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The tailoring workforce in the US has been shrinking for decades. And the ones that remain aren't easy to find or get an appointment with.

In this episode of HappyPorch Radio, Barry O'Kane speaks with Robin Atkinson and Cash Acrey, the husband-and-wife co-founders of Upkept, an online clothing repair platform based in Northwest Arkansas. You mail in clothes you want fixed, they repair them in a centralised facility, and they send them back. Robin says this should be as easy as ordering delivery.

Robin's journey began with a different question: how do you create meaningful sewing jobs in America? Along the way she discovered something unexpected. The people learning these skills weren't excited by repetitive manufacturing. They loved repair, where every garment is different and every project demands creativity and problem-solving.

That insight sits at the heart of Upkept: the technology isn't the product. Repair is the product, and the software exists to reduce friction so the human craft can scale.

✨ In this episode:

Robin explains why repair creates more fulfilling work than garment manufacturing, and why the workforce she trained took to it more quickly
Cash shares how AI coding tools helped build Upkept's platform from scratch on a shoestring budget, and why no off-the-shelf solution fit
Robin and Cash discuss balancing one-of-a-kind craftsmanship with operational scale
Why Upkept's technology works as a mediation layer between a customer who needs simplicity and a production team that needs detail
Robin's honest take on turning down the wrong investment to protect the mission, the workforce, and the size of the opportunity
The vision for brand partnerships and a future where it's embarrassing for a company not to offer a link to repair

👤 About our guests:

Robin Atkinson is the founder and CEO of Upkept, an online apparel repair and alterations platform serving customers across 26 US states from a centralised facility in Northwest Arkansas. After nine years building workforce development programmes in sewn trades, she founded Upkept to create meaningful skilled jobs while making clothing repair affordable and accessible. She describes her mission as getting the unit economics of repair to work in America.

Cash Acrey is the CFO and CTO of Upkept and a finance professor at the University of Arkansas. He leads the company's technology strategy, building custom software from scratch using AI coding tools that simplifies the repair experience for customers while supporting the skilled people carrying out the work.

Find Upkept at upkept.io, or connect with Robin and Cash on LinkedIn.

🌍 About HappyPorch

HappyPorch is a purpose-driven software engineering consultancy focused on the circular economy.

Learn more:https://www.happyporch.com

💌 Subscribe to HappyPorch Circular News

HappyPorch Circular News is our monthly newsletter for people working in and around the circular economy and technology.

Subscribe at:

https://www.happyporch.com/newsletter/

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Most commercial kitchens have no clear picture of what they are throwing away, when, or why.

In this episode of HappyPorch Radio, Barry O'Kane speaks with Anastasia Dellis, CEO of Orbisk, a platform that uses AI and computer vision to make food waste visible in commercial kitchens. The Orbi monitor sits above a waste bin, captures every item discarded, recognises over 800 ingredients, and feeds it all into a dashboard that tells chefs, GMs, CFOs, and sustainability teams what is happening and what to change first.

Anastasia's path to Orbisk runs through two decades of scaling businesses, from Africa's largest retailer to Gorillas, one of Europe's fastest-growing startups in quick commerce. She describes recognising the intersection of her professional experience with a personal connection to food scarcity she grew up with in South Africa.

What comes through most clearly is her conviction that kitchen technology only works at scale if it demands nothing of the people using it. No training, no buttons, no extra steps. That principle, which Orbisk calls "No Pause Dispose," is not an afterthought; it is the product.

✨ In this episode:

Anastasia explains how the Orbi monitor works: above the bin computer vision that captures every discard automatically, with no interaction from kitchen staff
How different stakeholders use the same data differently: a CFO sees margin gains, a chef sees ingredient-level waste patterns, and a sustainability team sees carbon metrics pulled into their auditing environment
Anastasia's path from growing up in her father's shop in South Africa to corporate retail to scaling Gorillas across nine markets, and how she found purpose alignment at Orbisk
Why mission alignment matters for the team and investors, even when customers buy purely on the business case
How Orbisk's AI culinary assistant goes beyond dashboards to offer production, recipe, and training changes tailored to a hotel brand's standards
The longer-term vision: moving from waste monitoring into forecasting and purchasing to become the intelligence layer inside every kitchen

👤 About our guest:

Anastasia Dellis is the CEO of Orbisk, a Dutch food-tech company using AI-powered computer vision to help commercial kitchens track, reduce, and ultimately eliminate food waste. Before joining Orbisk, Anastasia spent over two decades scaling businesses across retail and tech, including roles at Africa's largest retailer, China's largest retailer, and Gorillas, one of Europe's fastest-growing startups. She studied at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. Orbisk operates in over 55 countries and works with brands including Marriott, Accor, Hilton, IHG, and Carnival Cruise Lines. Find Orbisk at orbisk.com, or reach Anastasia on LinkedIn.

🌍 About HappyPorch

HappyPorch is a purpose-driven software engineering consultancy focused on the circular economy.

Learn more:https://www.happyporch.com

💌 Subscribe to HappyPorch Circular News

HappyPorch Circular News is our monthly newsletter for people working in and around the circular economy and technology.

Subscribe at:

https://www.happyporch.com/newsletter/

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The same handbag. Thirty different platforms. Hundreds of dollars between listings. And no way to know what it's actually worth.

In this episode of HappyPorch Radio, Barry O'Kane speaks with Chris Lucas, founder and CEO of Secondsense, a platform that aggregates luxury resale listings from over 30 vendors, normalises their attributes, and tells consumers what a product is really trading at. Chris describes it as the Google Flights for luxury resale.

Chris's background is unusual for the fashion space. Stanford AI, senior machine learning engineer at Instagram, then Harvard Business School. He built a prototype while still a student, a TikToker put it on her channel, the site crashed overnight, and Chris opened a fundraise the next morning. He didn't wait until the product was ready. He didn't wait until he graduated. He just ran.

What's most striking about the conversation is Chris's view on where value sits now. He argues the modelling layer, the application layer, and the hardware layer are all effectively democratised. Someone can duplicate a website in minutes using tools like Lovable or Claude Code. The only thing that can't be replicated is years of clean, structured, proprietary data and the domain expertise to know what to do with it. For Secondsense, that means knowing that a caviar leather Chanel sells differently from lambskin, or that champagne hardware changes the price, details a layperson would never spot.

✨ In this episode:

Chris explains why the secondhand luxury market is broken: fragmented supply, opaque pricing, and one-of-one SKU processing that leads to chronic supply-demand mismatch
We hear the story of the TikTok video that crashed his prototype and the snap decision to fundraise before graduating Harvard
Chris shares his framework for thinking about the AI stack (data, models, applications, hardware) and why only one of those layers is defensible
Barry and Chris discuss why domain knowledge matters as much as technical skill, and why hiring people who understand both is a sport
Chris gives an honest account of Secondsense's sustainability story: it's real, but it's not what's driving his customers' purchasing decisions
We explore the vision for scaling beyond luxury handbags into any product category that trades inefficiently on the resale market, from liquor and art to wine, electronics, and even equestrian saddlery

👤 About our guest:

Chris Lucas is the founder and CEO of Secondsense, a platform aggregating luxury resale listings from over 30 vendors to bring price transparency and market efficiency to the secondhand luxury market. Before founding Secondsense, Chris studied AI at Stanford, worked as a senior machine learning engineer at Instagram writing content recommendation algorithms, and completed his MBA at Harvard Business School. Chris grew up in a family of entrepreneurs and describes his mission as making the resale market efficient, determining the fair market value of any product in any condition. Find Secondsense at secondsense.co, or reach Chris directly at chris@secondsense.co.

🌍 About HappyPorch

HappyPorch is a purpose-driven software engineering consultancy focused on the circular economy.

Learn more:https://www.happyporch.com

💌 Subscribe to HappyPorch Circular News

HappyPorch Circular News is our monthly newsletter for people working in and around the circular economy and technology.

Subscribe at:

https://www.happyporch.com/newsletter/

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Technology isn't magic. And neither is the bin, even though most of us treat it like one.

In this episode of HappyPorch Radio, Barry O'Kane speaks with Tom Passmore, CIO and co-founder of Dsposal, a company that has spent a decade building technology for the UK waste sector. Tom has a vivid way of describing the core problem: the moment someone decides they don't want something, it's dead to them. All the nostalgia, all the value, gone. It goes to the magic away place.

But what actually happens in that magic away place matters enormously, and the UK has something most countries don't: roughly 10 years of structured public waste data. Dsposal's work is about joining that data together, building tools on top of it, and helping organisations move from simply complying with waste regulations to genuinely understanding what's happening with their waste and why.

Tom is unusually candid about the pace of change. A customer portal his team built sat untouched for eight years before usage suddenly accelerated post-COVID. The data didn't change. The questions did. And that shift, from asking what and where to asking why, is where Tom sees real change beginning.

The conversation also gets into the UK government's new Digital Waste Tracking programme, where Tom plays the role of critical friend, broadly supportive of the direction but direct about the gaps, particularly around who gets to see the data and whether phase two will track waste or just the vehicles carrying it.

✨ In this episode:

Tom explains why the "magic away place" mindset is the root problem in waste management
We explore the three public datasets that underpin Dsposal's products and what they reveal when connected
Tom describes the shift from compliance-driven questions to "why" questions, and what triggered it
Barry and Tom discuss Digital Waste Tracking: what's working, what's missing, and why the technology is the easy part
Tom shares what 10 years of building waste tech has taught him about naivety, humility, and behaviour change
We hear Tom's vision for using data to map every take-back scheme in the country, and his honest assessment of AI readiness in the waste sector

👤 About our guest:

Tom Passmore is the CIO and co-founder of Dsposal, a web platform that has spent 10 years making waste management easier, more transparent, and more compliant for organisations across the UK. Dsposal works with universities, NHS trusts, science parks, local authorities, and small to medium waste management companies, connecting public waste data with tools that help users find legal waste outlets, track compliance, and increasingly drill into the why behind their waste patterns. Tom is an active voice in the UK waste data community, serves as a critical friend to DEFRA's Digital Waste Tracking programme, and is passionate about the untapped potential in the UK's public waste datasets.

🌍 About HappyPorch

HappyPorch is a purpose-driven software engineering consultancy focused on the circular economy.

Learn more:https://www.happyporch.com

💌 Subscribe to HappyPorch Circular News

HappyPorch Circular News is our monthly newsletter for people working in and around the circular economy and technology.

Subscribe at:

https://www.happyporch.com/newsletter/

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Technology isn't magic. But sometimes dropping your spoon in a bowl of soup during a pandemic leads you somewhere extraordinary.

In this episode of HappyPorch Radio, Barry O'Kane speaks with Thierry Sanders, founder of Kolekt, a platform connecting waste collectors, buy-back centres, and recyclers across the Global South. Thierry's background spans fintech, microfinance, and living in developing countries from Ecuador to Pakistan to Indonesia, and Kolekt grew directly out of two weeks spent riding around Bali on a motorbike with informal waste collectors, learning how their world actually works.

What makes Kolekt's story unusual is the order of operations. Thierry didn't arrive with a product looking for a market. He started with cigarettes, lunch, and genuine curiosity, and the technology followed the problems he discovered: collectors wasting half their time searching for materials that weren't there, workers without phones or bank accounts locked out of digital systems, and facial recognition tools that didn't work for the people who needed them most.

The conversation is direct about the harder edges of this work: the fossil fuel industry flooding markets with cheap virgin plastic, governments demanding surveillance data on immigrant workers, and the gap between EPR policy and what actually reaches the people doing the collecting.

✨ In this episode:

Thierry tells the origin story of Kolekt, from a pandemic soup bowl in Jakarta to 14,000+ waste collector profiles across six countries
We explore the practical technology challenges of serving users who have no phone, no bank account, and no reliable connectivity
Thierry explains how Kolekt discovered and worked around racist bias in open-source facial recognition
Barry and Thierry discuss the economics of informal waste collection and why recycled materials cost more than virgin plastic
Thierry shares his work advising South Asian governments on EPR legislation and the $100 billion opportunity it represents
We hear how Kolekt chose to lose contracts rather than hand over user data to governments targeting immigrant collectors

👤 About our guest:

Thierry Sanders is the founder of Kolekt (kolekt.com), a platform that connects waste collectors, buy-back centres, and recyclers across the Global South. With a background in fintech and microfinance across developing countries including Ecuador, Pakistan, and Indonesia, Thierry built Kolekt after spending two weeks with informal waste collectors in Bali during the pandemic, learning how the waste economy works from the ground up. Kolekt now operates in Indonesia, Vietnam, Brazil, Mozambique, Kenya, and Ghana, with around 14,000 active waste collector profiles and close to 100,000 transactions processed. Thierry also advises governments across South Asia on Extended Producer Responsibility legislation and has developed Kolekt's EPR compliance platform for Mozambique.

🌍 About HappyPorch

HappyPorch is a purpose-driven software engineering consultancy focused on the circular economy.

Learn more:https://www.happyporch.com

💌 Subscribe to HappyPorch Circular News

HappyPorch Circular News is our monthly newsletter for people working in and around the circular economy and technology.

Subscribe at:

https://www.happyporch.com/newsletter/

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Technology isn't magic. And neither, it turns out, is circular strategy.

In this episode of HappyPorch Radio, Barry O'Kane speaks with Amelia Woodley, a sustainability leader with 25 years of cross-sector experience, and Vin Sharma, a researcher whose doctoral work examined why the social dimension of circular economy so often gets left behind.

Amelia introduces her "logic versus magic" framework: the logic side covers strategy, systems, KPIs, and measurement; the magic side covers the storytelling, brand identity, training, and people-led change that make sustainability mean something inside an organisation. Her argument is that most organisations over-invest in the logic and underinvest in the magic, and that is exactly where circular transformations stall.

Vin's research adds depth to this picture. Across companies at different stages of their circular journey, he found that social value tends to be bolted on rather than built in, and that the organisations making genuine progress were the ones who treated crises as learning events rather than problems to recover from.

The conversation is unusually direct on the financial dimension. Both guests push back on the idea that circular solutions come with a green premium: with good data and whole-life cost thinking, the commercial case can be made. The challenge is building the analytical and organisational muscle to make it properly.

✨ In this episode:

Vin explains the social blind spot in circular economy thinking and why it is structural
Amelia introduces the logic-versus-magic framework for sustainable change
We explore the three stages of circular maturity and what moves organisations between them
Barry, Amelia, and Vin discuss the role of finance in circular business cases
We explore how technology and data need to mature together, not in sequence
Vin and Amelia share what makes them genuinely hopeful about where circularity is heading

👤 About our guests:

Amelia Woodley is a sustainability leader with nearly 25 years of experience designing and embedding sustainability strategies across sectors including construction, rail, infrastructure, nuclear, and retail. She has led major circular economy and net zero transformation programmes and is a strong advocate for making circular thinking accessible and commercially credible inside organisations.

Vin Sharma is a researcher whose doctoral work examined how organisations integrate social value into circular economy transitions. His research identified consistent patterns across companies at different stages of circular maturity, and proposed frameworks for understanding how reactive responses to crises can build long-term capability.

🌍 About HappyPorch

HappyPorch is a purpose-driven software engineering consultancy focused on the circular economy.

Learn more:https://www.happyporch.com

💌 Subscribe to HappyPorch Circular News

HappyPorch Circular News is our monthly newsletter for people working in and around the circular economy and technology.

Subscribe at:

https://www.happyporch.com/newsletter/

▶️ Listen and subscribe

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Technology isn’t magic. And neither is circularity.

In this episode of HappyPorch Radio, Barry O’Kane speaks with Lieke van Kerkhoven, co-founder of Green Pulse.

Lieke explains how Green Pulse is helping hospitals extend the life of medical equipment by connecting them with a global network of buyers. The platform combines logistics, marketplace dynamics, and technology to make reuse viable in a complex and highly regulated environment, an example of what we mean by Exploring circular tech: technology isn’t magic, where technology plays a role, but only as part of a much bigger operational and human system.

They discuss the practical realities of building a circular business, from managing operations and growth to creating trust between buyers and sellers. The conversation also explores a broader idea: how businesses can move beyond treating sustainability as an add-on and instead integrate it into their core commercial model.

The episode highlights Lieke’s concept of “integrative business”, the role of AI in reshaping work, and the importance of aligning incentives across the value chain.

✨ In this episode:

Lieke explains how Green Pulse started and how it works
We explore the challenges of running a circular marketplace
Lieke shares insights into the global demand for reused medical equipment
We discuss why donation is not always the best solution
Barry and Lieke explore the realities of scaling a startup
Lieke explains how AI supports operational efficiency
We discuss aligning commercial and circular incentives
We explore the gap between personal and professional values
Lieke shares her vision for the future of Green Pulse

👤 About our guest:

Lieke van Kerkhoven is the co-founder of Green Pulse, a platform focused on the reuse of medical equipment.

