Thursday 9 July I spent the whole day at the City of Gosnells Civic Centre for the Circular Futures Forum, an annual event run by Switch Your Thinking, and I came away buzzing (and exhausted). Around 65 people filled the room for a full day on circular economy and sustainable procurement, and it was easily one of the best-attended and most engaged events I have been part of.
I wore a few different hats on the day. I MCed the whole event from start to finish, helped bring together a fantastic line-up of speakers by drawing on my own network, gave a talk of my own, and moderated the afternoon panel. It was a full-on day, and a genuinely challenging yet satisfying one.
Who was in the room
The Forum is Switch Your Thinking‘s annual event for their member councils, and this year it was opened up to non-members too. The turnout reflected just how much interest there is in this space right now. We had representatives from more than 19 councils across WA, including a delegation from as far away as the Shire of Serpentine Jarradale, which tells you circular economy thinking is finally entering the mainstream conversation – some council now have a Circularity Lead position. The rest of the room was made up of entrepreneurs and business owners already doing the work of building a more circular WA.
South East Regional Energy Group Chair and City of Armadale Mayor, Ruth Butterfield kicked things off with a warm welcome, before Switch Your Thinking Coordinator Kerry Wilson set the scene for the day, and then it was over to me to keep things moving as MC.
The programme
The line-up covered a lot of ground. Rebecca Brown and Conor MacGill from WALGA opened with a session on local government advocacy for circularity, followed by Amanda Branley (The Procurement Coach) on embedding sustainability into every procurement decision. Adrienna Zsakay (Circular Economy Asia) shared insights from her analysis of circular economy activity across WA, and Wayde Clews (PalletON) spoke on closing the loop on timber pallets. I rounded out the morning with my own session on local solutions and global lessons in the circular economy.
After lunch, Josh Hopkins (Open Corridor) shared evidence-based tools for building circular cities, before the part of the day I was most looking forward to: moderating the panel Better Together: Building a Local Circular Economy. I was joined by Adrienna Zsakay, Samuel Thomas (Sam’s Spares), Mia Pitassi (Skipping Stones Refillery), Amanda Branley and Wayde Clews, and the conversation was one of the real highlights of the day, honest and practical, with plenty of back and forth between local government and business perspectives.
Ceri Price from the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation gave us a general outlook on WA’s new waste strategy and what it is likely to mean for local government, before Joni Sercombe (Good Together) closed the day with an interactive workshop that had the whole room up and moving, working through practical “opportunity loops” in their own organisations. A great way to end a long day on a high.
Walking the talk
It would not be much of a circular economy event if we did not practise what we preach. Catering on the day was vegetarian and waste was kept to a minimum, and I composted the small amount of organic waste that was generated on site through Donut Waste.
What’s next
Early feedback from the day has been overwhelmingly positive, and I could not be happier with how it all came together. Big thanks to Kerry Wilson and the Switch Your Thinking team for having me on board to MC, moderate and present, to Mayor Terresa Lynes and the City of Gosnells for hosting us, and to everyone who came along and made the day what it was.
If you would like me to bring this kind of energy to your own event, whether that is MCing, facilitating a panel, running a workshop, or helping with creating circular economy solutions, get in touch and let’s chat.
