all the players are in that value chain, including the waste pickers, so that we have guidelines that then can be scaled up to regional and then national level.
[00:06:59.440] - Jonquil Hackenberg
We want to do the same thing in Southeast Asia, in the countries where the enabling conditions exist, i.e., there's policies there already, where the biggest problems around pollution and plastic waste are, and where there is the greatest footprint from a lot of our players or a lot of our partners in our network who want to solve for this challenge. Looking at what we can do tangibly in the global South to bring these solutions to bear through philanthropic and partnerships is really fantastic.
[00:07:32.060] - Seb Egerton-Read
I think it also requires a different type of storytelling, because what we're talking about there is how do we drive something that has enough scale to be of relevance across many, many regions and many geographies or has learning findings from it. That is a different mindset from, here's a really beautiful little case study that shows that in the perfect set of conditions, something that works. It's almost much messier and harder in some ways, but really essential because of what you said about the barriers that policymakers and businesses are encountering when trying to shift the economy from a linear circular or to try and solve some of these big global challenges more pertinently.
[00:08:09.140] - Jonquil Hackenberg
You're absolutely right. I think that's our approach around guidelines, because then it's not like it must be this. Because if you've got those guidelines, it allows for local solutions to flourish because it will be a different pollution problem, for example, in Vietnam than it is in Brazil because of the different conditions, because of how waste pickers work, because of what the materials are that you're trying to collect. I think looking at that, having consistent guidelines, allows investment for scale, but it allows, as I said, these local solutions to really flourish and come to bear. That really benefits all of us because then we can learn from different geographies.
[00:08:54.000] - Seb Egerton-Read
We've talked about a couple of those focus areas you mentioned. I'm worried that if the fashion and textiles team are listening this podcast and I don't ask about it, then they'll be giving me grief in the office.
[00:09:03.400] - Jonquil Hackenberg
And me.
[00:09:04.760] - Seb Egerton-Read
I've got to ask a question about it. When people think about the fashion and textiles industry, they think almost in some ways of a quintessential linear economy. We all experience it. What makes that a space where there's relevance and readiness for circular economy activity and what we're starting to think about there?
[00:09:23.180] - Jonquil Hackenberg
If we look at fashion and textiles, if we look at circular economy in general, you've got the feed stock. Let's call that the clothing mountains that we've got out there. Then you've got the offtake, which are the innovation models. How do we start to shift those big Ghanaian mountains of clothes that exist from the linear economy, and how can we reuse those and come up with great innovation models? How do we create materials that can be more easily separated and recycled or reused? More excitingly, I would say, is looking at all the different models for creating new value. That's around rental or repair or remake.
[00:10:07.700] - Jonquil Hackenberg
Looking at those different things and incentivising, buying and making that cooler is really, really important. We're seeing that as a trend in some areas, particularly in the Western global North hemisphere. The big thing we need to do is to make sure that the likes of Vinted are also popular and how the global South has always operated. They actually got it right in the first place. We're the ones in the North that got it wrong. I think that's quite exciting.
[00:10:35.890] - Jonquil Hackenberg
The other bit is around tax. Why are we paying the same VAT on second-hand clothes? That's ridiculous. There's a lot of work to be done in the policy space, designing new tax incentives, but also designing these new systems where we're displacing linear sales with circular sales or creating a new market stream, which is what I'm super excited about.
[00:11:00.000] - Seb Egerton-Read
I know there's been some big announcements in the EU in particular around EPR. Obviously, those textile mountains that you talk about are a massive issue for governments in particular.
[00:11:12.200] - Jonquil Hackenberg
They're huge. We're seeing EPR coming in, extended producer responsibility coming in. Again, the policy play is giving the incentives to do something about it. Looking at working with our fashion remodel teams and partners is really thinking about how do you use different aspects of repair or rent, as I mentioned as two examples, and which ones do you want to choose that makes your USP for you and your organisation and your brand that works best for you. There's lots of opportunities we can do there.
[00:11:47.720] - Jonquil Hackenberg
I think that helps us also thinking about EPR coming in as a policy means that you've got to think about how you're making the clothes in the first place or making the textiles in the first place. How do we look at biomaterials and replacing synthetic ones with natural ones over time?
[00:12:06.340] - Seb Egerton-Read
Of course, very, very relevant for the global South topic that we're just talking about in terms of production of textiles and where these waste textiles often end up. Davos is coming up. Many of the organisations listening to the podcast will have people attending that event. It's a kick-off to the year for lots of policy and business organisations. What are you specifically hoping to engage with, talk about? Outcomes is a funny thing to talk about with what's effectively a massive series of meetings and conferences. What are some of the things you're hoping to see or looking for, momentum you're hoping to see come out of that for the rest of the year?
[00:12:43.900] - Jonquil Hackenberg
I feel like I've been saying this for several years. I probably have, actually. The thing about Davos, it has lots of criticism about it. The thing about Davos is you have a captive audience in snow boots. Everyone's grounded, literally, in snow boots, and you can talk and convene around specific things you want to do. I think, particularly in the times we find ourselves in, so Trump will be there, apparently, on the Wednesday-
[00:13:14.030] - Seb Egerton-Read
Exciting.
[00:13:15.020] - Jonquil Hackenberg
Exciting is definitely a word. We are having the opportunity to really talk about this scale up that I was talking about. Organisations and philanthropists and governments, which I'm hoping we're going to sit around the table and dispense with the chat and say, "What are we going to do? How do we keep this agenda moving forward despite distractions?" I will call them distractions, because we still need to move this forward. We still need to address an economy that's going to work in the future.
[00:13:47.920] - Jonquil Hackenberg
That's the thing about circular economy. It's really giving us the opportunity to cut through this, provide the resilience in all scenarios and circumstances, and to keep things moving. I'm really hoping for outcomes around what are we going to do next together for this at scale, whether it's EV batteries, whether that's fashion and textiles, or whether it's reuse or infrastructure in plastics.
[00:14:13.440] - Seb Egerton-Read
I was really inspired by this podcast that I listened to. Unfortunately, I can't remember whose podcast it was, so I can't credit them. If I remember, we'll put it in the notes. I think, as you say, there's a lot of divisiveness that comes both around Davos in general in our meta-narratives. Where there are genuine differences, it's good to debate those. This person was saying on this podcast that we also have to get along, and we have to do things. I found that very inspiring because it feels really important to identify those areas where it's just good for all of us to work on things to make the world a better place, whatever that means in that particular context.
[00:14:51.860] - Jonquil Hackenberg
I think that's right. I'm going to bring it back to the circular economy because why wouldn't we? I really do fundamentally believe that now is our time because it provides not only narrative but solution that transcends political boundaries, that allows us to work towards… Basing it upon economics, it just makes sense socially and economically for us to do things differently and protect the resources we've got and keeping them in circulation. That's the most inspirational thing I think we can take into this year.
[00:15:27.260] - Seb Egerton-Read
Thanks for joining us on the podcast, Jonquil. Hopefully, we'll catch up with you again later in the year.
[00:15:30.640] - Jonquil Hackenberg
Thank you, Seb.
[00:15:32.280] - Seb Egerton-Read
A critical part of that conversation was focus, and the focus of the foundation is really clear across those three missions: critical minerals, plastic and packaging, and fashion and textiles. What are your priorities for the year to come? What do you really want to get done? Thanks for listening to this episode of Circular Economy Show. If your New Year's resolution was to make sure you subscribe to our podcast, you could do that right now. Otherwise, we'll see you soon.