Circular Economy Startup Meetups #July2021| by Boomerang Labs

The Role of Councils in accelerating a Circular Economy

Cities consume over 75% of natural resources, produce over 50% of global waste, and emit between 60-80% of greenhouse gases and by 2050, two thirds of us will call cities home. However, our urban centres are grappling with the effects of our current take-make-waste economy.

A Circular Economy (CE) on the other hand provides the opportunity to rethink how we make and use the things we need, allows us to explore new products & services, challenge incumbent business models and offer new ways of creating value.

This requires grappling with these issue to co-design solutions with a wide group of stakeholders including local communities, start-ups, academia and businesses.

Debbie O’Byrne

Debbie has been involved in the Circular Economy space for many years, having made it the focus of her MBA Master’s thesis.

Over the past few years she has been working with a range of government organisations, research institutes and with large corporates to integrate Circular Economy principles into the redesign of their business strategy.

Debbie was involved in hosting the first international Pacific Circular Economy Summit in NZ.

She has recently taken up a Circular Economy Lead role at Lake Macquarie Council where she is working on projects related to policy, material flows and post-coal economic development, incorporating an indigenous perspective into the council’s Circular Economy Framework.

Debbie has recently been appointed to the College of Assessors as a CE expert for the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment in NZ assessing CE related funding applications and also as a Named Affiliate to the University of Newcastle.