Circular Economy

On this episode of HappyPorch Radio, Elaine Brown of The Edinburgh Remakery explains how a shop combining tech and textiles on Leith's high street became Scotland's leading social ITAD, turning donated laptops into green jobs, community connection and a genuine, lasting fix for digital poverty.

After ten seasons of HappyPorch Radio, I’ve noticed the same themes coming up again and again. Technology matters, but it’s only part of the story. The circular economy is being built through people, collaboration, changing behaviours and plenty of experimentation. Here are some of the lessons I’ve learned from listening to the conversations.

How Upkept turned a workforce development insight into a growing repair business, building its own software as it figures out how to scale on its own terms. In this HappyPorch Radio episode, co-founders Robin Atkinson and Cash Acrey talk to Barry about skilled trades, coding with AI, and centralised repair.

What your kitchen bin isn't telling you, yet. Orbisk CEO Anastasia Dellis talks to Barry O'Kane about the camera and scale quietly watching every discard in a commercial kitchen, and why the real work starts once that data reaches the chef, the CFO and the sustainability team, each in a form they can actually use.

Secondsense founder Chris Lucas built his first prototype at Harvard, and a single TikTok crashed it overnight. On HappyPorch Radio, he tells Barry O'Kane why AI has made software cheap, leaving data and expertise as tech's real moat.  We discuss how craft, sustainability and ambition still shape what gets built.

Digital enablers are vital to the circular economy, but the work often happens in silos, unseen by other sectors doing the same. The Circular Tech Map is our way of sharing and supporting that innovation. This time, Repair: the companies building the digital layer around it, from booking platforms to product passports and repair knowledge.

Dsposal's Tom Passmore joins HappyPorch Radio on a decade of UK waste data, the shift from 'where did it go' to 'why did it change', and why the technology is the easy bit. The real bottleneck is getting people to ask better questions of the data they already have, and then actually do something with the answers.

Kolekt's founder spent a fortnight riding with informal waste collectors before writing a line of code. The technology that followed, an app, then an offline payment platform, was shaped entirely by what he learned on those rides. A story about why context has to come before the tech, and what happens when it does.

Amelia Woodley and Vin Sharma join HappyPorch Radio to explore why circular transitions so often stall. From Amelia's logic versus magic framework to Vin's three-stage model of organisational change, the episode makes a compelling case that bringing people with you isn't the soft part of the work; it's the hardest.

From Dutch hospitals to buyers in Syria, Green Pulse is building something rare: a circular business where commercial and sustainable genuinely reinforce each other. This conversation covers trust, purposeful AI, aligned incentives, and an uncomfortable truth about medical equipment donation.