TRANSCRIPTION

Salto Talks – Episode 3: Alexandra Davidsson

A special episode and the guest

Piotr Nejman: Hello everyone and welcome to Salto Talks, a podcast about innovation in business and beyond. This is a special episode for many reasons. It’s the first episode recorded in English, and it’s targeted at a global audience, because the topic we’ll be covering today is super important.

It’s also special because for the first time we won’t be talking about innovation that helps us grow faster, but about innovation that challenges how we think about growth in the first place. My guest today is Alexandra Davidsson. Hello, Alexandra.

Alexandra Davidsson: Hi, nice to be here.

Piotr Nejman: Alexandra is a co-founder of Circular Monday, the largest campaign for circular consumption. And when I say large, it’s really large, because last year it reached more than 100 million people globally. Alexandra is also a co-founder of Climate Hero, as well as a speaker and consultant on sustainability, circular economy and circular transformation.

Hello again, Alexandra. I’m really happy we finally have the opportunity to talk together and uncover the topic of Circular Monday.

Alexandra Davidsson: Yeah, me too. I’m super happy to be here. Thank you for inviting me. It’s such an honor to be a guest on the Salto Talks podcast, truly.

How Circular Monday started

Piotr Nejman: First of all, let’s make a small disclaimer: I’m also involved in Circular Monday. I have the great honor to be a local representative, a local ambassador of Circular Monday in Poland. So that everyone listening understands what we are talking about, let’s start at the very beginning and explain what Circular Monday actually is. What are the origins? What was the initial spark, the insight?

Alexandra Davidsson: Yeah, of course. I’m happy to share that, and we’re so glad to have you as our face, representing our campaign as a spokesperson in Poland. I’m truly grateful for our collaboration and for this talk. But okay, I’ll share the background facts about Circular Monday.

Circular Monday was actually started in the fall of 2017 by a guy named Henning Gilberg [do weryfikacji]. For the first three years it was called something else. It wasn’t called Circular Monday, it was called White Monday. It was born in the southern part of Sweden, when Henning was playing the opposite game of Black Friday. Because Black Friday is perhaps the day that most symbolizes our overconsumption. Imagine people getting hurt fighting over a TV because the price is so good. So he was trying to play the opposite game to Black Friday.

The opposite of linear economy is circular economy; the opposite of black is white, of Friday – Monday. So basically he built a campaign called White Monday, and it always happens on the Monday before Black Friday. What he did is he started to build a database in Sweden of companies, organizations and influencers providing circular products and services. Because we are all consumers in today’s society – we need stuff – but maybe we don’t have the time to find these things. This was almost 10 years ago now. So we wanted to make it easy.

In January 2018 I called him. At that point I was working as secretary general of a Swedish nonprofit called Responsible Consumption [do weryfikacji]. I said: „Hey, listen, I want to help you build this campaign, let’s do it together.” It took some time, but then he accepted my offer, so we started to build Circular Monday together. I said: „We will take this global. One day we will read in the history books that Circular Monday helped say bye-bye to Black Friday.” We dreamt big, truly big.

Piotr Nejman: Yeah, truly big, that’s for sure, especially if you think about Black Friday, which is a huge phenomenon.

Alexandra Davidsson: The first year, 30 companies and organizations joined the campaign. It was over 100 the second year, and it spread to Finland. Within three years it had spread beyond the Nordic countries. And then we had to make a decision to change the name from White Monday to Circular Monday, because internationally, when you first heard the name, you could misunderstand what the campaign was about. It’s not a race campaign. It was about circular consumption. So in 2020 we changed the name to Circular Monday, to better reflect what the campaign is all about. And ever since, it has been growing and growing and growing.

I’ve been doing this on my private time, but also through my different jobs. Earlier it was organizations like Responsible Consumption [do weryfikacji] and Cradlenet [do weryfikacji] helping to co-organize the campaign, dedicating efforts, and between 2023 and 2025 Climate Hero helped organize it. Now, in 2026, it will be the 10th edition. There have been a lot of changes, but we have never, ever had any money in the campaign – only costs.