She has a background in medicine and has spent years working at the intersection of healthcare, sustainability, and the circular economy. Through Green Pulse, she is helping hospitals recover value from unused equipment while making it accessible to buyers around the world.

Lieke is particularly interested in what she calls “integrative business”, bringing together commercial and sustainability thinking into a single, aligned model. Her work focuses on reducing friction, building trust, and creating systems where circularity becomes a natural outcome of doing business.

🌍 About HappyPorch

HappyPorch is a purpose-driven software engineering consultancy focused on the circular economy.

Learn more:https://www.happyporch.com

💌 Subscribe to HappyPorch Circular News

HappyPorch Circular News is our monthly newsletter for people working in and around the circular economy and technology.

Subscribe at:

https://www.happyporch.com/newsletter/

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Technology isn’t magic. It does not fix a fragmented circular economy on its own.

In this episode of HappyPorch Radio, Barry O’Kane speaks with David Watson, founder of Circular Connect.

David explains how Circular Connect developed from a newsletter into a platform that helps circular businesses become more visible and easier to connect with.

They discuss the practical challenges of scaling circularity, including fragmented markets, limited awareness, and the need for better connections between organisations. The conversation explores where technology helps, and where human relationships do most of the work.

The episode highlights emerging opportunities in areas such as traceability, digital product passports, and circular M&A.

✨ In this episode:

David explains how Circular Connect started and how it has evolved
We explore why the circular economy is still fragmented
David shares how networking can be made more consistent
We discuss the role of human relationships alongside technology
Barry and David explore the circular talent gap
We look at current M&A activity in the sector
David explains why traceability is becoming more important
We discuss the role of policy and commercial drivers
David shares how Circular Connect may develop further

👤 About our guest:

David Watson is the founder of Circular Connect and Chief Client Officer at RL People and RL Equity.

He has spent close to a decade working in the circular economy across recruitment, mergers and acquisitions, and media.

Circular Connect was created to make it easier to find and understand what is happening in the circular economy. It brings together a newsletter, directory, and network to support better connections between organisations.

David focuses on reducing friction in the industry and helping circular businesses grow through better visibility and collaboration.

🌍 About HappyPorch

HappyPorch is a purpose-driven software engineering consultancy focused on the circular economy.

Learn more:https://www.happyporch.com

💌 Subscribe to HappyPorch Circular News

HappyPorch Circular News is our monthly newsletter for people working in and around the circular economy and technology.

Subscribe at:

https://www.happyporch.com/newsletter/

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What if repair wasn’t an afterthought, but a core part of how fashion works?

In this episode of HappyPorch Radio, Barry O’Kane speaks with Nancy Rhodes, CEO of Alternew, a platform embedding tailoring and repair into the shopping experience.

Nancy shares how her experience in the fashion industry led her to rethink the role of care and repair, not just as a sustainability initiative, but as a way to improve customer relationships and business performance.

Alternew’s approach is to make repair easy and accessible, combining AI-powered guidance with a network of local service providers. The result is a system where brands can support customers beyond the point of purchase, while also gaining valuable insights into how their products are used, worn, and sometimes fail.

The conversation also explores the broader implications of this shift, from reducing returns to rethinking how products are designed in the first place.

✨ In this episode:

Nancy shares the story behind Alternew and the “invisible pitchfork” that pushed her to build it
We explore how repair can reduce returns and increase customer retention
Nancy explains why “buy smarter, wear longer” is a more useful framing than “buy better”
We discuss how care and repair can become part of the core customer experience
Barry and Nancy explore the role of technology in enabling, not replacing, human expertise
We look at how data from repairs can inform better product design
Nancy shares her vision for making care and repair aspirational and mainstream

👤 About our guest:

Nancy Rhodes is CEO of Alternew, a platform embedding tailoring and repair into the fashion shopping experience.

After nearly two decades as a footwear designer working with brands ranging from Costco and Target to Beyoncé, Nancy shifted her focus to sustainability, driven by a growing awareness of the waste created by the fashion industry.

Alternew combines AI-powered guidance with a network of repair specialists to help brands support customers beyond the point of purchase, reducing returns, increasing retention, and extending the life of products.

🌍 About HappyPorch

HappyPorch is a purpose-driven software engineering consultancy focused on the circular economy.

Learn more:https://www.happyporch.com

💌 Subscribe to HappyPorch Circular News

HappyPorch Circular News is our monthly newsletter for people working in and around the circular economy and technology.

Subscribe at:

https://www.happyporch.com/newsletter/

▶️ Listen and subscribe

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Circular economy platforms promise simple solutions to complex problems, but what does it actually take to make them work in practice?

In this episode of HappyPorch Radio, Barry O’Kane speaks with Cathy Benwell, co-founder of A Good Thing, a nonprofit platform helping businesses donate surplus items to charities in their local communities.

Cathy shares the journey of building A Good Thing from scratch, including the early challenges of growing a two-sided network, the importance of persistence, and why human effort—not just software—is key to success. They also explore the deeper questions around circularity, including whether easy donation routes might unintentionally encourage overproduction.

The conversation highlights how real-world circular systems depend on trust, relationships, and continuous learning, not just technology.

✨ In this episode:

Cathy explains how A Good Thing works and why it resonated so quickly with businesses and charities.
We explore the “chicken and egg” challenge of building a two-sided circular platform.
Cathy shares how persistence and local outreach helped build early momentum.
We discuss the emotional and social impact of small, everyday donations.
Barry and Cathy explore the limits of circularity and the risks of enabling overconsumption.
We discuss the importance of volunteers and community in scaling a nonprofit platform.
Cathy shares her vision for expanding A Good Thing across Europe and into new areas like space sharing and volunteering.

👤 About our guest:

Cathy Benwell is co-founder of A Good Thing, a UK-based nonprofit platform that connects businesses with local charities to redistribute surplus physical items.

She co-founded A Good Thing with her husband Richard in 2020, building on earlier experience across both the tech and charity sectors. The idea was sparked by seeing first-hand how simple it could be to match unused business resources with real community needs.

Cathy has long been motivated by reducing waste and making practical change happen, well before sustainability became mainstream. Her work has been recognised through inclusion in the Digital Leaders Net Zero 50 List in both 2024 and 2025, highlighting individuals driving forward practical solutions for a more sustainable future.

Through A Good Thing, Cathy focuses on turning a simple idea into real-world impact, helping organisations reduce waste while supporting the communities around them.

🌍 About HappyPorch

HappyPorch is a purpose-driven software engineering consultancy focused on the circular economy.

Learn more:https://www.happyporch.com

💌 Subscribe to HappyPorch Circular News

HappyPorch Circular News is our monthly newsletter for people working in and around the circular economy and technology.

Subscribe at:

https://www.happyporch.com/newsletter/

▶️ Listen and subscribe

Stream this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Deezer, iHeart, Pocket Casts — or wherever you get your podcasts..

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Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is rapidly expanding into the textile industry, but how will it actually work in practice, and how can brands prepare?

In this episode of HappyPorch Radio, Barry O’Kane speaks with Gerrard Fisher, co-founder of WEFT, a company helping brands understand the circularity of their products and prepare for future EPR systems.

Gerrard explains how eco-modulation could link the design of products directly to the costs of dealing with them at the end of life. By analysing product data, brands can begin to see which materials, designs and product categories are easier to recycle and which could create higher costs in future circular systems.

They also explore the broader opportunity of using this data not just to manage regulation, but to help guide product design, improve recycling infrastructure planning, and give consumers clearer information about sustainability.

✨ In this episode:

Gerrard explains how Extended Producer Responsibility works and why it’s becoming a major issue for textiles
We explore eco-modulation and how it could financially reward products that are easier to recycle or more durable.
Gerrard shares consumer research suggesting shoppers are surprisingly open to small EPR charges on clothing.
We discuss how product data can help brands map the circularity of their portfolios and make better design decisions.
Barry and Gerrard explore how WEFT prototyped its product using AI coding tools before building a more robust system.
We discuss the importance of aligning incentives across policy, business and consumer behaviour to make circular systems work.

👤 About our guest:

Gerrard Fisher is co-founder of WEFT, a company helping businesses explore the circularity of their products and understand how they may be affected by future Extended Producer Responsibility systems.

WEFT works with brands to analyse product data, generate circularity scores, and model how eco-modulated fees could affect product portfolios and business costs. Gerrard has extensive experience in product stewardship and waste policy, focusing on how data can help build more effective circular systems.

📌 Mentioned in this episode:

WEFT - https://www.weft.org.uk/

CalRecycle PRO application - https://calrecycle.ca.gov/epr/textiles/textileproapp/

🌍 About HappyPorch

HappyPorch is a purpose-driven software engineering consultancy focused on the circular economy.

Learn more:https://www.happyporch.com

💌 Subscribe to HappyPorch Circular News

HappyPorch Circular News is our monthly newsletter for people working in and around the circular economy and technology.

Subscribe at:

https://www.happyporch.com/newsletter/

🎙 Explore the Circular Economy Podcasts Guide

We’ve created something new: the Circular Economy Podcasts Guide. After 9 seasons of HappyPorch Radio and years of discovering other brilliant shows on circularity, we realised the podcast space needed a central, searchable place to explore the best voices in circular innovation.

Browse at:

https://circulareconomypodcasts.guide/

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In this episode of HappyPorch Radio, hosts Barry O’Kane and Jo Weston talk with Frans Biegstraaten, co-founder of BIYU, a modular rental, subscription and PAAS platform helping businesses build circular systems that scale.

BIYU started as a consumer rental service in Amsterdam, offering same-day delivery on everything from drills to electric bikes. When the business had to pivot, Frans and his team transformed their operational know-how and internal software into a SaaS product that now supports circular businesses across Europe.

✨ In this episode we learn about:

• The journey from consumer rental startup to multi-tenant SaaS provider

• How BIYU’s tech manages repair, refurbishment, and reverse logistics.

• Why integrating circular systems with existing tech like Shopify and Firmhouse matters.

• The challenges and rewards of building circular tech through experimentation.

• How BIYU enables brands to pilot circular models before full adoption.

📌 Mentioned in this episode:

BIYU – www.biyu.world

Shopify - https://www.shopify.com/

Firmhouse - https://www.firmhouse.com/

👤 About our guest:

Frans Biegstraaten is co-founder of BIYU, a circular technology company based in the Netherlands. BIYU helps rental and Product-as-a-Service companies manage everything from asset tracking to refurbishment using its modular SaaS platform.

Frans Biegstraaten on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/fwbiegstraaten/

🌍 About HappyPorch

HappyPorch is a purpose-driven software engineering consultancy focused on the circular economy.

Learn more: https://www.happyporch.com

💌 Subscribe to HappyPorch Circular News

HappyPorch Circular News is our monthly newsletter for people working in and around the circular economy and technology.

Subscribe at: https://www.happyporch.com/newsletter/

🎙 Explore the Circular Economy Podcasts Guide

Browse at: https://circulareconomypodcasts.guide/

▶️ Listen and subscribe:

Stream this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Deezer, iHeart, Pocket Casts — or wherever you get your podcasts.

Visit https://www.happyporchradio.com to explore more episodes.

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

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What if attending a wedding, gala, or an important event didn’t mean buying something new, but instead allowed you to rent a designer-quality outfit?

In this episode of HappyPorch Radio we are joined by Büsra Zanner, the founder of Wearr. Wearr is a German-based startup reinventing circular fashion rental for special occasions.

Büsra shares how her tech background shaped Wearr’s customer-first approach, from prioritising flawless event delivery to building a data-driven platform that keeps garments in circulation longer.

With a focus on convenience, automation, and strong partnerships, Wearr is proving how circular models can delight customers, extend product lifecycles, and shift mindsets away from ownership toward access.

✨ In this episode:

Büsra explains why customer experience must come first in rental - even before sustainability.
We learn about the emotional side of circular fashion: garments creating new stories through multiple lives.
Büsra talks about building a tech stack for rental that uses data to optimise sourcing, curation, and customer experience.
We touch on the challenges and opportunities of sourcing: buying retail, partnering with private lenders and working with designers and retailers.
We learn why focus and clarity matter for early-stage circular startups.
Büsra highlights the importance of picking the right partnerships - and knowing when to say no.
We find out how Wearr achieves a 100 NPS by prioritising reliability and delight.

📌 Mentioned in this episode:

Wearr - https://www.wearr.com/

👤 About our guest:

Büsra Zanner is the Founder & CEO of Wearr, a fashion tech startup out of Munich making wardrobe sharing effortless and premium. After 5+ years in B2B SaaS at Celonis, leading global solution engineering teams, she made the shift into fashion to build a more circular future. Learn more at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/busrazanner?originalSubdomain=de

🌍 About HappyPorch

HappyPorch is a purpose-driven software engineering consultancy focused on the circular economy. Learn more: https://www.happyporch.com

💌 Subscribe to HappyPorch Circular News

HappyPorch Circular News is our monthly newsletter for people working in and around the circular economy and technology. Subscribe at: https://www.happyporch.com/newsletter

🎙 Explore the Circular Economy Podcasts Guide

Discover the best voices in circular innovation: https://circulareconomypodcasts.guide

▶️ Listen and subscribe:

Stream this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Deezer, iHeart, Pocket Casts — or wherever you get your podcasts.

Explore more at https://www.happyporchradio.com

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

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What if you could arrive at your ski chalet and find premium ski wear waiting for you, no suitcase, no hassle, and a lot less waste?

In this episode of HappyPorch Radio, hosts Barry O’Kane and Tandi Tuakli talk with Anna Smoothy and Anders Bergenstrand, co-founders of Cirkel Supply, a Swiss startup rethinking ski holidays with circular rental.

Cirkel combines technology and circular design to make ski wear rental simple and sustainable. Using platforms like Shopify and Supercycle, they deliver high-quality ski outfits directly to accommodation, proving how smart tech choices can support convenience, reduce waste, and keep products in circulation.

✨ In this episode:

Why ski wear is a perfect case for access over ownership
How off-the-shelf tech platforms help startups scale efficiently
The role of lifecycle assessments in measuring circular impact
What seasonality teaches about building resilient circular systems
Cirkel’s vision for expanding beyond Switzerland to serve global ski tourism

📌 Mentioned in this episode:

Cirkel Supply – https://cirkelsupply.com

👤 About our guests:

Anna Smoothy and Anders Bergenstrand are co-founders of Cirkel Supply, a Swiss-based startup making circular ski wear rental convenient, premium, and sustainable. With backgrounds in skiing, fashion, and sustainability, they combine a love of the outdoors with a mission to change consumer habits and reduce waste in the industry.

Anna Smoothy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-smoothy/

Anders Bergenstrand on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anders-bergenstrand/

🌍 About HappyPorch

HappyPorch is a purpose-driven software engineering consultancy focused on the circular economy.

Learn more: https://www.happyporch.com

💌 Subscribe to HappyPorch Circular News

HappyPorch Circular News is our monthly newsletter for people working in and around the circular economy and technology.

Subscribe at: https://www.happyporch.com/newsletter/

🎙 Explore the Circular Economy Podcasts Guide

Browse at: https://circulareconomypodcasts.guide/

▶️ Listen and subscribe:

Stream this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Deezer, iHeart, Pocket Casts — or wherever you get your podcasts.

Visit https://www.happyporchradio.com to explore more episodes.

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

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What does it take to run a business that keeps millions of garments in circulation every year? And why should rental, resale, and repair be part of every fashion brand’s strategy?

In this episode of HappyPorch Radio, we’re joined by Andrew Rough, CEO of Advanced Clothing Solutions (ACS), Europe’s largest provider of circular fashion fulfillment. From RFID technology to ozone cleaning, ACS combines logistics, technology, and sustainability to help brands extend product lifetimes and build new revenue streams.

✨ In this episode:

Andrew explains how ACS supports brands with rental, resale, and repair programs.
We discuss why circular fashion makes business sense, not just environmental sense.
How resale can attract new customers and strengthen brand loyalty.
The role of data feedback loops in improving design and durability.
Why ACS chose a technology-agnostic approach to integrate with partners.
Andrew shares his vision for expanding circular solutions across Europe.

📌 Mentioned in this episode:

ACS Clothing – https://acsclothing.co.uk

👤 About our guest:

Andrew Rough is CEO of Advanced Clothing Solutions (ACS), a pioneer in circular fashion logistics. Under his leadership, ACS has grown into a global partner for fashion brands, enabling rental, resale, repair, and more — all while earning recognition as one of the UK’s top 10 B Corps. Learn more at https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-rough-493a4b14

🌍 About HappyPorch

HappyPorch is a purpose-driven software engineering consultancy focused on the circular economy.

Learn more: https://www.happyporch.com

💌 Subscribe to HappyPorch Circular News

HappyPorch Circular News is our monthly newsletter for people working in and around the circular economy and technology.

