First inspired by a Le Creuset cast iron pot, she was constantly looking for products that last and thought that someone else must have created a website with such a collection. Tara was “stalked by the idea of a website” for over 2 years before realising she had to take action.
 
Tara shares her journey of commercialising the early Buy Me Once website after a Telegraph article went viral and her inbox was flooded with interest.  After two major website upgrades and a change in business model, Buy Me Once is a growing seven person team, including one in New York, and over 2000 products listed.
 
Highlights of the podcast:

• How they have developed a process to assess longevity and durability of products
• What companies are doing to improve the sustainability of products
• Why Tara is campaigning to make product lifetime information more transparent
• How the circular economy is the only way forward
• Tara’s book being sold all over the world, from Taiwan to Turkey and Vietnam to Poland
• Interesting products listed on their website; including a pen that has enough ink to last a lifetime, the unpoppable One World Futbol and the Elvis & Kresse wallets made out of London Fire Brigade hoses

Buy Me Once website: www.buymeonce.com
Tara’s personal website: www.tarabutton.com
Twitter https://twitter.com/buymeonce
A Life Less Throway: https://buymeonce.com/pages/a-life-less-throwaway
 One World Futbol: https://uk.buymeonce.com/products/one-world-play-one-world-football-blue
Infinium Space Pen: https://uk.buymeonce.com/products/fisher-space-pen-infinium-space-pen-black-titanium
Elvis & Kresse: https://www.elvisandkresse.com/
​

According to a 2012 study by WRAP, 300 tons of office furniture is going to waste every day. Serial entrepreneur, Dr Greg Lavery enlightens us on why he sees remanufacturing office furniture as the big opportunity for a more circular building industry.

In this episode, Greg shares his personal journey from running a solar company in Australia to founding Rype Office and how they are able to supply beautifully designed, sustainable and low cost furniture. Greg talks about their game changing innovation of creating job opportunities for the long term unemployed, thus creating social, financial and environmental sustainability.

Ken discusses why platform cooperatives and collaboration opportunities in circular economy are seen as a key in moving towards a circular economy. He also talks about policy issues such as how finance will need to be more patient and why there needs to be a change in taxation to tip us towards a truly circular economy.

We are now moving towards an economy where utilisation of assets rather than selling of products becomes important. Ken explains how we are shifting from products to services and cites Philip’s offering of lighting-as-a-service and Bundle's washing machine and MudJean’s clothing rentals as examples of moving away from selling products to providing a service which means making things last longer.

Ken shares that nature works with a limited palette of material and there is a new science of using form to find new functions in biomimicry and at a materials level we should move towards simplicity.  He provides examples of Brazil’s Leontino Balbo Junior who is scaling regenerative agriculture, and Lula farms in Canada which is using rooftop aquaponics for urban farming and London’s own Winnow who reduce food wastage from restaurants.

The podcast was recorded over the phone, so apologies for the comparatively poor audio quality.

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation aim is to accelerate the transition to the circular economy.  

Ken Webster tweets @CircularEconKen

Business Week described John Elkington as "a dean of the corporate responsibility movement", a poll placed him in the top 5 of global CSR leaders and he created the concept of the Triple Bottom Line: he truly is the sage of sustainability. ​

In this episode, John talks about his personal journey over the decades pushing for sustainable development.
He discusses his work bridging the gap between activist NGO campaigners and those mainstream businesses looking to be responsible.

During the conversation he shares insight from the Volans report “Breakthrough Business Models: Exponentially, More Social, Lean, Integrated, and Circular.” John suggests that the sustainability industry needs to disrupt itself and how we need to think in much longer terms. A serial sustainability entrepreneur and thinker for 40 years, he started his first business, ENDS, in 1978 (which is still going strong), founded two high profile consultancies, SustainAbility and Volans, is the author of 19 books and is on the boards of 20 organisations. ​

Head over to Volans to learn more about Breakthrough Business Models.
John Elkington tweets at @VolansJohn

In this episode, Ryan explains how biomimicry inspired Aeropowder is exploiting the unique insulation properties of feathers for last mile food delivery and getting rid of synthetic insulation. Ryan shares the interesting background behind meeting cofounder Elena Dieckmann at Imperial College and what lead them to forming their company.

Ryan also talks about his journey from being a PhD researcher in air pollution and talking to astronauts in his Masters to figuring out the entrepreneurial challenges of working with industry partners and the importance of learning by doing.

Head over to Aeropowder to learn more about this new circular economy product.
Ryan Robinson tweets at @Aeropowder