#ActBeyond with Andrea Schneller I Founder & Circular Economy Lead

Andrea is the type of person who is not afraid to ask the really big questions. At the beginning of her academic and professional life, she started out with an open mind and broad vision, looked at many things and quickly discovered her love for innovation. Her career so far tells the story of an idealist who doesn’t get tired of change and has let fate carry her a bit along the way. Today, she is not only the founder of the circular economy tech startup numi.circular, but also the initiator of Circular Munich - the collaborative hub to help the city of Munich to become a circular city. What remains after my interview with her is pure energy and the question: What am I doing for a better tomorrow?

How did you find your Why? Or rather, what drives you personally to dedicate yourself full-time and with all your commitment to the Circular Economy?

In fact, my path is more of a journey and I also think that it never ends. But maybe a step back: where do I come from? Originally, I studied economics and always wanted to understand what's behind everything. What are the connections or how does the system work? I am convinced that you can only change things that you understand in some way. Change and, as a result, innovation have been a clear red thread through my career so far. 

Even during my studies, I was involved with business model design, such as Osterwalder's famous canvas, but it took me a while to understand what I could do in the innovation environment. I was then lucky enough to gain insights into Venture Building and agile methods at the end of my studies and work there for a while. That was a good foundation for me. I was able to understand what are the tools and methods that you can use to initiate change in companies but also in people. I noticed in many projects with SMEs and large corporates that change always has very human aspects, combined with a lot of emotions and fears. It doesn't matter whether it's about digitalization or sustainability. For me, it was a natural process to ask myself “What are the levers for innovation in the first place?” and from there the question "What kind of innovations do we actually want?" 

That's how I came to sustainability. After all, digitization for the sake of digitization should never be the goal. The decisive factor was my pragmatic view of things to understand how sustainable innovations can be promoted in companies. During this, I looked at various approaches, including those of the Circular Economy, and was simply perplexed. On the one hand, because the concept actually is so simple, and on the other hand, because it suddenly opens up so many new possibilities and concrete approaches to rethink and innovate.  

You are co-initiator of Circular Munich, what is behind it and how did the idea for the collaborative hub come to life?

In fact, Circular Munich grew out of my personal research around the topic. I started from a relatively high altitude as a program participant at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, one of the flagship learning programs around the Circular Economy, with about 400 others from all over the world. Every week, I had various virtual coffee dates with other participants, from Hong Kong over the US to Munich. During the program, I then started to break down the topic and action items for myself. 

That's how I became aware that it's already a huge topic at EU level. The Circular Economy Action Plan is part of the European Green Deal. At that time, I was already thinking to myself, “Wow, how could I not have seen this before?” So, I tried to break it down further and asked myself “What is actually happening in Germany?” And when I couldn't really find anything, I turned to my home, Munich. “Okay, what's happening in my city?" This is where I was taken aback, because even though Munich has decided to become a Circular City in 2020, I couldn't find anything about how the city actually wanted to achieve that. Through my research, I then gradually got to know the various stakeholders who had been positively advocating for the circular economy for many years before anyone put it on the agenda.

Together with Bas, whom I met at the EllenMacArthur Foundations Course and who happened to live in Munich like me, we decided to start an informal meetup series around Circular Economy in Munich. I just invited a few people where I thought might fit (laughs). Surprisingly, it worked out pretty well. Right after our first meetup, there were about four other people who also wanted to get started and actively shape a circular future for Munich. Then it almost took on a life of its own. After a short time we became the 10 to 12 people who formed the core of Circular Munich.

After that we contacted city officials and universities, professionalized our web presence... and although we had the feeling that we were just a loose group of people with the same purpose, suddenly organizations and people from outside approached us. There has been a huge amount of interest since we officially got together. That's also a learning that I want to share. Even though it may not be much yet, let the world know, because that's the only way others can become aware of you and start a new conversation. 

How do you succeed in building an ecosystem that can take action? What tips would you give to other pioneers with similar plans (in other cities)? 

For me personally, it was extremely valuable to identify the Circular Economy as a personal relevant topic and to fully identify with it. Focus is the key to real impact and visibility. Because for me, that is also the essence of how ecosystems or networks should work. In terms of Circular Munich, once the core team had formed and we had sorted ourselves out, it helped us to formalize our efforts and set up a non-profit association to give the whole initiative an organizational framework. This also allowed us to welcome new members. Since the beginning of this year, we have grown to around 40 members. However, we are not a classic association and try very hard to establish good structures. For example, we have given ourselves OKRs to better track impact and make successes visible. 

It's good to see that our members bring very diverse backgrounds to our working groups, which is what the topic needs. We need to think more holistically about topics that have previously only been considered in silos. Especially in the context of cities, that is crucial. What we have noticed is that many expats and internationals living in Munich want to get actively involved, but in the past could only find offers in German (if at all). Bas comes from the Netherlands, so even as a founding team we intuitively decided to do everything in English. That automatically opened the space for people from all over the world and their views. 

Ultimately, however, in addition to structures, it always boils down to people. It needs people who invest their time and passion. It doesn't work without investment. In my experience, you must start with the people and build up a solid connection first, to see "Do we want the same thing?" and "Do we have the same core values?" If this connection is strong, you also go through more difficult phases together.  