Subscribe at: https://www.happyporch.com/newsletter/

🎙 Explore the Circular Economy Podcasts Guide

Browse at: https://circulareconomypodcasts.guide/

▶️ Listen and subscribe:

Stream this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Deezer, iHeart, Pocket Casts — or wherever you get your podcasts.

Visit https://www.happyporchradio.com to explore more episodes.

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

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What does it take to bring rental models into the world of large household appliances (white goods) and why might this be a key step in scaling the circular economy?

In this episode of HappyPorch Radio, we’re joined by Valentin Lheureux, COO of HomeCycle, a French startup pioneering rental for washing machines, dryers, fridges, and other essential “white goods.”

Valentin shares his journey from working in retail to founding HomeCycle, motivated by the unsustainable pressures he saw in the linear economy. He explains why tackling rental for large appliances is so challenging, what customers really want, and how partnerships with manufacturers could change the industry for good.

✨ In this episode:

Valentin explains how customer demand is shifting, with convenience, repair, and simplicity driving adoption of appliance rental.
We discuss the unique financing challenges of white goods rental and why partnering directly with manufacturers is the “royal way” forward.
Valentin shares how HomeCycle approaches repair and refurbishment to extend product lifetimes and make rental a compelling alternative to ownership.
We explore the difference between B2C and B2B customers, from families to co-living spaces and student accommodation.
Valentin reflects on why HomeCycle chose the “hard path” of big appliances and their ambition to become France’s leading rental specialist.
We consider the tech gap and why existing rental software doesn’t yet fully support circular models.

📌 Mentioned in this episode:

HomeCycle – https://homecycle.fr

Boulanger - https://www.boulanger.com/

Jumanji 2030 - https://www.jumanji.studio/

Coolblue - https://www.coolblue.nl/en/subscriptions

👤 About our guest:

Valentin Lheureux is COO and co-founder of HomeCycle, a French startup pioneering rental models for household appliances. With a background in engineering and retail, Valentin combines deep industry experience with a passion for circular economy innovation. He and his team are working to make appliance rental a mainstream option in France — and a more sustainable alternative to ownership.

Connect with Valentin on LinkedIn:https://fr.linkedin.com/in/valentin-lheureux-b28936b5

🌍 About HappyPorch

HappyPorch is a purpose-driven software engineering consultancy focused on the circular economy.

Learn more: https://www.happyporch.com

💌 Subscribe to HappyPorch Circular News

HappyPorch Circular News is our monthly newsletter for people working in and around the circular economy and technology.

Subscribe at: https://www.happyporch.com/newsletter/

🎙 Explore the Circular Economy Podcasts Guide

Browse at: https://circulareconomypodcasts.guide/

▶️ Listen and subscribe:

Stream this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Deezer, iHeart, Pocket Casts — or wherever you get your podcasts.

Visit https://www.happyporchradio.com to explore more episodes.

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

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What have we learned so far this season about the realities of rental and product-as-a-service models, and where does technology really make the difference?

In this special mid-season reflection of HappyPorch Radio, hosts Barry O’Kane, Jo Weston and Tandi Tuakli look back at the conversations so far, drawing out the common themes, challenges and opportunities from entrepreneurs, academics and technology providers working at the forefront of circularity.

We revisit highlights from:

Refulfil – Danai Osmond explained how smart reverse logistics and return flows can unlock circular commerce, reduce waste, and make reuse systems viable at scale
Baboodle – Katie Hanton-Parr explored rental models for children’s products and family life, showing how convenience and flexibility can drive adoption alongside sustainability goals
Black Winch – Yann Toutant brought insights from circular business strategy and advisory work, highlighting the organisational and financial challenges of scaling circular models
Supercycle – Ryan Atkins discussed tackling e-bike refurbishment and how service-based models can support both sustainable transport and profitable growth
Circularity.fm – Patrick Hypscher highlighted product-as-a-service models and the importance of building flexible, modular tech stacks that enable iteration and long-term resilience
Leah Pollen – emphasised that circularity alone doesn’t automatically solve issues like waste or planned obsolescence, but that models such as device leasing can align incentives and create meaningful opportunities for reuse and longer product life
Lucy Wishart – explored how reducing “consumer work” through seamless services like delivery, setup, and return can make rental experiences more attractive, and how community engagement can amplify the reach and impact of circular models

✨ In this episode:

We reflect on the wider context, including why global circularity has fallen to just 6.9%
We explore insights from guests tackling logistics, finance, customer experience and design for durability
We hear how service excellence and reducing “consumer work” are proving key to rental adoption
We discuss the role of technology, from scrappy spreadsheets to IoT and APIs, and why flexibility matters
We highlight the importance of ecosystems, partnerships and mindset shifts inside organisations
We share our takeaways so far, and what we’re excited to explore in the rest of the season

📌 Mentioned in this episode:

Refulfil: https://refulfil.com | Danai Osmond on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danaiosmond/

Baboodle: https://www.baboodle.co.uk | Katie Hanton-Parr on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/katiehanton/

Black Winch: https://www.blackwinch.com | Yann Toutant on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/asaservicebyyanntoutant/

Supercycle: https://www.supercycle.shop | Ryan Atkins on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-atkins/

Circularity.fm: https://www.circularity.fm | Patrick Hypscher on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-hypscher/

University of Edinburgh (circular economy lecturer)| Lucy Wishart on LInkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andersonlucyj/

Retech Roundtable Podcast: https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/leah-pollen/Leah Pollen on LInkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danaiosmond/?originalSubdomain=uk

🎙️ About the hosts:

Barry O’Kane on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barryokane/

Jo Weston on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jo-weston-5b04322/

Tandi Tuakli on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tandituakli/

🌍 About HappyPorch:

HappyPorch is a purpose-driven software engineering consultancy focused on the circular economy. We believe technology plays a vital role in addressing the world’s most pressing challenges, from climate change to biodiversity loss.

If you're working on circular economy solutions, we’d love to support your journey, whether through fractional CTO services, full product teams or practical guidance.

Learn more at https://www.happyporch.com

💌 Subscribe to HappyPorch Circular News

Our monthly newsletter explores the intersection of circularity and digital tools.

Discover inspiring people and ideas

Be first to hear about new podcast episodes

Explore tools, articles and trends shaping circular tech

Subscribe at https://www.happyporch.com/newsletter/

🎙️ Explore the Circular Economy Podcasts Guide

We’ve curated a growing list of the best podcasts exploring the circular economy, searchable by theme, region or topic.

Browse the guide at https://circulareconomypodcasts.guide/

🎧 Listen and subscribe:

Stream this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Pocket Casts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Visit https://www.happyporchradio.com to explore more episodes.

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

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How to Build Circular Commerce Infrastructure with Bob Jansen

What makes a rental or product-as-a-service (PaaS) business model work, and what role does technology really play in making that happen?

In this episode of HappyPorch Radio, we’re joined by Bob Jansen, founder of Firmhouse, a recurring commerce platform enabling subscription, rental and PaaS business models. Bob shares lessons from his journey, from building MVPs as an agency to helping major brands like Philips pilot rental models and now supporting a wide range of circular and subscription businesses across Europe.

We explore the operational complexity of rental and PaaS businesses, the ongoing challenge of accessing capital, and why convenience and service are often bigger customer drivers than sustainability alone.

✨ In this episode:

Bob reflects on the financing challenges that continue to block scale for circular rental models
We hear examples of real-world companies using Firmhouse, from kids’ bike subscriptions to coffee and consumables
Bob explains how hybrid models like revenue sharing are emerging to address financial barriers
We discuss how Firmhouse is using AI to both speed up internal development and enable smarter, simpler features for users
Bob shares how the team is building “digital teammates” that help customers operate more efficiently and with fewer resources
We explore the nuts and bolts of the Firmhouse platform, from logistics and localisation to return management and ID checks
Bob talks about building toward “planet positive” business infrastructure and what progress, not perfection, looks like in circularity

📌 Mentioned in this episode:

Firmhouse: https://firmhouse.com

Bikeflip: https://bikeflip.com/

Tiny Library: https://tinylibrary.nl/en

Baboodle: https://www.baboodle.co.uk

The Good Roll: https://thegoodroll.nl/

Boldking: https://www.boldking.com/en

Coolblue (NL): https://www.coolblue.nl/en

Ayden: https://www.adyen.com/

Swapfiets: https://swapfiets.com/

Mollie:https://www.mollie.com/gb/

👤 About our guest:

Bob Jansen is the founder of Firmhouse, a recurring commerce platform supporting circular and subscription models across Europe. He brings a decade of experience building digital products and enabling sustainable business models. Firmhouse powers rental and subscription businesses in durable and consumable categories, offering tools for checkouts, logistics, ID verification and more.

Connect with Bob on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobjansen

Learn more about Firmhouse: https://firmhouse.com

🌍 About HappyPorch:

If you're working on circular economy solutions, we’d love to support your journey, whether through fractional CTO services, full product teams or practical guidance.

Learn more at https://www.happyporch.com

💌 Subscribe to HappyPorch Circular News:

Our monthly newsletter explores the intersection of circularity and digital tools

Discover inspiring people and ideas
Be the first to hear about new podcast episodes
Explore tools, articles and trends shaping circular tech

Subscribe at https://www.happyporch.com/newsletter/

🎙️ Explore the Circular Economy Podcasts Guide

We’ve curated a growing list of the best podcasts exploring the circular economy, searchable by theme, region or topic.

Browse the guide at https://circulareconomypodcasts.guide/

🎧 Listen and subscribe:

Stream this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Deezer, iHeart, Pocket Casts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Visit https://www.happyporchradio.com to explore more episodes.

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

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How Tech Enables Circular Innovation – with Patrick Hypscher

What does it really take to build circular business models — and how can technology accelerate that transformation?

In this episode of HappyPorch Radio, we’re joined by Patrick Hypscher, a circular business strategist, advisor, and the voice behind Circularity.fm. Patrick brings unique insights from working at the intersection of digital innovation and the circular economy — from launching a software startup to building BlueMovement, a home appliance subscription service inside Bosch Siemens Home Appliances (BSH).

We explore the vital role of technology in enabling, scaling, and adapting circular models, particularly product-as-a-service (PaaS). Patrick shares honest reflections on what worked, what didn’t, and how thoughtful use of digital tools can remove friction, support iteration, and accelerate progress.

In this episode:

Patrick explains why building in-house tech is often unnecessary — and even risky — for early-stage PaaS ventures.

We discuss how SaaS tools, APIs, and no-code platforms offer the flexibility needed to support fast iteration and growth.

Patrick explores the enabling role of IoT and remote condition monitoring in rental and performance-based models.

He shares real-world examples, including cooling-as-a-service from Kaer, pay-per-part manufacturing at Trumpf, HP Instant Ink, and Hilti subscriptions.

We reflect on organisational culture, channel conflict, and internal buy-in — and how to navigate these in large businesses.

Finally, we explore the importance of iteration, adaptability, and learning cycles when piloting circular models.

This episode offers practical insights for anyone working at the intersection of digital systems and circular design.

Mentioned in this episode:

BlueMovement (BSH): https://www.bluemovement.com/nl-en

Kaer – Cooling-as-a-Service: https://www.kaer.com/

Trumpf – Pay-per-Part Manufacturing: https://www.trumpf.com/en_INT/

HP Instant Ink: https://instantink.hpconnected.com/uk/en/l/v2

Hilti Tool Subscriptions: https://www.hilti.co.uk/content/hilti/E1/GB/en/support/support/faqs/subscription-portal/general-subscription-portal.html

About our guest:

Patrick Hypscher is a circular strategist and the host of Circularity.fm, where he interviews founders and practitioners building real-world circular business models. With a background in economics, philosophy, and entrepreneurship, Patrick brings a systems-thinking lens to his work.

He previously led the BlueMovement initiative at BSH, where he helped implement and grow a rental model for household appliances — a pioneering example of product-as-a-service at corporate scale.

Patrick also runs an invite-only Product-as-a-Service Roundtable, connecting practitioners working on circular transitions inside organisations.

Connect with Patrick on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-hypscher/

Listen to Circularity.fm: https://www.circularity.fm

About HappyPorch 🌍:

HappyPorch is a purpose-driven software engineering consultancy focused on the circular economy.

We believe technology plays a vital role in addressing the world’s most pressing challenges — from climate change to biodiversity loss. If you're working on circular economy solutions, we’d love to help make your journey smoother and more successful.

Whether you need a dedicated product development team, access to skilled, values-aligned software engineers, or just practical guidance and insight — we’re here to support mission-led teams working toward a regenerative future.

Learn more at https://www.happyporch.com

Subscribe to HappyPorch Circular News 💌 :

HappyPorch Circular News is our monthly newsletter for people working in and around the circular economy and technology.

In the newsletter, you can:

Explore the intersection of circularity and digital tools

Discover innovative companies and inspiring individuals

Be first to hear about new podcast episodes, events, and ideas

Enjoy curated articles, tools, and insights — handpicked by our team

Subscribe at https://www.happyporch.com/newsletter/

Explore the Circular Economy Podcasts Guide:

We’ve created something new: The Circular Economy Podcasts Guide. After 9 seasons of HappyPorch Radio and years of discovering other brilliant shows on circularity, we realised the podcast space needed a central, searchable place to explore the best voices in circular innovation.

The guide is curated and growing, searchable by theme, region, or keyword, and open for submissions — anyone can suggest shows or episodes to be added.

Browse the guide at https://circulareconomypodcasts.guide/

Listen and subscribe:

Stream this episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Deezer, iHeart, Pocket Casts — or wherever you get your podcasts.

Visit https://www.happyporchradio.com to explore more episodes.

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

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Welcome back to HappyPorch Radio: the circular economy technology podcast!

In this episode our hosts Barry O’Kane and Tandi Tuakli are joined by Katie Hanton-Parr, the visionary founder of Baboodle - a circular rental platform specifically designed for baby equipment.

Katie’s story is one of passion, perseverance, and innovation—born out of her own experience as a parent grappling with the challenges of accessing safe, high-quality baby gear without the waste and cost of traditional ownership.

Throughout the episode Katie talks about the many layers involved in running a circular rental business in such a sensitive and highly regulated space.

From managing rigorous safety and hygiene standards to the complexities of reverse logistics, Katie explains what it takes to keep every item in Baboodle’s inventory reliable and ready for the next family. One of the key themes is repairability: ensuring products can be fixed and maintained rather than discarded, which is vital to the sustainability mission but often tricky in practice.

We also delve into the technology that underpins Baboodle’s operations. Katie shares how the team integrates specialised circular economy software for handling rental logistics, inventory management, and refurbishment workflows. She gives examples of crucial tools for digital subscriptions and recurring billing, combined with seamless warehouse and fulfillment operations.

This tech stack allows Baboodle to handle complex customer journeys, whether it’s a simple rental, a rent-to-own arrangement, or a resale option, all while maintaining transparency and control over each product’s lifecycle. Katie emphasizes how crucial it is to have a system built specifically for circularity—not just repurposed e-commerce tech—so that the platform can scale and adapt.

Tune in to hear more about Katie’s blend of practical wisdom, innovative use of technology, and genuine care for families and the environment that makes this episode truly inspiring!

This podcast is brought to you by HappyPorch. We specialise in technology and software development for Circular Economy minded purpose-driven businesses.

Our podcast focuses mostly on: Circular Economy, Digital Enablers, Technology, Software, Circular Solutions, Fashion & Textiles, Circular Strategies, Digital, Reuse, Circular Design, Circularity, Systems Thinking, Economics, Data, Platforms, Degrowth, Policy & Regulation, Collaboration, Materials, Supply Chain, Biological Cycles, Materials, Food Waste, Biomimicry, Construction, Modular Design, Culture & Language, Zero Waste, Digital Passports, Life Cycle Assessment, Recycling, Reverse Logistics, Materials, Sharing Economy, Manufacturing, Efficiency, Environmental Impact and much more!

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

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Welcome back to HappyPorch Radio: the circular economy technology podcast!

In this episode our hosts Barry O’Kane and Jo Weston are joined by Yann Toutant, CEO and Co-founder of Black Winch who are the world's exclusive authority in Product-As-A-Service (PaaS) solutions.

At the beginning of the conversation Yann explains Black Winch’s work and how they engage, inspire and empower intrapreneurs to achieve their PaaS ambitions by building and scaling their in-house recurring revenue models.

Drawing on his experience guiding manufacturers through the transition to outcome-based services, Yann offers a deep dive into both the opportunities and the operational realities of implementing PaaS and discusses the importance of a long-term thinking strategy to make PaaS successful in any business.

Yann also highlights key differences between B2B and B2C adoption of as-a-service models and talks about how technology plays a critical role in enabling these models. He outlines the importance of asset tracking, consumption data, billing complexity management, and reverse logistics—all underpinned by flexible tech stacks that evolve as the business scales.

