Peter works for the umbrella organisation for consumer groups around the world, building a safer, fairer and more sustainable marketplace for everyone. He is responsible for developing and delivering innovative and impactful programmes on issues facing consumers related to sustainable consumption, food, energy and product safety, as well as wider consumer insights. Prior to this he was head of sustainability policy at the British Retail Consortium (BRC) and was responsible for the development and delivery of the industry's sustainable and ethical trade policies, including the climate action roadmap for the UK retail sector. He is a trustee of the charity Focus on Labour Exploitation (FLEX) and was co-chair of the UK Home Office's group fighting modern slavery.
Matthew has worked in the circular economy field for over 10 years, advising businesses, cities and national governments. He believes strongly that material management is the crucial topic of our time and works to bring indicators and insights to help decision makers steer toward a circular economy.
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Peter Tom Jones
Director
KU Leuven Institute for Sustainable Metals and Minerals (SIM²)
Jones heads an interdisciplinary team of more than 250 researchers focusing on the exploration, extraction, processing, refining and recycling of the energy-transition metals that are essential for a sustainable society. He has been working in this field for over 20 years, since completing his PhD in metallurgy in 2001. Jones is also the co-founder of KU Leuven’s SOLVOMET Research & Innovation Centre, a platform that provides (circular) hydrometallurgy expertise to industrial partners. Jones has been a coordinator or partner in more than 30 EU-funded projects on sustainable metallurgy and critical raw materials. Additionally, he is the author of several books, including “Terra Incognita”, “Klimaatcrisis”, and “Terra Reversa”, as well as presenter of documentaries including “Responsible mining in Europe”, “Made in Europe: from mine to Electric Vehicle”, “The Sámi Perspective” and “Europe's Mining Renaissance”.
Bahar Koyuncu leverages her 15 years’ experience in research and development, and sustainability policy to support the transition to a circular economy. She holds a double major in chemical engineering and chemistry and an MSc in sustainable development and management. She strongly believes in the role science and multistakeholder collaboration play to enable the transition to a circular economy.
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Daniel Martín-Montalvo Alvarez
Head, Clean and Circular Economy
European Environment Agency (EEA)
Daniel has dedicated the last 20 years to environment and climate policy, mainly with a European Union focus. He began in environmental consultancy, followed by regulatory work in Spain's industrial sector. Later, he joined the European Commission, focusing on industrial policy within the Directorate General Environment. Currently, Daniel leads a team at the EEA, working on the transition to a circular economy and zero-pollution goals.
Hilde van Duijn believes that to drive the transition to a global circular economy at the speed and scale necessary, transnational cooperation and public-private partnerships across global value chains are essential. At Circle Economy, she leads the work throughout global value chains, with the aim of empowering manufacturers, buyers and end-of-use processors to adopt circular practices.
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Paul Ekins
Professor of Resources and Environmental Policy
University College London (UCL)
Paul Ekins has a PhD in economics from the University of London and is professor at the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources. In 2011 he was appointed vice-chairman of the DG Environment Commissioner’s High-Level Economists Expert Group on Resource Efficiency, and in 2012 a member of the European Commission’s European Resource Efficiency Platform. In 2013 he was appointed to UNEP’s International Resource Panel (IRP), for whom he was lead author of a major report on resource efficiency at the request of the German Government at the G7 Summit in 2015. He is now lead coordinating author for a forthcoming IRP report on critical minerals. He was one of two co-chairs of UNEP’s sixth Global Environment Outlook (GEO-6), published in March 2019. In 1994 Paul received UNEP’s Global 500 Award for outstanding environmental achievement and in 2015 an OBE for services to environmental policy.
Jack Kimani is the founder of CAP-A, a novel platform of initiatives focusing on climate action opportunities as drivers of economic growth in Africa. He has over 20 years’ corporate finance and development experience working across sub-Saharan Africa, North America and South-East Asia for major multinational organisations. While traveling regularly across the globe, Kimani has mainly been based in Malawi, Rwanda and Kenya for significant periods. He holds an economics degree and is an MBA graduate from the University of Wisconsin.
Tim works as a circular economy specialist at Sitra. His key topic of interest is how the circular economy can tackle biodiversity loss and how we could build a circular bioeconomy. Having studied environmental management and policy and languages in five different countries, Tim began exploring the circular economy framework towards the end of his studies in Lund. Upon graduating he started working in the UK for the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, where he researched the landscape of the circular economy, in which Finland stood out as a clear frontrunner. The foundation’s China programme also took Tim back to Beijing, where he stayed to work on environmental affairs at the Embassy of Sweden.
In his current position at Sitra, Markus leads the Nature and daily life project, which promotes change towards a more sustainable life in two ways: by inspiring people to make sustainable choices in their everyday lives and by making these changes visible at a societal level for decision makers. Before joining Sitra, Markus worked for 20 years in industry in various notable corporate responsibility positions; among them he has served as the global sustainability chief of Nokia.
