Acceleration towards the New Normal

Oakdene Hollins at the CE100 Acceleration Workshop in Berlin on 12-13 October.

In this age of exponential innovation, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation defines the trends that will catalyse a future circular economy and become the new normal.

Every six months, the Foundation holds CE100 Acceleration Workshops to encourage development of circular economy pilot initiatives, build capacity, develop the CE100 network, and share the latest thinking in circular economy. The workshops convene all CE100 members to focus on initiatives which require cross-sector, cross-industry collaboration.

The Centre for Remanufacturing and Reuse (operated by Oakdene Hollins) is an affiliate member of the CE100, and David Fitzsimons will be at the workshops at Humboldt Carré, Behrenstraße 42, Berlin, on 12 and 13 October.

"I enjoy these meetings and the chance to meet those who want to create new business from the circular economy," says David. "The last one near Paris was well organised and productive, and this one in Berlin has all the right elements to put people and organisations together.”

Workshop Topics

Distributed networks disrupt established value chains: The linear economy is characterised by centralised networks and vertically integrated business models, which for decades have pervaded manufacturing, distribution, utilities and even governance structures. New hardware and software technologies have unlocked an economy powered by a complex web of distributed networks, and enabled more local and resilient production, use and consumption. Using the energy system as an example, the Workshops will demonstrate the ‘new normal’ of distributed, local networks.

Harnessing complexity with artificial intelligence: Embracing circularity requires a system perspective and, these days, understanding any system means interpreting more complexity than the human brain and mainstream computing can handle. The rise of artificial intelligence changes everything: the Workshops will examine a ground-breaking example, and connect to the wider implications for the circular economy.

Embracing collective intelligence through open source: The proliferation of connected citizens with unrestricted access to ideas, education and communities through unprecedented computational power will drive a new wave of global innovation. A Berlin-based collective joins the dots between the circular economy and the open source movement.

Scaling innovation: Being able to scale up innovation is vital to the adoption of circular economy principles. A new generation of start-up organisations is demonstrating remarkable technologies, products, and services that are ready to become the new normal, and the Workshops will explore a change in the way we identify and collaborate with these groups.

Government & Cities Workshop

Every six months, the network’s Government & Cities members gather at a full day workshop around shared challenges such as opportunity analyses, circular economy strategy development, business support etc. On 11 October, the Government & Cities workshop will explore how policymakers can enable and accelerate 'the new normal'.

For more information about the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Circular Economy 100 programme, go to www.ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/ce100.

For more information about the Centre for Remanufacturing and Reuse, go to www.remanufacturing.org.uk.