Today the campaign has spread to over 55 countries. We have a team of over 30 volunteers globally acting as spokespersons and ambassadors, and we have over 1,500 buddies. A buddy is an organization, a company or an influencer that has officially joined the campaign, taking part in Circular Monday. And last year it spread to over 100 million people without a single dollar spent on marketing.

Growth, grief and the 100 million mark

Piotr Nejman: That’s really remarkable – the campaign was not built by corporates or big organizations with deep pockets and big marketing budgets. It was all built through collaboration, community and dedication. The results are spectacular. Was there any moment in its history when you saw the traction and thought: wow, it’s really growing, it’s really working, it’s spreading? Or did you feel it grew organically every year?

Alexandra Davidsson: Haha. There have been many moments, honestly. From the beginning, Henning and I became close friends – we worked together so much on this campaign, also with other volunteers. But I felt this would be huge from the beginning. That’s why I called him. I’m really passionate about circular consumption and the circular economy, and about creating „circulants” – a consumer who does everything but buy newly produced stuff. That’s actually a word we launched a few years ago in Sweden.

But there have been moments of deep grief in the campaign, and also big hope. The founder, Henning, is unfortunately no longer with us. He passed away in 2022 and he left the campaign to me. That was a really hard time. That year I could barely organize it. It was really tough. But then I started working with Climate Hero – I co-founded that impact startup – and we decided to bring the campaign to a more professional, scaled-up level.

Then we extended the volunteer network, and ever since, in 2023, 2024 and 2025, when we really decentralized the campaign a bit, the results kept growing each year. In 2024 it reached over 40 million people.

But the biggest moment was in 2025, when we hit the 100 million mark. I was just like: imagine if we had only 1% of the marketing that’s put into Black Friday. Imagine if we shifted that into Circular Monday. There is a demand for these questions, for the spread – the demand is there. What would happen if we had the resources?

So I made a big change, a really huge change after that. I decided to leave Climate Hero. I’m still there as a co-founder, but I’m not working in the company. I decided: okay, Circular Monday could really be something. So I put everything at stake. I invested everything and left my job. I have no income now, but I’m trying to take the next step with Circular Monday, to see if we can scale it up.

Piotr Nejman: This year marks a huge transition, both for Circular Monday and for you personally. I would say you’re doing your personal salto. And it’s a salto for Circular Monday.

Alexandra Davidsson: Yeah, yeah – tell me about that expression, please.

Is Circular Monday against Black Friday?

Piotr Nejman: It’s a huge responsibility, but I think the campaign has great traction and it has proved that it can attract a lot of people. When we meet at our global meetups and I see people from different countries like Austria, Romania, Italy, they say: „I have interest from TV”, „I was invited for a conversation”, „We are organizing a workshop”. There is huge interest in this model.

It’s also very interesting because, as I said at the very beginning, Black Friday is a really huge thing. Now it’s merged with Cyber Monday and the whole pre-Christmas shopping time. It’s like a month-long festival of shopping that finishes around the end of December, when people finally run out of money.

So it’s an important question: how do you really deal with Black Friday? Is it really an opposition, a competition with Black Friday? What do you think?

Alexandra Davidsson: It was born as the opposite of – or actually the solution to – Black Friday’s overconsumption. The media like to refer to us as the opposite campaign to Black Friday, and it’s still a little bit there in our history. In the first years, participating companies weren’t allowed to do anything on Black Friday.

But a few years ago we took a decision. We all live in the same society. Companies, organizations – everybody needs to survive. We live in the same economic system and everybody needs to make this transition. So instead of excluding and opposing Black Friday and everything, we realized we needed to make a strategic turn: to focus on celebrating circular products and services and ways of living and consuming instead.

I don’t know if that answers your question, but – don’t you feel like people are getting a bit tired of Black Friday? Doesn’t it feel a bit stale and outdated? What are your thoughts?

Piotr Nejman: Yeah, this is what I feel. I think many people already ask themselves: do we really need those things? Are those real promotions? Do I really need this stuff, or is it some kind of impulse that drives me to buy something? Of course, for the economy and for businesses, this whole period is a great commercial opportunity. December is really huge. And for consumers, the deals are often something nice as well, they can buy some things. But I would say…

Alexandra Davidsson: Everyone raises the price shortly before.