Looking ahead, Yann envisions that manufacturers will want to retain ownership of raw materials and explains how urban mining and material recovery will become strategic advantages.

Tune in to learn about how new generations of data-driven leaders will continue to accelerate the shift towards PaaS and much more!

This podcast is brought to you by HappyPorch. We specialise in technology and software development for Circular Economy minded purpose-driven businesses.

This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

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Welcome back to HappyPorch Radio: the circular economy technology podcast!

In this episode our hosts Barry O’Kane and Tandi Tuakli are joined by Ryan Atkins, the co-founder and CEO of Supercycle - a circular commerce platform that enables rental and resale natively in Shopify.

Ryan explains that scaling circular business models depends on overcoming integration challenges between physical product flows (repair, refurbishment, cleaning) and digital commerce (Shopify, customer experience).

In this conversation we learn that while platforms like Supercycle can provide the core technology and integration "pipes," each brand has unique requirements in logistics, customer experience, product flows, and back office systems.

Ryan also discusses collaborations with specialist partners, from 3PLs that can handle circular operations to integration and professional services partners that allow brands to tailor and scale their circular offerings. Without this ecosystem of enablers, it would be impossible to support the variety of customer journeys that circular models demand.

Tune in to learn more about how circularity is reshaping e-commerce, the technology driving it, and why strong partnerships are the foundation of successful circular systems!

This podcast is brought to you by HappyPorch. We specialise in technology and software development for Circular Economy minded purpose-driven businesses.

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Welcome back to HappyPorch Radio: the circular economy technology podcast!

Our hosts are joined by Lucy Wishart, lecturer in Circular Economy and Sustainable Transformations at the University of Edinburgh. In this episode they explore how rental models fit into academic, practical, and social aspects of circularity.

From the idea of “consumption work” (and how rental reduces it) to what makes circular systems messy by nature, this conversation is packed with insight.

Lucy explains how rental plays a key role in circular economy frameworks like the Nine R’s and Product-Service Systems, offering an alternative to ownership-based consumption.

The discussion explores both the potential and pitfalls of rental - from shifting consumption habits to labor and logistical challenges.

"There’s a distinction between circularity and the circular economy. Circularity can be quite small scale and local… but the circular economy requires more than one product, more than one organisation — it’s collective. It requires us to work together."

This podcast is brought to you by HappyPorch. We specialise in technology and software development for Circular Economy minded purpose-driven businesses.

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Welcome back to HappyPorch Radio: the circular economy technology podcast!

In this episode, our hosts Tandi Tuakli and Barry O’Kane had a fascinating conversation with Leah Pollen, a specialist in profitability and circular strategies within the used electronics market, particularly mobile devices.

Leah shares deep insights into how the mobile phone industry's leasing and trade-in programs—especially driven by OEMs like Apple and Samsung—created what she calls “accidental circularity.”

Leah also explains the business case for phone rental models, including calculations around device depreciation, residual value, repair logistics, and customer return behaviors.

One of the biggest barriers Leah identifies is mindset. Many organisations are still entrenched in linear thinking—focusing on sales volume, product obsolescence, and short-term wins. She stresses the importance of redefining what product success looks like in a circular model.

Our hosts and Leah draw parallels between mobile phones and other sectors like fashion, luxury goods, and homeware—discussing where circular lessons could be applied and where challenges persist due to differing value chains and consumer behaviors.

This podcast is brought to you by HappyPorch. We specialise in technology and software development for Circular Economy minded purpose-driven businesses.

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Welcome back to HappyPorch Radio: the circular economy technology podcast!

In this special episode our host Barry O’Kane is joined by Charlotte Morley, CEO of thelittleloop, and Ryan Atkins, CEO of Supercycle, to discuss the ripple effects of - ongoing and very fluid - changes to US tariffs and De Minimis import rules on the circular economy in the UK, EU, and US.

The conversation, which originated from a passionate exchange on LinkedIn, explores both the opportunities and challenges these potential policy changes present for circularity-focused businesses. The discussion ranges widely from there, covering everything from policy to the importance of smaller, ethical brands to circularity.

We discussed how reduced ease of importing low-cost new goods could boost demand for resale and second-hand markets, potentially benefiting the circular economy. While acknowledging the long-term benefits, our guests explained that many small ethical and sustainable brands are already overwhelmed by rising costs, market saturation from fast-fashion giants like Shein and Temu, and how, potentially, additional pressure from tariffs could undermine the "feedstock" of quality products essential for a thriving circular economy.

Both guests stress the importance of empathy and support for brands navigating these tough times. They discuss how circularity enablers like their own companies must make circular business models (like takeback and resale programs) as frictionless and financially viable as possible. They also touch on the slow progress of legislation and the need for government mandates and funding to truly shift the industry toward reuse, not just recycling.

The conversation concludes with a call to action for both policy involvement and practical support to ensure circularity is not just a long-term goal, but a near-term strategic advantage for businesses.

Tune in to learn about how there is, despite current difficulties, a sense of cautious optimism: more brands are beginning to prioritise circularity, although slowly.

This podcast is brought to you by HappyPorch. We specialise in technology and software development for Circular Economy minded purpose-driven businesses.

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Welcome back to HappyPorch Radio: the circular economy technology podcast!

In our first episode of the new season, we sit down with Danai Osmond, founder of Refulfil, a rental commerce and operations consultancy. Danai shares his unique journey—from serving as an army officer to working as a data analyst at Bloomberg, and then joining the net-zero laundry startup Oxwash, where he tackled the challenges of scaling a 24/7 operation.

Danai also discusses his transition into his current work exploring different rental business models, including event-based rentals, subscription models, and membership-based systems. Along the way, he shares lessons about operational efficiency, profitability, and maximising inventory utility while keeping customer trust and convenience at the core.

This conversation weaves together personal reflection, hard-earned operational insights, and broader thinking about systems change, emotional courage, and the real-world application of circular principles.

This podcast is brought to you by HappyPorch. We specialise in technology and software development for Circular Economy minded purpose-driven businesses.

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Welcome back to HappyPorch Radio: the circular economy technology podcast!

We are back with a very exciting new season where our host Barry O’Kane will be joined by two new co-hosts, each bringing unique perspectives and expertise. Jo Weston is a brand builder helping sustainable and circular businesses. Tandi Tuakli is working in fashion and technology and also helping brands create circular business models.

This season the focus is on Rental business models & Rental as an approach to circularity. A major theme will be the role of enablers — from tech platforms to logistics providers — that make rental systems viable. We will be talking to various guests and experts on the following topics:

Defining Rental, leasing, and subscription-based business models in the circular economy.
How Rental can range from short-term rentals to long-term product servitisation.
Where are we seeing rental success? (product types, geographies, established products/sectors vs newer approaches, B2C vs B2B)
Exploring tech and logistical infrastructure necessary for scaling rental businesses.
What are the challenges?
What are the future opportunities?
And much more!

Stay tuned, the first episode is coming out soon!

This podcast is brought to you by HappyPorch. We specialise in technology and software development for Circular Economy minded purpose-driven businesses.

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Welcome back to HappyPorch Radio!

We are delighted to share our special episode which is part of Podcasthon - the world’s largest podcast charity initiative that brings together podcasters in over 45 countries and over 1650 podcasts to raise awareness globally for charitable causes. Each participating podcast is dedicating an episode to a cause that truly matters to them, and for us, the choice was clear—the vital role that charities and social enterprises play in the circular economy.

In this episode, we had the pleasure of speaking with Michael Cook, CEO of Circular Communities Scotland, an organisation that represents a dynamic network of more than 260 charities and social enterprises dedicated to advancing the circular economy across Scotland.

Michael shared invaluable insights into how Circular Communities Scotland supports third-sector organisations in achieving their circularity goals, from facilitating collaboration to advocating for policies that enable sustainable change. He also talked about some of the member organisations, their fascinating projects and initiatives that range from reuse and repair programs to innovative ways of reducing waste and extending the life of products and materials. Michael highlighted the strong connection between environmental and social benefits in the circular economy, explaining how it creates jobs, supports marginalised groups, and helps break down employment barriers.

Tune in to learn more about the challenges and opportunities of embedding circular practices into communities across Scotland and how community-led initiatives are creating a more resilient and environmentally responsible society!

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Welcome to the highly anticipated finale of our mini-series on Happy Porch Radio - "Exploring Circular Tech: Re-commerce in Fashion." In this compelling Episode 3, your hosts Barry O'Kane and Emily Swaddle, alongside a stellar line-up of guests, continue their exploration into the dynamic world of fashion re-commerce. Get ready to dive deep into the transformative impact of technology on the second-hand market, pushing boundaries and fostering a new era of digital thrift.

Join us as we traverse the landscape of re-commerce, shedding light on the myriad opportunities it holds while addressing the inevitable challenges that crop up along the way. We’ll talk pricing and quality control, delve into shopping experiences for consumers and sellers alike, and reveal how innovations are shaping a new future for the industry. This episode isn't just about insights - it's an invitation to think differently about fashion, sustainability, and the circular economy.

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Welcome to the second episode of our intriguing mini-series on HappyPorch Radio-"Exploring Circular Tech: Re-commerce in Fashion". Your hosts, Barry O'Kane and Emily Swaddle, navigate the fascinating realms of re-commerce in the fashion industry alongside esteemed guests Joe Metcalfe from Thrift+, Jessica Potter from Used and Loved, and Wilson Griffin from Recurate.

In this compelling episode, dive into the exploration of different marketplace models, from managed marketplaces like Thrift+ to peer-to-peer platforms like Vinted and eBay. Our hosts and guests untangle the complexities of pricing, underline the critical need for quality control, and shed light on optimising the shopping experience for both buyers and sellers in the re-commerce context.

Our guests share their valuable experiences and insights on how technology bolsters re-commerce. Discover the transformative power of software solutions that assist brands in managing resale and creating distinctive listings. Let's also venture into the future landscape of AI, image recognition, and predictive intelligence in the re-commerce sphere.

However, our mini-series isn't just about us revealing insights—we want you to shape the final chapter of this narrative with your unique experiences and perspectives on re-commerce.

Connect with us at hosts@happyporchradio.com. Your thoughts, questions, and feedback are invaluable, and we aim to include them in the final, third episode, airing this May. We don't want you just to listen; we want you to partake in and influence the unfolding story of re-commerce in the fashion industry.

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Behind the Threads: The Interplay of Tech and Circularity in Fashion Re-commerce

Welcome to the first episode of a brand-new mini-series on HappyPorch Radio-"Exploring Circular Tech: Re-commerce in Fashion". We delve deep into the transformative effect of re-commerce within the fashion industry, focusing on the role of software and technology, the digital enablers for circularity, in this sustainable solution. Join hosts Emily Swaddle and Barry O'Kane as they probe into the potential of re-commerce in the circular economy. From reducing waste and promoting sustainable consumption to its impact on the excesses of the fashion industry.

The episode features insights from industry experts: Cynthia Power, founder of Molte Volte; Andy Ruben, founder of Trove; Gerrard Fisher and Kristina Bull from QSA Partners; and J.R Siegel of Worldly. Together, we discuss and debate the sustainability of re-commerce and its impact on reducing waste.

We don't just want you just to listen; we want you to be part of the story. Your thoughts and experiences are crucial to this narrative. Reach out with your perspectives, questions, or feedback (hosts@happyporchradio.com), and we will include them in the final 3rd episode (in May).

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We are back with a special season of HappyPorch Radio!

Our hosts Barry O’Kane and Emily Swaddle are back and excited to take a deep dive into the role of technology in the dynamic realm of fashion re-commerce.

What can you expect from this upcoming 3 episodes special?

The role of technology in shaping the second-hand marketplace
Unique challenges and innovative solutions within re-commerce
Diverse perspectives on e-commerce's current and potential impact on consumers, brands, and the planet
And much more

Stay tuned, the first episode is coming out in early April.

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Welcome to our final, Wrap-Up episode of Season 7!

In this episode, we reflect on all the fascinating conversations we’ve had in season 7. We have spoken to a range of consultants, experts, trainers and advisors who help others transition to circular economy practices. We express our gratitude for the diverse and inspiring guests who have shared their insights and experiences in this field, and pull out our favourite themes from the whole season.

One central theme that emerged throughout the season is the idea that circularity cannot exist in isolation and requires systemic change. We discuss the complexity of circularity, it can be both transformational and prone to misdirection. Embracing complexity and understanding context within the system is crucial.

Another prominent theme is the evolution of the circular economy over the past few decades. Guests on the show have witnessed changes in how people engage with and access circular economy concepts. This shift is a turning point in history, with various aspects of life and systems undergoing transformation, offering both challenges and opportunities for those leading the change!

Tune in to hear more about our Season 7 “Pioneering Sustainable Solutions for a Circular Future” impressions!

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Welcome to episode 16 of HappyPorch Radio!

In this, final episode of Season 7 we have a fascinating conversation with Dr.Lynn Wilson, an expert in circular fashion and sustainable design and CEO at Circular Design Synergy (Circular DS).

Dr. Lynn talks about the importance of shifting from linear models to circular ones, emphasising that true sustainability lies not just in materials but also in the entire lifecycle of products. She also explains the role of policy advocacy in promoting circular supply chains and the importance of evidence-based approaches in driving policy change, staggering environmental impact of textile waste and the need for policy measures that incentivize sustainable practices. She shares her thoughts about how important it is to approach policy with the mindset that it is with people and not being done to people..

Further in the conversation we discuss the significance of cross-party collaboration, engaging civil society, NGOs, and government to create a critical mass for change by understanding consumer behaviours and household dynamics.

Tune in to hear how important incentives are in circular transitions and how businesses can find practical solutions that benefit their operations while aligning with circular principles!

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Welcome back to HappyPorch radio and our newest episode!

In episode 15 we engage in a captivating discussion with Nellie Cohen, the Director of Circular Business Models at Anthesis Group, a leading global sustainability advisory firm and certified B Corp.

Nellie talks about the shift in circularity over the past decade, from merely suggesting the idea to now acknowledging that circular models are happening and businesses need to decide how to engage with them. She also explains the evolutionary moment of synergy between operational providers and technology providers within the Circular Economy.

Our conversation describes the shifts from simply recycling to prioritising products with smaller footprints and creating circular systems to maximise product lifespans. We also explore the importance of brands taking an active role in the secondary market experience of their customers and how by ensuring quality and reliability in used products, companies can retain customer loyalty and foster a more sustainable circular ecosystem.

Tune on to hear more about valuable insights into circular economy practices, their relevance across industries, and the challenges and opportunities in embracing circular business models!

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Welcome to another episode of HappyPorch Radio!

In episode 14 our hosts engage in a very insightful conversation with Cécile van Oppen, who is the Co-Founder of Copper8, a consultancy that helps build the circular economy.

The conversation explores the shift from circularity as a niche topic to a mainstream strategic focus, as well as the emergence of post-growth strategies and the questioning of traditional growth models.

Cécile talks about Copper8's unique business model emphasising their intentional focus on selected projects aligned with their vision and their investment in research for societal transition. She also explains how their Clients explore post-growth strategies and consider the risks and impacts of continued growth and seek stable-state economic well-being while incorporating environmental and social considerations.

Tune in to hear more about the importance of the need to balance technical expertise with the social and human aspects of circularity, embracing the complexity of sustainability challenges!

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Welcome back to a new episode of Season 7!

In this episode we interview incredible guests Christian van Maaren, founder and CEO of the Excess Materials Exchange and Anne Rademaker, an independent adviser and consultant in the Circular Economy space.

We continue the theme of zooming out to gain a higher perspective on the transition to a Circular Economy. Christian and Anne discuss the passion and personal motivation driving individuals in this field, emphasising the importance of collaboration and collective action. The conversation delves into the work of the Excess Materials Exchange, which uses machine learning to connect buyers and sellers of secondary materials.

The guests express their dedication to the Circular Economy and the challenges they face in making the transition happen. They draw inspiration from the tenacity of visionaries in history and the opportunity to shape the future.

Tune in to hear about the passion, challenges, and collaborative efforts involved in transitioning to a Circular Economy and the importance of persistence and tangible actions in making this transformation a reality!

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Welcome back to our new episode of Season 7!

In episode 12 we interview Iain McKechnie, the Director of Strategic Partnerships at the Advanced Services Group within Aston Business School. The discussion centres around the concepts of Servitization and Advanced Services and their connection to the Circular Economy.

Iain describes servitization as a transformation process where businesses move away from solely selling products to offering products and services that involve leveraging the knowledge and value within a business to help customers achieve success. He also explains that Advanced Services, on the other hand, focus on outcome-based activities and provide offerings that assist customers in attaining specific outcomes rather than simply selling products.

We also talked about the potential of these concepts and discussed how the shift from ownership to usership aligns with Circular Economy principles, leading to benefits such as reduced waste and environmental impact. Iain also highlights the importance of making this knowledge accessible to businesses of all sizes.

