The Circular Economy Show

If you came home to find that your apartment was flooding, would you immediately start mopping up the water?

Probably not! That would be a futile effort without first finding out what is causing the flooding and stopping it. This is the essence of tackling the root cause of a problem — moving upstream.

In a circular economy, upstream innovation is about tracing a problem back to its root cause and tackling it there. Why deal with a pile of waste when we can prevent it from being created in the first place? Good for the environment, good for the economy: shifting just 20% of plastic packaging from single-use to reuse is an upstream innovation opportunity worth ~USD 10 billion.

Join us in this episode to explore worldwide cutting-edge upstream innovation examples to tackle plastic pollution. We will hear from Apeel, who disrupts food systems by extending the life of fruit and vegetables without any single-use plastic. Next up: Enviu will share their reuse projects and how they are tackling plastic pollution from Indonesia to The Netherlands. Sounds good? In the meantime, check out +100 solutions in our Upstream Innovation Guide.