My last advice would be to just get going and show initiative. Just do it! What we are often asked about, for example, is our Ecosystem Map, which we are continuously expanding. And quite honestly, that's really not rocket science! But we realized that we needed a tool to visualize what is already there and started with that. Since then, the map has been growing and has already led to valuable connections, such as cooperation requests or event invitations. In the meantime, we are in close exchange with the city of Munich, but this only came about when I quite boldly approached the city with the info "Hello, here we are! How can we work together?" In summary, I would say it's a mix of positive drive, transparency, participation opportunities, and pragmatism.

[...] it always boils down to people. It needs people who invest their time and passion. It doesn't work without investment. In my experience, you must start with the people and build up a solid connection first, [...] If this connection is strong, you also go through more difficult phases together.  

If readers come from the Munich area and want to get involved, how can they get involved?  

There are two approaches here. One, in my opinion, is first self-reflection and thinking about what you bring to the table. Something that many people often overlook is that they could already do something. For example, if someone is good at nutrition, they could think about how they can add value in this field of expertise. This could be a free seminar on the topic of regional food. We have a blockchain expert in our network who simply initiated a discussion about possibibilities of blockchain in the context of the Circular Economy. Perfect! Maybe something new was already created here? 

In the second step, you can then contact us if you are looking for a larger framework for your personal contribution. At Circular Munich, we have created three levels where people can then get involved. It starts with our ambassadors, who carry our messages into their network or, the other way around, new impulses into our teams. If you want to become more active, you can simply look at your personal topic and see if we already have existing working groups. In the case of nutrition, for example, there is already a working group of food pioneers who work together. And if there is no concrete working group yet for your thematic focus, then you can also start a new working group. This is especially important to us, because in essence we don't want to dictate what our topics are, simply because the Circular Economy can be viewed from so many angles. The goal is that we have at least three people in a circle. For this, we also help to get people connected and bring more people on board.

You are co-founder of numi.circular, a circular economy startup that allows brands to set up individual and automated product take back programs. In your experience, what do big corporates need now to make sustainability and circular economy a reality?

As a consultant at the intersection of innovation and sustainability, I kept noticing that I was never around long enough to experience real impact. You get heard, but then important issues fall behind in day-to-day business. At some point, I realized that this is not the greatest leverage I can have. I'm all about solutions, and it often really frustrated me to never get there. So, I wanted to create the solution on my own in order to get back and say "Hey, look, you have this problem. I've got the solution. Let's make it happen!"  

My impulse was just, if not now when? Knowing that I basically have everything in my own hands was a good but at the same time very challenging experience. Because I not only had to deal intensively with the topic, but also very much with myself. After many explorations, I then realized again and again that I was reaching the same point. I realized that in many places we already have the right structures for economic cycles, but on the other hand that also means we must be able to close those cycles. Right now, we mainly have strong upstream supply chains, where product insights and data often stop with the sale of the product. Companies often lack insight into the use phase, let alone the knowledge of how long their products are actually used or what customers will do with them afterwards. This is where numi.circular comes in. If we aim to close these loops, we have to return products at some point. And for this, we need an infrastructure. numi.circular provides the digital infrastructure that companies need in order to take their own products back in the first step, to extend their lifespan in a circular sense (re-commerce) or to reuse parts and resources and return them into the cycle. 

With numi.circular, we are currently still in the innovation environment, but we are clearly noticing that a change in thinking is being forced by politics. Especially in the next one to two years, as with the reusable law from 2023, we will see more regulations. My experience with large companies simply is that with their mainly linear and profit-driven way of thinking, a regulatory push can be a huge driver for the adoption of sustainable and circular approaches. At the same time, it must be said that many structures and partners are simply missing. Keyword refurbishment. This entire industry is only just developing, because refurbishers on this scale were simply not needed in the past. We are now in a phase where we can still experiment and try things out before many companies need to scale quickly. That's why I'm consciously focusing on visibility and education with numi.circular. To this end, I have been on the road a lot in the past year in particular, speaking publicly on the subject, which ultimately also led us to our first customers. And this brings us back to the core of why we need innovation ecosystems - because this is the only way change can work. You have to find the people and early pioneers who are willing to shape change at a certain point in time. 

My experience with large companies simply is that with their mainly linear and profit-driven way of thinking, a regulatory push can be a huge driver for the adoption of sustainable and circular approaches.

Since it requires so many structures, the Circular Economy only makes sense as an ever evolving ecosystem. It would be total nonsense if everyone set up their own refurbishment, for instance. It would make much more sense to join forces in associations or joint ventures. In recent weeks, for example, the Mehrwegverband Deutschland (German Reusable Packaging Association) has been officially founded, and they are thinking about areas such as joint rinsing logistics. And since these structures are needed on a broad scale, associations are simply necessary. Therefore, numi.circular is also part of Circular Futures, which bundles more than 100 initiatives from the DACH region.

Thank you Andrea for the interview and all the pioneering work in Munich and beyond!

Give this interview a thumbs up and follow Andrea for latest news around Circular Economy: her LinkedIn profile.

Relevant resources

• Circular Munich
• numi.circular
• Ellen MacArthur Foundation
• EU Circular Economy Action Plan
• European Green Deal
• Mehrwegverband Deutschland 
• Circular Futures