Tune into this episode to hear more about net-zero goals and alliances aimed at generating knowledge and creating positive impact!

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Welcome back to a new episode of HappyPorch Radio!

Episode 11 features an outstanding interview with Ivonne Bojoh, the COO and Digital Director of the Circle Economy Foundation in Amsterdam. The Foundation's mission is to double global circularity to approximately 17% by 2032 to combat climate breakdown.

Ivonne joined Circle Economy and developed a digital strategy to scale their impact, leveraging technology to create platforms and tools for nations, cities, and businesses to adopt circular practices. She emphasises the importance of using existing skills for impactful purposes and calls for more individuals in the tech community to contribute to sustainability.

In addition to the Circularity Gap Report and the digital platform, Circle Economy has also launched a platform that offers open access to data on circularity for over 6000 cities. It provides baseline insights on circularity, job creation, and material usage, along with relevant case studies. The platform aims to empower individuals and organisations on their circular journey by providing them with knowledge and tools.

Join us for another exciting episode to hear more about examples of innovative solutions for the transition to a circular economy and the importance of translating talk into action and working decisively to make progress!

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Welcome back to the newest episode of HappyPorch Radio!

In episode 10, our hosts interview Fleur Ruckley, a Circular Economy and Resource Management Consultant. Fleur currently works at Topolytics on their analytics platform that uses data analytics, mapping and machine learning to make waste and resource management more transparent, more efficient and more effective commercially and environmentally.

The hosts and Fleur discuss the social aspects of Circular Economy and, as one example, compare the mindsets between South Africa and the UK regarding environmental management. They stress the importance of taking small steps and seeking external support to bridge the gap between current practices and sustainability objectives and the need to shift from a reactive mindset to a proactive one, fundamentally changing the system.

Join us in this episode to hear how Fluer concludes the discussion with hope and expressing optimism in people's willingness to engage with complexity, organisations making changes, and the availability of solid data for informed decision-making!

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Welcome to our new episode of HappyPorch Radio!

In episode 9 our host engages in a captivating conversation with Vivian Shi, a Senior Managing Consultant at Oakdene Hollins, a UK-based circular economy consultancy specialising in sustainable practices.

The consultancy, despite being a small team, works with a wide array of private and public clients and sectors and have recently expanded their work to collaborate with trade associations, supporting entire sectors in aligning with sustainability agendas, implementing circularity and achieving net zero emissions.

Vivian discusses her personal journey from a material science and engineering background into sustainability and the circular economy, emphasising the importance of using technical skills to address complex sustainability challenges. She also mentions the increasing focus on biodiversity and planetary boundaries in the context of circular economy.

.Tune into this episode and learn more about how Oakdene Hollins work with clients to assess materials and drive changes in supply chains, product design and other areas!

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Welcome to another episode of HappyPorch Radio.

In episode 8, our hosts engage in an insightful conversation with Debbie Ward, the Director of Cirklo Consult. Debbie's expertise in circular economy training, education, and advisory services, as well as her passion for sustainability, make her an inspiring guest.

We explore the challenges and possibilities within the circular economy, guided by Debbie's extensive knowledge and unique perspectives. We cover a wide range of topics, including Debbie's diverse roles and contributions, the importance of systemic change, relatable experiences and realistic approaches, and her personal journey and transition into circular economy work.

We also discuss the significance of diverse perspectives in environmental conversations, behaviour change at scale, integrating circularity into carbon literacy training, and finding the balance between social value and carbon efficiency.

Our focus turns to the construction industry, exploring circular practices, material reuse, and the mindset changes needed for widespread adoption.

Tune in to this episode for valuable insights from Debbie Ward and join the conversation on driving positive change through circular economy practices!

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Welcome back to episode 7 of HappyPorch Radio!

In this episode, we are honoured to interview Pieter van Exter, Director of Product at Metabolic Software.

Pieter's background in circular economy and decarbonisation projects with Metabolic Consulting sets the stage for discussing his transition to Metabolic Software and the development of Link, a SaaS product assessing company impacts on nature and biodiversity.

We also explore the complexities of sustainability and systems change and share inspiring examples of Metabolic's work, and discuss the significance of scaling sustainable solutions through Metabolic Software's innovative tools.We also discuss software tool, Link, which aims to provide organisations with insights to improve their environmental impact.

Join us for another exciting episode and learn more about Pieter and Metabolic's approach to sustainability through multifaceted solutions.

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Welcome back to episode 6 of Season 7 of HappyPorch Radio!

In this episode we are joined by Madison Wright, Circular Economy Specialist from Pentatonic.

According to research conducted by Pentatonic,only a very small percentage of the largest companies in the world are set to hit their net-zero targets. So, for these companies to fulfill their commitments, big changes need to be made. Madison is assisting companies with implementing initiatives and systems that really embody the principles of sustainability. Despite the scary statistics about the direction the world is heading from an environmental perspective, Madison is still optimistic about the future, and she shares some of the reasons why.

From product design to supply chain analysis to lowering consumption levels, tune in today to hear what real sustainable solutions look like!

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Welcome to episode 5 of season 7 of HappyPorch Radio!

In this episode we welcome Elin Bergman, known as the Circular Economy Queen of Sweden. Elin is the CEO of Cradlenet, a network devoted to promoting and implementing a circular economy in Sweden. She is also a Co-founder and Managing Partner of the Nordic Circular Hotspot, a collaboration platform with a mission to accelerate the transition to a circular economy in the Nordic region.

Elin shares her perspective on the circular economy's progress and the importance of networks, digital tools, and challenges of consumer perception. She shares examples of circular businesses in Sweden and the level of maturity required for businesses to adopt circular practices.

We discussed the opportunities and challenges of transitioning to a circular economy, emphasizing the significance of collaboration and digitalisation in driving this transformation. We also covered the importance of creating demand for circular products and services through policy changes and mandatory reporting by companies.

Tune in now to hear more about Elin and be inspired by her passion for the circular economy.

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Welcome to Episode 4 of Season 7 of HappyPorch Radio.

In this episode, we speak to Paul Foulkes-Arellano, a circularity educator and consultant at Circuthon Consulting.

Paul discusses his work in the circular economy, guiding businesses through the changing legislative environment and helping them embed circularity into their products and operations. He shares his personal story and emphasizes the importance of technology and digital connectivity in circularity.

The interview covers a range of topics, including the evolution of circular economy, the importance of reuse and degrowth, and Paul's perspective on the future of circularity.

Join us for another exciting episode!

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Welcome to episode 3 of the HappyPorch Radio Podcast. Join us as we explore the transition to circular business models and the challenges and opportunities that come with it. In today's episode, we have two guests from QSA Partners, a B corporation that helps businesses transition to circularity: Gerrard Fisher and Kristina Bull.

We discuss the importance of reducing consumption, the challenges of implementing circular business models, and the role of various industries in achieving circularity. Gerrard and Kristina share their experience and insights on how they help companies switch to rental, sharing, or service models and highlight the need for involving everyone in the company in the transition.

They also introduce the concept of circular natives, inspired by the term “digital natives”, and explain how this influences consumer behavior and business practices.

So, if you're interested in circular business models and want to learn more about how to transition to circularity, stay tuned!

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Welcome back to HappyPorch Radio and the very beginning of Season 7!

Today we are joined by Fabrice Sorin from Circulab and he helps us unpack the bigger picture of a circular economy and delve into the importance of systems thinking.

Circulab originated as a methodology inspired by biomimicry and design thinking. By employing Circulab's approach, businesses can unlock the potential for transformation that benefits both business operations and the natural systems they depend on.

Our conversation discusses what it takes to build and sustain a circular economy, opportunities and challenges, and how to embrace the complexity.

We also look at the different types of circular economies, and what it means to push back against the idea of quick fixes.

Join us today and we look forward to having you around for this exciting season of the podcast!

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We are back with Season 7 of HappyPorch Radio!

Our hosts Barry O’Kane and Emily Swaddle are excited to explore the intersection of technology and the circular economy even further. They've previously talked about the circular economy from different perspectives in Seasons 5 and 6.

In this season they will be talking to people who assist others in implementing circularity. This will include consultants, advisors, and agencies that drive design and innovation. Join us today and we look forward to having you around for this exciting season of the podcast.

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Today we are taking this opportunity to wrap up Season 6!

We have focused on a variety of different circular economy initiatives and organisations in Africa and have had so many fascinating and illuminating conversations, so we are super excited to look back and pick out some of the highlights and biggest lessons we have learned during these episodes.

From dealing with waste to new ideas about construction and footwear, we really have covered a lot of ground, and feel that our excitement at the start of the season was well-founded!

We have explored the trends that are occurring across the African continent, while also seeing the vast differences and multiplicity that make up this huge landmass and its populations.

A big message that we heard during our time on the subject was the need for local, African ideas to play a part in creating solutions, and why copy-paste strategies will fall short.

So to hear more about fresh new systems, and how they are cropping up in different spaces right now, be sure to listen in with us as we reflect on so many lessons learned!

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Welcome back to Season Six of Happy Porch Radio.

Today, we are joined by Julia Venn from Foodwise, a social enterprise which fights against food waste, and food insecurity by helping businesses repurpose their own food in order to help people in need.

We talk to Julia about the importance of distinguishing between contexts across Africa’s diverse countries, and how she came to leave Germany to co-found Foodwise Mauritius, Morocco, Ivory Coast, and Madagascar.

She unpacks the important work that Foodwise does and how it ties in with the circular economy, and shares the powerful insight that we can’t talk about Africa in the homogenous way we do about Europe.

You’ll also hear about her experience navigating cultural differences, and why she believes that there is something to be learned from each culture, even if they don’t use the same terminology.

We hope you tune in today to hear all this and more!

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Welcome back to another episode of Happy Porch Radio!

You may already know that, in season six, we are talking about the circular economy across Africa.

Today, we are joined by Audrey S-Darko, who is the team lead at Sabon-Sake, a regenerative agricultural startup based in Ghana.

During this episode, we take a look at the circular economy from the angle of agriculture and bio waste.

You’ll hear about Sabon-Sake’s dual focus, transforming agricultural waste into value-added products, and changing the mindsets of the rural communities that they work with.

The UNCRD has shown that there are over 998 million tons of agricultural waste produced per year, and Sabon-Sake’s solution goes beyond compost and the circular economy to prioritize a regenerative approach.

We discuss the carbon capturing system they use, the role of ecotourism, and the biggest obstacles to educating people and putting waste to use.

Join us to hear more!

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The construction industry has long functioned on the basis that waste is an inevitable byproduct of doing business.

With up to 30 percent of all materials delivered to construction sites ultimately ending up in landfill, there is an incredible opportunity to not only to recycle more construction waste, but to repurpose perfectly good materials to address socioeconomic inequalities.

Today, we are joined by Kausar Khan, Carin de Beer, and Jaco Kemp from Arup in South Africa, who are working to do just that.

Their DigiYard project is an app-based service connecting unused construction site materials and waste with small-scale builders and traders in the informal sector, aiming to match supply and demand through embedding circular economy practices within the construction sector and provide access to affordable, quality material to low-income communities.

In this episode, we discuss the challenges they face and the lessons they have learned as they pilot this project.

We touch on how they have used Whatsapp in the pilot phase, their personal motivations for the project, and the scale of the construction waste problem in South Africa, as well as the financial and social responsibility incentives that DigiYard offers companies in various sectors, including the film industry.

For all this and so much more, tune in today!

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In season six of Happy Porch Radio, we are focusing on the circular economy across the continent of Africa.

Today, we are joined by Keiran Smith, Cofounder and CEO of Mr. Green Africa, which is the first recycling company to be a Certified B Corporation on the African continent.

Mr. Green Africa leverages business as a force for good to realise sustainable and long-term social, environmental, and economic impact through the collection, conversion, and selling of post consumer plastic waste.

Keiran comes from a business and banking background and is now applying his entrepreneurial experience to the waste management sector in Kenya, trading with recyclable materials while achieving tangible impact.

We had the pleasure of inviting Keiran to tell us more about how this idea has been solid from day one in terms of its triple bottom line: people, planet, and profit.

We also hear about his huge ambitions for where this company can go in the future, how impactful technology can be when used correctly and in in the right context, and why Keiran believes that the human impact is just as important as the environmental one.

Tune in today to learn more from this thoughtful and actionable discussion with Mr. Green Africa CEO, Keiran Smith!

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The concept of circularity operates on various spheres of life and business. Today’s guest, Fela Buyi, prioritises a number of these with his social enterprise and trendy shoe business in Africa.

He founded Salubata, a company based in Nigeria that makes modular shoes from plastic waste with a mission to invent lifestyle technologies that help people and the planet.

You’ll hear how this inspiring entrepreneur brings together his interest in environmental toxicology, business, and design, to create aesthetically pleasing shoes that are good for the environment and benefit people. He believes it's important to create sustainable products that can compete with their traditional alternatives, and that good design is at the heart of being an effective player in the circular economy.

Salubata uses plastic waste in underserved communities, and works to empower and train women living there to develop a skillset that makes them viable employees for Salubata.

In response to the harrowing fact that the average metropolitan person produces 5kg of plastic waste per day, Fela has designed a modular shoe with detachable uppers with different designs and colors. 70% of the energy required to produce a shoe goes into the sole, and detachable uppers save money, space, and make for far easier cleaning. He tells us why standardization is a bigger problem than lack of funding across Africa, and that building the skill set of the people is more important than investing in better machinery.

Next, he introduces us to the closed loop system where nothing escapes the environment, and each item is recycled, and he lets us in on how he sees his impact growing: by scaling what he is already doing.

We hope you tune in for another inspiring episode today!

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Today’s guest, Sarah Karamsi, is a project manager at Hello Tractor, an agricultural technology company that connects small, struggling farmers to labour, equipment, and access to mechanization to rise above the poverty line.

Tune in to hear us reflect on the differences between the European and African contexts, with a particular focus on using infrastructure as a tool to reduce poverty in the agriculture community.

Sarah introduces us to the Hello Tractor application’s two uses, which includes fleet management and farmer books, and how each of these functions are used.

We dive into Hello Tractor’s relationship to the circular economy in providing an efficient service for demand and supply at a low price before Sarah tells us what Hello Tractor aims to do; to maximize the benefits of owning a tractor through managing fleets in Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda, Ghana, Tanzania, Pakistan, and Thailand.

She introduces us to the device that is fitted to their tractors in order to capture and record data and tells us why she believes that maximizing efficiency is the best way to create value through tech.

We also delve into an idea that very much aligns with our thoughts on the circular economy: that the carbon emissions involved in agriculture are a necessary evil to be managed and reduced as far as possible.

Finally, we touch on the different need in Africa and Europe, the gender bias in tech, and how Sarah pairs to be a part of global change, as well as how Hello Tractor aims to create greater accessibility for more people in the long term.

Tune in today!

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In season six of Happy Porch Radio, we are talking about the circular economy across the African continent.

Today, we are excited to be joined by Chris Whyte, the co-founder of the African Circular Economy Network (ACEN) where he currently serves as an executive team member. His work examines the developing circular economy applications across Africa, with a particular focus on transitioning to a circular economy where waste is a resource.

In our conversation with Chris, we delve into the massive potential for development that the circular economy provides across the African continent and how ACEN is working to implement and support existing circular economies.

Tuning in you’ll hear examples of their work including the development of compressive blocks that provide an innovative solution to housing in Africa by using plastic waste while also having a massively reduced carbon footprint compared to cement. Chris explains the impact that Eurocentric models and aspirations have had on African infrastructure, including an entrenched cement industry across the continent.

Later we discuss the role that education plays in bringing about broader adoption of circular economic models and why different African countries require different solutions and applications.

We close off the show by hearing Chris’s advice on how Happy Porch Radio can unpack the circular economy in Africa going forward without Eurocentric prejudice.

For all this and much more, join us today!

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In season six of Happy Porch Radio, we are talking about the circular economy across the African continent.

Today, we welcome Joanna Bingham and Deborah Nartey of Footprints Africa to provide us with some really powerful context to set the scene for a new season.

Footprints Africa is an organization that supports small and medium-sized businesses to adopt future-friendly practices, address the challenges of growth, and create new jobs, while using supply chains as a tool for development. In this episode, Joanna and Deborah share some insights on the work and research that their team is working on, going on to provide three examples of powerful entrepreneurial projects that embody the circular economy in Africa: Ecodudu, Kaluku Wear, and Pyramid Recycling. We touch on power dynamics, parallel evolution, and the exploitation of Africa’s rich resources as an essential framing context.

Next, we dive into the role of perception in shaping behavior and how decentralized systems of repair are valued by certain cultures and not by others.

We explore the value of perception and mindset, along with the challenges and barriers that these two factors can create. Joanna tells us more about African Footprints’s focus and aims and, in closing, Joanna and Deborah share their hopes for the future of Africa’s economy with us.

