Looking back
moving forward #CEWeek
Date: 07.11.2025
For the 8th edition of Circular Economy Week, 74 events showcasing and celebrating the work being done to accelerate the cities' transition to a low carbon circular economy, delivered by ReLondon with support from Mayor of London, Ellen Macarthur Foundation, Sustainable Ventures and London & Partners #CEWeek25 takes place ahead of COP30 climate negotiations alongside Circular Cities Week – a global movement in action in 12 cities across the world.
Circular innovation, local action
A select event for policy leaders and zero waste innovators at ReLondon's opening event for Circular Economy Week 2025, giving industry insiders an opportunity to hear what’s happening in the UK’s thriving circular economy, meet zero waste innovators making real change happen on the ground and connect with policy leaders to gain first hand insight into this critical national agenda.
The Circular business showcases innovators disrupting the linear economy - showing reuse, repair and recycling across industries and levels – highlights including ReActon, a marketplace for used school clothing; storage and reuse for the film & tv industry by CAMA Group; sustainable materials made from food waste by Ottan and Material Rescue’s flexible packages for interior reuse, lowering project CO2 and reducing waste.
With panel discussions from DEFRA, exploring reducing packaging and food waste driven by data from UK Research and Innovation; and a focus on the importance of circularity in spaces across local authorities hearing from Islington Council and Deputy Mayor of London.
Designing for Change: Modularity, Materials and Circular Futures
An engaging session exploring how modularity in design and thoughtful material choices can accelerate the transition to a circular economy led by Surface Matter, CBRE Design Collective, Isomi and Material Rescue. With a great turn out of around 60 stakeholders from across industries including furniture, procurement, real estate development and management, technology, design, manufacturing, and government – Designing for Change explored key themes, including:
“Linear models (build-use-strip out-waste) no longer work. We need to design for reuse, reconfiguration and return from the start.” –Kate Smith, CBRE (Moderator)
“As designers and stakeholders we become custodians of value and the stories behind them. After something has been used for 10-15 years in an office we help maintain that story and value and we can drive systemic change by embedding reuse into projects and procurement - shifting the view of circular design toward a value protection strategy, reducing lifecycle costs and future-proofing assets.” –Dominic McAndrew, Design Collective (Panelist)
“Modularity isn’t just about sustainability, it’s about adaptability and future-readiness. A reception desk that can move, grow, or shrink with a business... It takes a lot of innovation and ingenuity to make it work and that should be recognised.” –Paul Crofts, Isomi (Panelist)
“Services like takeback transform materials from products into long-term resources — shifting the industry from Single-use to Adaptive reuse. Data from reuse can be used to inform future design decisions to shape end-of-life potential. Reuse isn’t scaleable without everyone being involved and agreeing. Developing systems to support the planet, much like Sequoia trees with shallow roots – they survive by spreading a network wide, sharing resources and knowledge.” –Rosie Rainbow, Material Rescue (Panelist)
Why Materials Matter: Unlocking value through end of life
An intimate evening aiming to demystify what happens to materials after use i.e. the critical, frequently missed end of the circularity loop. Discussing how value can be preserved, reclaimed or reused and what needs to be done up front to enable that. Facilitated by Sophie Thomas, OBE with panelists including Ross Dight, Tarkett; Scott Campbell, Surface Matter and Molly MacAulay from Overbury. Sophie Thomas opens with a short talk framing the challenge of end of life in materials, setting the scene on us continually missing the end of the circularity loop.
According to the 2025 Circularity Gap Report, global recycling is down to 6.9% - this is not because we’ve gotten worse at recycling, but that overall production is on the rise. We’ve recently hit the first tipping point, ahead of predictions and industry is headed in the wrong direction. Government initiatives like Part Z Housing, Producer Responsibility, Right to Repair, WEEE Directives are a positive step in a much bigger picture with action needed across responsibility roles – client, developer, manufacturer, contractor, local authority.
The panel explore what we can do in the built environment to preserve the value of materials and encourage reuse. With cross collaboration between policy makers, clients can overcome obstacles like warrantees on reused products by establishing a ‘Letter of comfort’ in situations where a manufacturer can’t or won’t step up to the plate to issue a warranty on reused goods. Or questioning our attachment to warranty’s when manufacturers have such low recall rates, often claimed within the first year of use.
A perception shift is required, where we start to view used pieces as assets, not stuff. Perhaps going forward projects should evaluate both a cost budget and a carbon budget.
“Storage is not the problem! We are in a country where warehouses are rapidly expanding at an unfathomable rate to allow next day delivery of just about any item. The logistics are not complicated or too expensive. It’s a small hurdle that anything new is already overcoming. Reuse should be no different. There’s this misconception of effort. That it will be harder to reuse than buying new but that doesn’t have to be the case if we start with the design, and build circularity in with the stakeholders so they’re on the same page from the beginning. We just have to think about it earlier and make that the standard.” – Scott Campbell, Surface Matter