We hope you join us for some mindset-shifting insights from this impressive duo today!

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This is a little teaser for the next season, which is coming in the next few months. We've had a bit of a break after Season Five, and we're really excited about what's coming next!

African entrepreneurship, enthusiasm and innovation can create solutions that work in the local context and cultures. Opportunities that can be harnessed to tackle climate change and reduce environmentally damaging consequences while also improving livelihoods and reducing poverty.

In this season we speak to people actively using innovative circular approaches in different African contexts. We share their stories to gain an insight into the Circular Economy across Africa and what we can learn for our own contexts.

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Hello everyone, and welcome to the final show of Happy Porch Radio Season 5.

Today, we look at this past season, highlighting each of our guests, how they’re changing the world, and some of the pertinent details about them.

A few of the main topics and themes we covered in this season were keeping things in use, reuse, and services.

One overriding theme, though, was how holistic the circular economy is, and why we need a combination of many solutions to create a better world.

To finish off the episode, we talk about some of the biggest takeaways from this season, as well as our hopes for our listeners.

See you next season!

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Reath is on a mission to build the digital infrastructure required for businesses to shift to the circular economy.

They specialise in the tagging and tracking of reusable assets, and building the “digital passports” they need – think Google Analytics for the circular economy!

Co-founders, Claire Rampen and Emily Rogers combined their professional backgrounds in operations and commercial strategy in technology businesses to help other companies adopt and improve their reuse business models.

The Reath platform helps businesses do this while staying compliant, generating insights, creating new revenue opportunities, and identifying savings.

Learn from Claire and Emily how they discovered the challenges brands had in reusing their packaging effectively and legally, and how they joined forces to tackle those challenges and become actively involved in the solution.

Hear about how the Reath team have had to jump off multiple cliffs, apply for multiple grants, and solve multiple problems, as well as how their collaborative approach contributes to systemic change.

The future of the circular economy is never having to throw anything away again.

This is Reath’s vision and, by creating a reuse ecosystem using digital products, they are striving to achieve it!

Tune in to find out more.

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The pandemic has given us the time to redesign our business processes and move us toward a circular economy.

As today’s guest, Unusual Rigging Managing Director Tom Harper explains, our industries are having a “Phoenix in the flame moment.”

Our conversation with Tom focuses on his passion for the circular economy, how he introduced sustainable innovations into his company, and the challenges and opportunities presented by COVID.

Early in the episode, we explore Tom’s career and how he transitioned from being an actor to studying an MBA on the circular economy — and then finally joining Unusual Rigging.

After touching on why his MBA was such an incredible program, we dive into how he introduced sustainable practices into Unusual Rigging’s asset tracking procedure.

Tom shares specific details on how digitising their products allowed them to offer their products-as-a-service, leading to longer product life cycles and material reusability. We reflect on the power of one-on-one conversations and involving your employees in company changes before Tom highlights the business benefits of embracing the circular economy.

Near the end of the episode, we discuss how the pandemic has inspired Tom to create more ethical and circular business structures, including four-day work weeks and electrifying his old fleet. Tom’s story is an ideal model for implementing change within a business.

Tune in to hear more of his insights!

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Bright colours might be in, but fashion and glamour have a dark side, with textiles and accessories being a major contributor to environmental damage.

Today we speak with Aisling Byrne, co-founder of Nuw, a clothes-swapping app built on community ideals. We open the conversation by taking a look at Nuw’s inception, as Aisling details the characteristics of fast fashion and why it’s so important to adopt a new model of fashion.

Aisling then rips the sheet off and exposes a problem which hides in many of our cupboards. She goes on to explain the toxic creation process that goes into creating the 100 billion new pieces of fashion and glamour that are made every year, before touching on the broader impacts of this industry.

You’ll learn about the production methods behind cotton, silk and polyester, and how each has a consequence on water consumption as well as on chemical and plastic pollution.

We then look at the end of fashion and glamour’s lifecycle, as Aisling touches on landfills and supplies us with startling facts about donations and clothing charities. Yet, the future is bright, and it looks fabulous as well! Aisling shares simple solutions to this fashion crisis and forecasts what’s next for Nuw.

To hear more from Aisling, be sure to tune in with us today.

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Did you know that 99% of the things we buy are thrown away within 12 months of purchase? When it comes to pollution, the world is in a post-crisis state, and recycling alone won’t be enough to bring us out of it.

Yet, Stephen Clarke says that we can start taking achievable and cost-effective measures to reverse our damage. As the Head of Communications at TerraCycle and Loop Europe, Stephen argues that a zero-waste concept is the answer to pollution.

In this episode, we talk with Stephen about TerraCycle and how it’s able to recycle virtually anything, as well as its new shopping platform, Loop.

We open the conversation by taking a look at the current pollution problem before diving into detail about Loop’s great effort to not only reduce waste but to eradicate it.

You’ll hear about how the Loop ecosystem works, with Stephen touching on big-name companies they’ve partnered up with, what kinds of packaging materials they use, and how their delivery system operates.

Stay tuned as Stephen talks about how Loop uses a deposit cycle to keep clients and brands accountable, and why you shouldn’t be shocked if you see plastic in your Loop basket.

To find out about smart bins, how plastic isn’t the villain it’s made out to be, and why you never ask your dentist if his utensils are clean, be sure to tune in to this episode!

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The vast majority of material resources are lost into landfill or leaked into the environment after consumption. Some companies see a real opportunity to bring together the biggest global brands across a variety of industries, using insights and data intelligence to understand the impact of materials throughout their lifecycle and create a more sustainable future.

Welcome back to Season 5 of Happy Porch Radio, which is concerned with digital solutions in the circular economy.

Today’s guest is Michael Groves, CEO and Founder of Topolytics, a leading data insights business that uses machine learning and geospatial analytics to make the world’s waste visible, verifiable, and valuable. In this episode, Michael addresses why data is a waste problem and the opportunity that Topolytics has seen in the waste industry to use data in a better and more sustainable way in the future. Michael shares how his company plans to do this, from the tools they use to aggregate, clean, and analyse data, to the industries they address to tackle the waste problem, and the types of waste they deal with.

He also explains why he doesn’t believe that environmental benefit and profit are mutually exclusive, why the future of waste involves reducing the volume of material that enters the system first, and he shares his vision for the future of Topolytics, and how others can contribute to that vision.

All this and more, so make sure to tune in today!

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Continuing our exciting exploration of the circular economy, we are joined by Ellekari Klaasse and Mariëlle van Hemert, the brains behind Circular Stories.

The organisation is a magazine and online platform for the sharing of inspiring stories of companies and individuals in the circular space.

Our guests see their role as connectors in the greater picture of circularity and by promoting these examples, they can help both the brands they work with and others who connect with their content. They have a strong focus on the human aspect of what they do, aiming to show the person behind the story and their work has an emphasis on aiding the entrepreneurs they work with, creating media that can be used for funding or growth in other areas.

We have a fascinating chat with Ellekari and Mariëlle, covering their personal backgrounds, perspectives on the circular economy at present, and the lessons they have learned in the time since starting their exciting project.

What began as a journey of exploration, two new friends road-tripping across Europe, has evolved into a platform with amazing potential for impact and connection, be sure not to miss this wonderful conversation!

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Along with some of the other big problems with the fast fashion industry, the incredibly high volume of textile waste is a major one. These materials end up burned or buried, but there is one company here to rescue them, resurrecting an age-old model to try and solve it in a brand new way.

Today’s guest is Stephanie Benedetto, a corporate attorney turned fashion tech and sustainability entrepreneur. Stephanie is the Co-Founder of Queen of Raw, a marketplace to buy and sell unused textiles, keeping them out of landfills, and turning pollution into profit. Prior to starting Queen of Raw, Stephanie worked as a lawyer in the fashion, media and entertainment, startup, and technology industries, and co-founded a sustainable textile manufacturing facility.

In this episode, Stephanie describes the two-sided marketplace they use to buy and sell dead stock, and the additional background technology that allows businesses to understand where their waste is and what it is, in real-time.

She also talks about the digitisation of inventory management and stock systems to understand that information, sell and to use waste, make sure it stays in circulation, and to actually reduce waste longer term.

Stephanie shares her passion for reducing the waste in fast fashion, acknowledging the challenges that businesses face, and the opportunity to be found in that challenge.

Tune in to find out more!

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In this episode of Happy Porch Radio, we speak with a circular economy pioneer and the co-founder of Circular IQ, Roy Vercoulen.

Circular IQ helps their customers to transition towards a restorative and regenerative circular economy through their digital platform and circularity programs.

One of their many successes includes having developed the CTI Tool for the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, allowing businesses to measure their circuit performance using a framework that is globally recognised.

Roy explains why measuring circularity is imperative and what components they look for in pursuit of this objective, and gives his perspective on the extent to which governments, businesses, and consumers are responsible for sustainability. On the topic of their biggest challenges, Roy talks about the financial implications of circularity, why many companies are still reluctant to transition, and what cultural barriers they have to overcome to get their clients’ buy-in.

Listeners will learn more about their consulting processes with clients, the questions they ask them, how they help them to define what success looks like, and how they go about translating theoretical ideas into actionable steps.

Tuning in, listeners will also hear what Roy envisions for the future of the circular economy and how measuring circular performance will have to be a globally recognised framework that still accommodates for the unique values of each company.

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The impact that the circular economy would have is so broad that no single conversation can quite cover its reach.

Today’s conversation with Craig Melson, Program Manager at techUK, touches on many topics, proving an excellent overview of how technology is moving us towards the circular economy.

We open by talking about Craig’s role and what techUK is doing to help the tech industry embrace more sustainable practices.

Craig then shares examples of innovative tech companies that are driving material reusability, or even basing their entire model on circular economy practices. From data privacy concerns to the dangers of dealing with pollutants, we discuss the biggest challenges blocking our progress to a circular economy.

After touching on the Material Focus project, Craig provides insight into how government regulation and Brexit affect circular economy practices.

Following this, he expresses his optimism about how companies are heading in the right direction along with his hope that the circular economy will eventually become our default economic model.

Near the end of the episode, we touch on the benefits of learning from international perspectives and what techUK is doing to advocate for greater diversity before Craig gives listeners some final advice on what they can do to push for a sustainable economy.

Tune in to hear more about tech and the circular economy.

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Achieving sustainability requires that companies know what’s in their product, know their suppliers, and understand their direct and indirect environmental impact.

By digitising the life cycles of products and supply chains, iPoint is driving industry transparency and empowering business to achieve sustainability. T

Today we speak with iPoint CEO Joerg Walden about how digitising processes is a key step towards the circular economy.

Early in our conversation, Joerg highlights how expanding knowledge around digitising life cycles can drive new business models. A significant theme this episode, Joerg shares how a mindset shift, and not only tech, is critical in fostering sustainable practices.

We then discuss the challenges presented by innovation-based product cycles before diving into the intersectional nature of product design, and how only a shared information system can ensure product compliance.

A tricky subject for many organisations, Jorge explains the strategic benefits of becoming more transparent and how this can generate solutions to many issues that plague different sectors.

Near the end of the episode, we touch on the opportunities created through digitisation, and how sustainability is affected when companies are responsible for providing a service usage to consumers, instead of selling products.

Tune in to hear more about what iPoint is doing to drive transparency through digitisation.

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As-a-service business models align the priorities of the vendor and the customer, while also having the potential to drive sustainability and the circular economy.

Today’s guest is Dave Mackerness, Customer Success Lead at Kaer, a firm based in Singapore that sells air conditioning as-a-service throughout Asia.

We talk to Dave about how Kaer has shifted to the as-a-service rubric and in so doing has baked sustainability and circularity into their business model while driving their profits higher at the same time!

Dave talks about the history of the firm and the different models they have adopted over the decades, and how they decided to put all the data they have gathered to a different use after drawing inspiration from the world of SaaS.

Dave discusses what this looks like in real terms, explaining how Kaer installs air cooling systems in the buildings of their clients and sells them cool air, rather than the systems themselves.

This approach has allowed Kaer to use data to build more efficient systems, saving them money to invest in technology that further optimizes their infrastructure. It also shifts the burden of sustainability onto Kaer’s shoulders rather than those of the client. This drives higher profit while saving a huge amount of energy too.

We also talk to Dave about incorporating data science and machine learning into their cooling systems and the benefits this presents as well as concerns it raises.

Another big takeaway is about the possibilities the as-a-service business model presents to companies becoming more disruptive.

Tune in for this fascinating conversation about circularity and the world of as-a-service today!

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In circular economy terms, reverse logistics involves the collection of goods, transportation to a given location, and sorting prior to remanufacturing, refurbishing, reusing or recycling or failing that, disposal.

Today, we are joined by Paul McSweeney, who is the Founder and CEO of the ZeroNet, an app that allows households to simply and quickly donate unwanted items and have them collected right from their front door.

In this episode, Paul shares his long-story-short with us, getting to the point of having launched a pilot in Stirling, Scotland, and an upcoming project in Brighton in the UK.

We also discuss what the platform looks like, recycling versus reuse, data recovery when it comes to e-waste, and the surprising householder enthusiasm for a collections service like this, as well as what has kept Paul motivated throughout the development and whether or not he thinks ZeroNet could encourage excess consumption.

For all this and more, make sure to tune in today!

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When many people think of the word ‘waste,’ something formless and brown springs to mind. Part of the struggle to eliminate waste is that the materials it consists of don’t have an identity.

Today we speak with Pablo van den Bosch, the co-founder of Madaster, a company that shows how valuable waste is by identifying its material components in the built environment.

After explaining Madaster’s role in advocating for the circular economy, Pablo describes how they catalogue all the materials used to create a new building, giving each material its own ‘digital passport.’ We chat about how his biggest challenge is to get people to recognize the importance of registering their materials and how this benefits both the public and investors.

We then ask Pablo about Madaster’s philosophy. His answer highlights his view that Earth is a closed system — it’s up to us to make the most of the resources we have. We discuss Madaster’s data-driven model, why they operate as a platform, and how everyday home-owners can use Madaster to ID the materials in their buildings.

A key concept in this episode, Pablo emphasises that we need to shift from the idea of ownership to the idea of usership, where no materials are owned.

They’re simply used for the time being. We touch on the limits to this approach, how creativity is critical in selling the idea of the circular economy, and issues surrounding data security and privacy.

Near the end of our discussion, we explore more on how Madaster can be used on a day-to-day basis and how it makes material transfers an easy and profitable pursuit. With tools like Madaster, we can start seeing waste as a treasure trove of resources.

Tune in to hear how Pablo is helping make this a reality.

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Understanding waste as something valuable not only requires new systems but massive paradigm shifts too.

Today we talk to Maayke Damen about the work she is doing in this regard with her company, Excess Materials Exchange, a digital marketplace with the core goal of matching waste with its highest reuse assignation.

Maayke tells us about the research she began to do about taxing resources rather than labour and the potential this shift would present in the way products are purchased and disposed of. To tax in this new way, we would need a system to correctly identify the materials that make up products, and the work Maayke did to create this system was what led her to found EME.

From there, we dive into the inner workings of the EME marketplace platform and how it functions to identify waste and match it with its highest reuse destination.

Along with all this, we talk to Maayke about the challenges to implementing more circular waste management processes, highlighting the paradigm shift required for these shifts to occur, and the effectiveness EME presents toward this end being an impact rather than a profit-led company.

At the end of the day though, reusing waste does not just save the planet, but money too, and Maayke talks about how she has had to present her case from an economic rather than environmental perspective to actually get companies on board.

For all this and more about exciting developments in the narratives and technologies surrounding waste reuse, be sure to tune in.

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The move toward a more circular economy is contingent on many things – transparent supply chains being one of them.

Here to talk about how he is using technology such as blockchain to bring transparency and trusted data sharing to global supply chains is Jordi de Vos, Co-Founder of Circularise.

We kick things off with Jordi talking about the research that Circularise was born from before getting into the challenges of moving from local pilot projects to tracing supply chains globally. We talk about resolving the seemingly contradictory aims of bringing transparency to supply chains while keeping information private as well as the issue of trust and how easy it is for companies to lie about the origins of a given product.

Next up, we take a dive into how Circularise works, hearing Jordi describe how it uses blockchain technology to create an information highway where a ‘digital twin’ of a product is created at its conception and then updated as it makes its way from one point to another.

Jordi also explains how collaboration and open standards are vital for their vision.

Toward the end of our conversation, we explore how third party validators can enhance trustability along the information highway, how different tracers can ensure products are what their digital twins say they are, and the value of open source technology in achieving the Circularise vision.

For all this and more on transparent supply chains and the circular economy, tune in!

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The ultimate ‘out of sight, out of mind problem,’ when we throw something away, it seems to disappear into a magical space that sits apart from us and our responsibility.

Tom Passmore and Sophie Walker, founders of Dsposal, are using data to bridge this knowledge gap by showing people what happens to waste once we throw it away.

On this episode, We speak to Tom and Sophie about their journey in building Dsposal and their mission in innovating waste management for the greater good.

After talking about how waste is part of a value-chain of resources within the circular economy, we explore the ‘duty of care.’ A key concept, this duty affirms our responsibility to properly manage our waste.

On the topic of the circular economy, they explain their focus on compliance and regulation as using non-licensed contractors increases the likelihood that material ends up in a landfill — and therefore, out of the loop.

Near the end of the episode, we talk about the state’s role in creating infrastructure and how it’s up to the public to innovate systems. A fascinating and energetic conversation about a pressing issue, tune in to hear about how Tom and Sophie are changing how we see waste.

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Carrying on our exploration of the circular economy, we are joined today by Lieke van Kerkhoven, the co-founder of FLOOW2, a sharing platform for healthcare and beyond.

Lieke had experience in the healthcare sector leading up to her work with FLOOW2, having worked across the Netherlands in different managerial positions after studying medicine.

In our conversation, we get the low down from Lieke about the last decade with FLOOW2, the difference between FLOOW2 and FLOOW2 Healthcare, and how she initially linked up with the other founders.

She talks about the central importance of communication in the sharing and circular economies and unpacks the varied nature of the platform they have created.

Lieke lays out their position as the global leader in their market, explaining this in the context of the small market they are serving. The conversation also covers the way they serve their clients, the different sectors of the business besides healthcare, and the important shifts in mindset that precede meaningful change.

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In this season we explore the role that our industry plays in the Circular Economy. And here to jumpstart this conversation and prime us for the forthcoming episodes is Catherine Weetman, who literally wrote the book on the subject!

A Circular Economy Handbook for Business and Supply Chains details the lessons that Catherine has learned over the last ten years in the field and we get to hear all about her work, from the role of software and digital to examples of companies doing their part to move things forward.

Apart from being an author, Catherine is an international speaker, workshop facilitator, coach, and the host of The Circular Economy Podcast! She helps businesses, social enterprises and community groups to use circular economy approaches to work towards a better world and has a vast knowledge of the subject, which she unpacks clearly and concisely in our wonderful chat today.

We are sure you will find this an extremely helpful exploration of the topic and one that sets up the rest of the season brilliantly, setting the scene for more in-depth conversations and learning.

Catherine helps us find a way to describe exactly what the circular economy is, the reasons for its existence, and why it goes far beyond recycling.

Listeners can expect to leave with a firm grasp of the topic as well as some renewed hope for sustainability and what can be done to propel this project.

Be sure to join us and stay tuned for the rest of this fascinating season, on Happy Porch Radio!

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In this season we explore the role that our industry plays in the Circular Economy. We hear from multiple experts and inspiring people actually working on solutions to our biggest global environmental and social challenges.

This episode serves as an introduction to the season, a glossary of terms, and a chance for us to prepare for what is to come.

The circular economy describes an approach to production and consumption that is less linear than the dominant contemporary economic model. We weigh-in on the areas that stand out for us; thinking about waste as well as product, and outcomes beyond the immediate consumables and the short-term value.

So for all this, join us today and we look forward to having you join us for this exciting season of the podcast.

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Today is our final episode of Season Four.

Yes, this is the end of another season and one of the things that made this season especially fun were the three wonderful cohosts who joined us on the show; Kate Rostance, Kelly Molson and Erica Quessenberry.

In this final episode, all of us join together to look back over the season, touching on some of the ways various guests have impacted us and we share some of our most important takeaways.

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On today’s show we are joined again by our co-host, Kate, co-founder of Fat Free Media.

This episode is the second of our two part conversation with Dan Robertson, President of Vercida Consulting. Dan’s expertise lies in workplace diversity and inclusion, unconscious bias and inclusive leadership.

Dan gives us some great tools to help us manage our teams and positively deal with bias and inclusivity. Be sure to check out the previous episode for part one. So, for all this and more, keep listening!.

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In this episode, we are once again joined by our co-host, Kate, who is the co-founder of Fat Free Media.

This episode is the first of a two-part conversation with our guest, Dan Robertson, President of Vercida Consulting.

This conversation extends our discussion from episode two of the season, going more into depth on what a bias is, the types of biases to be aware of, and providing some really insightful and real world tips for how to manage biases within yourself and your teams.

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In this episode, we are once again joined by our co-host, Kate, who is the co-founder of Fat Free Media.

Our guest on the show today is Harry Gordon, who joins us to discuss what it means to truly influence and change society for the better. Harry is a senior developer in an agency in Edinburgh and has recently started a group called Carers in Tech.

In our conversation, Harry shares how suddenly becoming the sole carer for his younger brother impacted his view of work and eventually led to his desire to bring the conversation about the need for part time and flexible working out of the shadows.

So if you want to know more about this, listen in to this episode to hear Harry’s calls for all of us to make work, and our society as a whole, a better place.

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In this episode we are joined by Hilary Stephenson, Founder and Managing Director of Sigma Consulting Solutions, a leading specialist in User Experience. Sigma takes an inclusive approach to improve the usability and accessibility of digital products and services, including websites, intranets, mobile apps, and software.

We are once again joined by our wonderful cohost, Kelly Molson, from Rubber Cheese and we have a great conversation that we cannot wait to share with you all!

For this fascinating conversation, be sure to join us!

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On the show today we welcome Peter Aitken from the Global Diversity CFP Day and Litmus.

Peter is here to tell us all about the great and somewhat surprising success his efforts have had in creating a more inclusive and encouraging space for underrepresented persons at tech events. We hear about his initial work at the Scotland JS and Scotland CSS conferences and how this grew into the work he now does at Global Diversity CFP Day.

Peter gives us great details as to the trajectory and the way in which things have worked and grown. For a truly inspiring and happy story, be sure to join us on the show!

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On today’s show we welcome Asad Dhunna.

Asad is the inspirational founder of The Unmistakables, which is an independent consultancy made up of minorities with a mission to make organizations and campaigns more representative of modern society, both inside and out.

They combine HR, marketing and communications principles to help leaders develop companies and campaigns that better reflects our diverse and gender fluid society.

Inside this episode, we’ll hear from Asad all about his vision for The Unmistakables, what he hopes to achieve, and how we can all help to make the world a more diverse and inclusive place.So keep listening to hear more.

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On this episode of Happy Porch Radio we welcome Carole Rennie Logan to give us her perspectives and experiences as a woman working in tech in Glasgow.

Carole is Development Team Lead at the Glasgow based agency, Equator and won the award for Inspirational Woman of the Year at the Scotland Women in Tech Awards this year!

We are once again joined by Erica Quessenberry as our co-host,so please join us for this fascinating conversation!

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In this episode we welcome Christ Howard, a co-leader from Intertech LGBT+ Diversity Forum.

We have a fascinating discussion with Chris as he takes us through the work he and Intertech do and their specific approach to diversity, inclusion, and transformation.

We are also delighted to welcome back Erica Quessenberry as our co-host today.

One of the reasons and a major impetus to invite Chris to be a guest was the recent address he made at the Umbraco conference and he walks us through the enlightening exercise with which he opened that talk.

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On the show today we welcome Elizabeth Gibbons, who is the Director of Client Services at Zeroseven in Brisbane, Australia.

Zeroseven is a digital development house in the heart of Brisbane that works in partnership with their clients on long term digital solutions that use best practice in design, development, and usability.

Elizabeth is here to tell us about her experiences and successes in creating a more gender diverse team at the company, and to discuss her greatest motivations for wanting to bridge the gender divide in tech and the practices she has seen as valuable in this pursuit.

Once again we are joined by Erica Quessenberry as our trusty co-host and we have a great conversation centering around web development, hiring and cultural practices that facilitate more inclusive work spaces.

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Today on the show we get to speak to the amazing Molly Watt.

Molly is registered deaf blind due to a genetic condition called Usher Syndrome. She is a keynote speaker, usability and accessibility consultant, and a published author.

Molly uses her passion and experiences to specialize in accessibility and usability in the world of design.

Now, Molly’s story, presentation, and videos are truly inspiring and in this episode we have a fascinating and wide ranging conversation about inclusion and diversity.

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On today’s show we welcome Kelly Mackenzie, the founder and CEO of White Bear Studios who is here to talk to us about her design company and their initiative called Shape.

After some years in the design field a number of things led Kelly to feel isolated and outnumbered as a woman in her line of work.

As her company grew she would attend design events and it felt like the norm was to have only a couple of women in the room. This prompted her and White Bear Studios to create Shape, a program aimed at promoting design and creative courses at schools.

With the help of our returning guest co-host, Kelly Molson, we unpack our guest Kelly Mackenzie’s history and current work with White Bear Studio, before getting down to what Shape is all about.

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Today we are joined by April Wensel, the CEO and Founder of Compassionate Coding, who is here to tell us all about her company, why she started it, and the philosophical and practical ideas that are the foundation of what she does.

We are also happy to welcome back Erica Quessenberry to co-host this deeply interesting conversation, in which we cover compassion, emotional intelligence, empathy, and everything in between.

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In this episode we welcome Dan Robertson to continue our dive into the topic of diversity. Dan is the President of Vercida Consulting and spends his working life helping organisations get up to speed with regards to diversity and inclusivity.

One of the first points Dan makes is the importance of the relationship and balance between these two terms, and how an overemphasis on diversity can lead to unfulfilled goals.

Our guest unpacks in an understandable manner, the basic reasons for addressing these issues in business and goes on to to cite some of the research that has propelled the field. We chat about obstacles and biases that have kept things a certain way for a long time and Dan gives us great insight into practical ways to go about dismantling these structures.

The conversation ends off considering the early roots that inform these biases and how we can go about reflecting on our own internal biases.

For an informative and actionable discussion, be sure to tune in!

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During this season we will be focussing on diversity and specifically, gender diversity.

We will have an array of co-hosts that will appear for a number of episodes each and in this first episode we are delighted to welcome Kelly Molson and Erica Quessenberry to get things started.

In today’s episode we have a general and introductory conversation about the issues at hand and some of our hopes for this season’s discussions.

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Vineeta and Tom Greenwood are the founders of Wholegrain Digital, a WordPress agency in London that are on a mission to create a more sustainable and equitable world. Learn more about the inner workings of Wholegrain Digital, how they screen their clients, recruit their team members, make decisions and how they aim to green the internet. We also discuss their fascinating journey to becoming a B Corp. If you are wondering how you can improve your ethical business standards and be a business that is accountable to the greater good – then this is one inspiring episode you must listen to!

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Kwame Ferreira is CEO of the innovation group Impossible, made up of people who have come together to help solve meaningful problems and guide global change. In our conversation, Kwame explains their culture and the approach that allows them to do some amazing work. We learn more about Impossible’s unique approach to health, happiness and their fundamental value of transparency. Kwame shares Impossible’s interesting co-creation methods. A fascinating episode where we also find out the story behind Kwame’s Ghanaian name and how recruiting great people sometimes means going to Mexican restaurants.

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Matt Collins is the managing director of Platypus Digital, a London based digital marketing agency that helps great charities do great digital. Matt founded Platypus after working in the charity sector and then freelancing for charities. This episode is one of the most perfect examples of the power of agency specialization with a solid set of personal values. Matt describes the amazing benefits this brings for both his agency and his clients and he also does us the honour of not hiding the challenges. We dive into what it means to work in the charity sector and why Matt believes that a shared value is integral to serving your clients.

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On today’s show we host a conversation with Ben Matthews, one of the founders of digital marketing agency Montfort. Montfort focuses on strategy, communication and marketing for clients with a social impact, choosing to work almost exclusively with charities and non-profit organisations. The agency, whose other co-founder is Ben’s wife Jaz, grew organically out of both of their own experience and desire to work in this realm and was a natural step after their prior freelance work. I chat to Ben about Montfort, the reasons for starting it, his hopes for the future and why he is not rushing to make the company any bigger. With lots of insight and helpful advice for others in similar situations, this chat is a must-hear. Whether you are hoping to start your own company, looking for ways to improve an existing one or merely looking for some inspiration to do some good in the world around you, we’ve got you covered.

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Rob Girling is cofounder and principal of Artefact, a 60-person Seattle-based design and innovation consultancy with a purpose to create a world we all want to live in today and tomorrow. In our conversation, Rob shares how this positioning is an evolution both for him personally and for Artefact generally and the importance of the public memo sent out by Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock. He also takes us through the practicalities of serving a social purpose, reiterating there is no quick fix for true, sustainable and meaningful societal change.

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Jonathan Goldford and David Hartstein, co-founders of Wired Impact, chose to forego a large chunk of their potential client base and cater strictly to a specific section of the market, namely the non-profit sector. I chat to David and Jonathan about what inspired this decision and what the ongoing process looks like. It is truly inspiring to hear a story of a passion directing the way a business progresses and leading to particular success. The story of Wired Impact is a great lesson in doubling down on your beliefs and strengths and relinquishing baggage to achieve your ideal business model. David and Jonathan have a wealth of insight and reflective wisdom to share that we cannot wait to impart to our listeners, so tune in.

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Values-driven agency Matter Unlimited, or Matter for short, has a mission to amplify the power of brands and organizations to drive growth and positive change in the world simultaneously. Under founder Rob Holzer’s leadership, Matter has created powerful campaigns for client partners including Facebook, HP, UNICEF, ABC/Disney, NBC Universal, Kimpton and TED. But Rob’s passion and vision for sustainable impact also extends beyond the office. He is also a founding member of The Civic Nation Creative Alliance and serves as an industry expert for the United Nations Media for Social Impact Summit, PopTech, and Social Innovation Summit. In this episode, we discuss the challenges of being an industry trailblazer and the unwavering importance of sticking to your guns. We learn more about the internal processes that take place at Matter, the projects that they do and why all companies need to get their values in check in order to secure their future.

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This week’s guest is Julia Zeltser, Co-Founder and Creative Director of Hyperakt. Julia and her cofounder Deroy Peraza arrived in the US as refugees. She describes being very aware of how lucky they were as a key motivator to start their agency 16 years ago. They describe Hyperakt as a New York social impact design studio that partners with visionary organizations to tell their stories. In this conversation, Julia shares how challenging the early years were, how that changed as the agency matured and how alongside that growth, they have become clearer on their mission, values and company culture. Julia also shares valuable advice on hiring on the basis of passion for social impact, how they manage paid client work and foster a healthy working environment.

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In today’s episode we welcome Eric Verkerke, the co-founder of Emergence Creative, a global creative agency focused on social impact. Eric's career background is as comprehensive as it is impressive, from agricultural research for Oxford University to science journalism for National Public Radio, and from founding a startup medical device company to big agency leadership at McCann Global Health. Despite his success in the industry, Eric decided to found his own agency, motivated by the feeling larger agencies were simply not able to deliver the level of professionalism and impact that he wanted to have for social good initiatives. In this episode, we discuss the constraints that come with working in larger agencies, challenges around the culture of pro bono work for social impact, and how to actualize your values.

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In episode three, I spoke to one of the founders of Radish Lab, Alana. This week, I am delighted to be speaking with her partner, Edward. Edward started in the interactive and web development world as a teen in the '90s and built a career doing work he loved. Despite that, he came to the realization that he couldn’t stand behind all the products and companies he was working for. In this episode, Edward shares how he was able to move from dreaming about to actually founding an agency, the reality of running a profitable and values-driven agency in today’s world, how to look after a team, survive as a business and still have a positive impact on the world. Great pearls of wisdom for anyone in the early stages of starting an agency or who simply wants to take on more value-aligned clients.

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We are joined by Gopika Prabhu, the founder of San Francisco-based design studio, Elefint. Elefint’s mission is to help good causes, which includes nonprofits, B Corps and other changemakers. Gopika created Elefint as a way to bring informed and beautiful design to the social impact space. A hands-on creative, Gopika collaborates with writers, strategists, engineers, and product managers to bring her concepts to life. As head of design at Elefint, she builds and leads a cross-disciplinary creative team while also shaping the visual voice of the studio. Inside this episode, Gopika shares her story of working in an educational nonprofit where she experienced how powerful, articulating clear design is for these organizations and how difficult it can be for them to harness that type of expertise. She then describes how that experience has grown into what Elefint is today. There is so much of value in this conversation. Amongst many other things we touched on Elefint’s design process, thought leadership and events.

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Today on the show we welcome Andrea Henao, the co-founder of 360 Agency Berlin. 360 Agency Berlin is an integrated advertising agency that, beyond their expertise in advertising, are driven by their values, working exclusively with sustainable brands. Andrea shares what led her and her partners to founding the agency, about how vital their values are to the agency and how strong a stance they take. Join in to hear Andrea describe the vetting process they use to select the clients they work with, and talk openly and honestly about how their impact is at least as important as the financial success of the agency. She also dives into how those values drive them to take responsibility for a wider conversation in the industry, which in turn has led to becoming involved in EU initiatives around protecting online buyer’s privacy and supplier workshops in developing countries - all of which makes a much more interesting portfolio than your standard ad agency.

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In previous seasons of this podcast, we touched on the importance of clarity for marketing your agency services and that building trust and long term relationships with your clients is key to building a successful agency. My guest this week is Kerstin Heuer, and she is an excellent example of how doing this in a way that is driven by your own personal values and passions can bring huge benefits to your agency. Kerstin has a huge amount of experience in marketing and in working in and running digital marketing agencies. But this year, she decided to launch a new agency that is totally focused on nonprofits in her adopted home of western Canada. Kerstin is the agency owner of Non-Profit Today and HeuerDesign. They help nonprofit organizations to achieve their mission with digital marketing, branding and graphic design. In today’s episode, Kerstin shares her experience serving in the non-profit niche, and what it is like to work with those types of clients on a long-term basis. We also dive into the importance of hiring for fit, focusing on matching the values of your company with the values of your employees, and really finding ways to make an impact in the non-profit space.

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Today on the show we welcome on William Stubbs, founder of Spur:Labs and an experienced strategy and innovation consultant, with a passion for behavioural design and systems thinking based approaches to social change. His journey to agency life started with a nonprofit foundation created to tackle a tough issue in an even tougher market - talking suicide and mental health with males aged 18 to 44 in Australia. William and his co-founder launched the business with a very clearly defined set of values and a mission to not only continue to build in the success of their own foundation but also to use their experiences and skills to help others plan, design, implement and measure campaigns to, in his words, make the world better, better in a real way. The genesis of Spur:Labs is a fascinating story and one that seems so different to the founding of the other values-driven agencies I’ve spoken to so far in this season. There is so much in his words that can and will inspire and encourage all of us, no matter where we are on this journey with our own agencies.

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In this episode, we are joined by Alana Range. Alana is a designer, photographer, digital storyteller, and founder of Radish Lab. Radish Lab is an award-winning, full-service interactive creative agency focused on design for social impact. They help social change-makers and organizations create and tell compelling digital stories that deeply engage their audiences. The team at Radish is made up of people who genuinely love what they do and who they work with. They are innovative designers, masters of collaboration, and full of good ideas. In today’s episode Alana shares her story of building a successful creative agency with us. We also dive into her passionate, yet grounded in the real world, insights behind the joys and the challenges of running an agency facing a conflict between pure profit and positive impact.

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Today on the podcast we welcome Matt Schwartz. Matt is the Founder and Executive Director of Constructive, a social change brand strategy and experience design firm in New York City. The company works exclusively with non-profits and educational institutions. Matt’s background is in digital design and creative writing, having worked early in his career for a big international agency. Then about 20 years ago, he set out to create his own company run with a different set of rules. He has a passion for uniting strategy, content, design, and technology to help organizations advance missions that drive positive social, economic, and environmental change. Inside this episode, Matt shares how he views working with non-profits as a kind of paid PhD for how the world works. He describes how the work Constructive does is able to make an impact at scale, even though they are not directly working where, as he says, “the rubber hits the road.”

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In this week’s episode, we welcome Bill Barbot. Bill is one of the founders of Threespot, an independent digital agency that is hell-bent on helping those, and only those, who are committed to helping others. Founded in 1999 based in Washington DC, Threespot have come to realize that they value doing work that matters more than awards, accolades or cold, hard cash and in this episode, Bill shares his and the agency’s journey to this point. Threespot have an incredibly clear understanding of their "why," and in this episode Bill shares insight valuable for anyone looking at how to be genuinely true to their values as they build a successful business.

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Welcome back to the final episode of HappyPorchRadio season 2.

Season 2 has been all about Umbraco, the friendly CMS. We’ve heard from a number of agency owners, developers, designers and other experts. It has been a really fun season and, I hope, you have found it valuable as I have!

For this last episode I have invited two good friends, Carole Logan and Ondrej Pialek, to share their experiences at CodeGarden - which is the biggest Umbraco event of the year.

Carole is a web developer based in Glasgow, Scotland - she’s meet up organizer, blogger, event speaker, is very active in the Umbraco community and is generally an all round inspiring person. Ondrej is a key part of the team here are Endzone - he’s an Umbraco package developer who cares deeply about using technology for social good.

It’s a real honor for me to have them both on the show and sharing our experiences at CodeGarden.

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Welcome to episode 15 of season 2 of HappyPorchRadio!

Season 2 is all about Umbraco, and sadly we are nearly at the end of the season - but fortunately we have 2 (actually 3) amazing guests on the show this week!

We are continuing our journey with two very different conversations from two Umbraco focused agencies.

First you will hear from Josh Seifert and Catherine Stevens, who are project manager and front end dev respectively in an agency called ProWorks. Josh and Catherine share their prospective and learnings from working “at the coal face” with ProWorks, plus they talk about a presentation they did, discussing Wordpress and Umbraco, at this years uWestFest Umbraco festival. One of the really valuable aspects of this conversation, for me, is the emphasis that put on the editor experience.

You will also hear from Mark Mars, who founded the agency Perceptive Flow. Mark shares the story of his agency and shares some really valuable insights. We also touched on one of my favourite topics - ongoing support and retainers!

Many, many thanks to Mark, Josh and Catherine for giving us their time and valuable insights.

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Welcome to another episode of HappyPorchRadio, season 2.

Season 2 is all about Umbraco, the friendly CMS. In this episode we are talking community.

As web agencies we make extensive use of open source tools to help bout our businesses and our clients' businesses succeed. One of the most intriguing aspects of successful open source projects, like Umbraco, is the vital part that community plays. And I am very interested in the huge effort that many individuals put into supporting and growing these communities.

So, this week, I am delighted to be speaking to two stalwarts of the Umbraco community: Ravi Motha and Warren Buckley.

First up is Warren, who has been involved with Umbraco pretty much from the start. Warren shares his story and the genesis of uHangouts - which was (and soon may be again) a awesome platform for the Umbraco community.

Next we speak to Ravi, who is one of the key people behind the London Umbraco community and the regular meet ups there. Ravi shares his personal story and then we really dig into the challenges of running a regular community meet up.

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Welcome to another episode of HappyPorchRadio season 2 - the season that is all about Umbraco!

This week we meet another cool agency - Cypha Interactive - who are based in Sydney, Australia. You'll hear from Daniel Christos, who founded Cypha 4 years ago.

Amongst a number of other topics, we discuss why they use Umbraco, the different types of projects where they have found Umbraco a great fit, the challenges of using Umbraco and much more.

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Welcome back to HappyPorchRadio!

This is episode 12 of season 2 which, as you know, is all about Umbraco!

In this episode we hear from 2 Umbraco developers. First up is Blake Clerke. who is an Umbraco developer based in Denver. We talk about her transition from design to coding, the differences between Umbraco v4 and v7, getting involved in local meet ups and then we dive deep into the processes and challenges of supporting, upgrading and maintaining Umbraco sites.

You will also hear from Myke Bates, who is senior web developer at a agency called The Alchemedia Project based in Missouri.

Myke & I talk about why he loves Umbraco, the positives and the challenges of working with Umbraco and he shares the story of “The Alchemedia Project”. We also talk about how the agency does ongoing support, upgrades and maintenance - all of which I find fascinating to hear a different perspective on.

I really want to thank both Myke and Blake for joining me on the show - it’s a real honour to be able to share their stories and insights.

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Welcome back to another episode of HappyPorchRadio. This is episode 11 of season 2 - which is all about Umbraco!

In this episode we hear from two different people in different roles in one agency.

First you will hear from Nick Durrant, who is MD of Bluegrass Digital. Nick very generously shares the story of an established, successful agency and the role Umbraco plays for them.

Later on in the episode, you will hear from Jacques Nel - a developer with Bluegrass - as he shares his story of being a developer and gives us an insight into Umbraco development in the agency.

It is really cool to hear from two people within the same agency - and I’m really grateful to both Nick and Jacques for sharing their stories.

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Welcome back to season 2 of Happy Porch Radio.

As you know season 2 is all about Umbraco and one of the most common requests we have had is for interesting case studies or stories from Umbraco “in the wild”. And we have a great example coming up for you.

On this episode, I am absolutely delighted to introduce Dann Sheridan. Dan is responsible for e-commerce in a global division of a large multi-national - in fact the 3rd largest information services company in the world.

Dann shares the story of their multi-year project to pull a complex and disparate collection of technologies across the globe into a common digital marketing and sales solution - a solution that depends upon Umbraco - and specifically Umbraco cloud.

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Welcome back, once more, to HappyPorchRadio. This is episode 9 of Season 2 which is all about Umbraco.

In the last few episodes we have had some really insightful conversations with agencies and in this episode we shift gears slightly to talk about the Umbraco community.

In this episode I speak to the inspiring team behind skrift.io : the monthly magazine for sharing knowledge in the Umbraco community.

We talk about how and why they put so much passion into Skrift and the role of the Umbraco community in their professional lives.

One of the most important parts of this conversation, I feel, is how valuable it is, as an agency leader, to allow and encourage your team to take part in the wider community. Local meet ups, conferences and relevant festivals are an important part of the continuous improvement of you, your team and therefore your agency.

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Hello and welcome to another episode of HappyPorchRadio.

This is episode 8 of season 2 and, as you know, season 2 is all about Umbraco - the friendly CMS.

In this show I speak to Aaron & Dane from BKA Digital Outfitters an Umbraco Gold Partner agency in Auckland, New Zealand.

There are two really interesting aspects of our conversation that I hope you find especially valuable. The first is the story about how the agency grew a product from the experiences and the challenges they faced with client work. The product is called “The Mirror”, its purpose is to assist in scaling Umbraco web sites to the very large. The second aspect is how BKA “sell” their expertise and not the platform.

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Welcome back to HappyPorchRadio, season 2.

In this episode I speak to Nicholas Westby, an experienced Umbraco developer who works with a company called Rhythm Agency, in California.

Nicholas shares his story and that of Rhythm Agency.

Amongst many other topics we talk about the Umbraco form builder package he created - Formulate - and how the agency supported him in the development of this open source project.

It is really fascinating to learn about both his interaction with the wider Umbraco/open source community and the interaction of the Agency as a whole.

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Welcome back to Season 2 of Happy Porch Radio.

One of the most fun things about doing this show is speaking to really amazing Agency professionals and hearing the fascinating stories of different agencies & - crucially - learning so much from the insights they share.

So, in this episode, I am very pleased to be able to introduce Elizabeth Gibbons to you.

Elizabeth is Business Development Manager at (zero)seven, a digital development house in the heart of Brisbane, Australia.

I really enjoyed hearing the story of (zero)seven (another agency that had a custom CMS back in the day!) and how they where solely focused on Umbraco for many years and have now expanded to use other platforms as well.

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Welcome back to another episode of HappyPorchRadio, season 2!

In this episode of HappyPorchRadio we get to hear from two people at two different agencies from very different parts of the world, as they share two stories with a great many parallels: Steve Mathew from Fireworkx agency in South Africa and Steve Rooke from Rade Digital in England.

I hear similar stories a lot from agencies who have been around long enough. Back in those heady wild west days of the late 90’s and early 2000’s many agencies where building custom CMS-like functionality as the great platforms (like Umbraco) didn’t exist or where just not a viable option.

Many of us built solid businesses alongside creating our own CMS products. But times change, and for most agencies that just isn’t a sensible route today.
Both of these agencies have been around for, in internet terms, a really long time and both have transitioned from their own CMS platform to using Umbraco. They kindly agreed to share their stories with us.

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Welcome back to another episode of Happy Porch Radio, season 2!

One of the items that came up quite a lot in the Umbraco CMS in Business Survey we did before the start of this season was e-commerce.

In future episodes we will speak to agency leaders who have built successful eCommerce projects on Umbraco, but in this episode we have the pleasure of hearing from Søren Spelling Lund, who is the founder of one of the main commerce platforms in the Umbraco ecosystem - uCommerce.

On this episode, Søren shares his wealth of ecommerce experience and how his drive & passion helped him though the tough process of building a product business to the international success that is uCommerce today.

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Jessica Rowe is a veteran lead generation and digital marketing professional. She has extensive experience serving as a marketing technologist and running high velocity lead generation efforts from both the agency and client sides. As the Director of Marketing for a mortgage company, she is responsible for the development, execution and measurement of all digital marketing strategies and tactics for the mortgage division.
Jessica has 2 years of experience working with Umbraco and has implemented Umbraco as the CMS to support her digital strategy at two separate banks. [/su_box]

Welcome back to Happy Porch Radio, season 2. In this episode I’m delighted to be able to share the story of choosing Umbraco from the other side of an agency relationship - the client.

Jessica Rowe is an experienced Director of Digital Marketing and has twice selected Umbraco for large digital projects. We talk a little about her background and the skill set she has built up over the years - and then she shares the story of how and why she selected Umbraco.

She very candidly talks about how a previous negative agency experience completely changed the way she approaches these projects, and then we really dig deep into the exact process she used to identify first Umbraco and then an agency.

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Welcome back to Season 2 of Happy Porch Radio. Season 2 is all about Umbraco and the web agency ecosystem. In particular, we are interested in how powerful, open-source technologies like Umbraco fit into and impact our agencies.

Throughout this season, I'll be speaking to agency leaders, developers, designers and Umbraco experts about the business challenges, the opportunities, the people, the community, and much more.

To tell that story, we need to start at the beginning. Niels Hartvig is the founder of Umbraco. On this week's episode, I'll speak to Niels about how Umbraco began in the early 2000's, how it has changed and grown over the years, and his vision for the future.

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A few months back, I was excited to be featured on Lee Jackson's WP Innovator Podcast talking about creating retainers for your agency. On this week's episode, I am even more excited to have Lee Jackson on our show. Lee joins us this week to talk about his agency and how he builds long-term client relationships, as well as a community beyond his clients that provides real value to everyone involved.

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Welcome back to episode 8 of Happy Porch Radio. Growth Driven Design has been mentioned a couple of times on this show already - both Karl Sagas and Matt Hodkinson talked about how much impact it can have for any Agency. Luke Summerfield is the force behind Growth Driven Design at Hubspot and it is an incredible honour to have him on the show this week to tell us all about this powerful system for rethinking the traditional web design project.

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Welcome back to episode 7 of Happy Porch Radio. In this episode, I am going to be sharing a little bit of my own story of running an agency for 15 years in Edinburgh. I'll also be explaining why I think gardening is a really great analogy for some of the things we've been talking about in Season 1. You'll also hear some of the most valuable lessons that I learned from all of those years of running a web agency.

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There were a few hidden gems in Episode 2 of Happy Porch Radio that just didn't make the cut. We thought some of the information that Janusz Stabik shared was so valuable that we decided to create a bonus episode. These few gems about the growing pains that come with an expanding digital agency are too good to miss.

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Welcome back to episode 6 of Happy Porch Radio. In this episode, we get an incredible insight into how powerful it can be to change your agency's mindset from project-based to a more retainer-based model. Matt Hodkinson is the CEO of Influence Agents, an inbound content marketing agency. Matt very clearly articulates why you would want to follow this path, along with some very specific and actionable approaches to this model.

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Welcome back to episode 5 of Happy Porch Radio. This week, you'll be hearing from Karl Sakas, an agency consultant who has worked with a great number of digital agencies all over the world. This episode is packed with absolute gold for any agency. Karl's work focuses on helping digital agencies grow at an accelerated rate, without the usual growing pains. The information, the systems and the advice that he shares in this conversation are truly invaluable.

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In this episode, we look at the challenges of creating recurring revenue. Philip Morgan has literally wrote the book on positioning. He is incredibly generous about sharing his personal story about a failed recurring service, the lessons he learned from that experience, and how those lessons can be applied to our agencies.

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Welcome back to Episode 3 of Happy Porch Radio. This episode is all about avoiding the feast and famine cycle that so many agencies struggle with, and how to foster long term client relationships. Matt Inglot of FreelanceTransformation.com is a genuine master at this. You will hear Matt share some invaluable insights on how he has made a career out of his web agency for the last ten years, as well as how he was able to transform his own agency into a powerful and consistent business machine.

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Welcome back to episode 2 of Happy Porch Radio. In this episode, we will look into the practicalities of providing support and maintenance services. I'll be speaking with Janusz Stabik, who will be sharing some powerful lessons from his work with Bristol-based agency Mayfly. You'll hear about some of their most successful decisions and some of the complications that came along with them as well.

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We’re delighted and honoured to have you join us for the very first episode of Happy Porch Radio. Season one is going to be all about the long haul. We’re going to be digging deep into how to build long-term client relationships, recurring revenue, repeat business, and more. On today’s episode, we’ve invited Brennan Dunn on to the show to talk all about the ins and outs of recurring revenue and how the concept of productized services can fit into our agencies.

Happy Porch Radio: Recent Episodes

Barry O'Kane