Piotr Nejman: Yeah, that’s an important thing. I think people are starting to notice that the offers may not be as exclusive or as special as they seem. And on the other hand, people ask the question: do I really need it? And that’s an important part of what you said, as I interpret it. It’s not really a competition with Black Friday – rather, it’s a solution.

Alexandra Davidsson: It’s the solution, right?

I remember a few years ago I was interviewed on the morning sofa on national TV in Sweden. It was during Circular Monday – I don’t know how many years ago, eight, ten. And the journalist asked me: „Yeah, but consumption is needed for growth. Do you have knowledge about that?”

And I said: yes, of course I have knowledge about that. But when we consume in a circular way – we buy everything that’s not newly produced, we buy second-hand, we rent, we swap or whatever – that is also consumption that brings in taxes in Sweden. That is growth as well.

And I feel that now, a few years later, we know that the circular economy also equals growth. I do agree that indefinite growth is not sustainable for our planet. We act like we have four planets. We have one planet, that’s it. But a lot of things are changing.

And again, I’d like to highlight the results of this campaign. Imagine: we reached these results as a completely non-profit campaign, zero dollars in marketing, and it has spread to 58 countries, 1,500 partners, over 108 million people globally [do weryfikacji].

What would happen… That says something about the demand for this. What would happen if we actually focused on Circular Monday as a solution? Because circular products and services can still fulfil the needs people have when they need something. It could take a little more time to find the stuff we need, yes. But it’s becoming much more accessible – digitally, physically, with different shops and organizations.

Who can become a Circular Monday buddy

Piotr Nejman: Talking about circular business models and companies – we call them buddies – the companies that use these circular strategies all prove that they can be profitable. That’s very important: they can hire people, there is a business model behind it. They represent different strategies based on, for instance, repair, reuse, rent. So is there a perfect buddy profile? For people listening who might like to join the campaign and wonder: do I fit the profile, am I a circular business?

Alexandra Davidsson: Yeah. We have a code of conduct for businesses and organizations who would like to officially join the campaign as a buddy. It’s okay if you have newly produced stuff in your range, but we will only highlight and link your circular products or services.

For instance, big furniture companies like IKEA have a section with only second-hand stuff, where they reuse their products, and that is the only thing we would highlight. So we have big companies, but we also have small actors, startups with really innovative ideas. Henning himself started a clothes repair company called Repamera [do weryfikacji], where you could have your clothes mended by sending them in online. You didn’t have to go to the place. So many interesting companies and organizations have joined the campaign, and we are proud of each and every one of them, of course.

If you have a circular product or service, go to the website and apply, and then we will vet you – we will check, because our code of conduct is built on the 12R principles of the circular economy.

There are really cool stories with different companies. It’s been proven, like you said earlier, that circular business models are profitable, but a lot of them also meet challenges. A lot of them don’t exist for long. I had a favorite company that I discovered through Circular Monday. It was two sisters, local in Sweden, and they only hired women in Nepal and Asia. They reused saris – the dresses – and used that fabric, and made kimonos instead. One hundred percent circular kimonos. I bought myself one each year. But unfortunately they don’t exist anymore.

And I was thinking – you used a term: salto. You are doing a salto. Could you define that a bit?

What is a salto?

Piotr Nejman: Salto stands for change, for jumping from one place to another, but it can also be this acrobatic figure. For me it was connected a lot with innovation. When you do a salto, you have to jump, and for a moment you’re in the air, not touching the solid ground. And you do something that from the outside may look spectacular – you see the result and say: wow, it happened. But there’s a lot of preparation behind it.

I was also thinking about my personal business story. At some moment I made some changes, and when I was talking to someone about it, I said: „Some people make changes, and I just made a salto.” It was a huge change. And this is also your story, because you’ve changed everything – you quit your job and you’re starting to grow Circular Monday in a new formula. So what’s your plan for the year?

Alexandra Davidsson: Okay, then I’m really doing a salto, because my life is so uncertain and upside down. I’m investing everything because I believe in it so much. To be honest, I have a little bit of savings and I can manage for just a few months. That’s it. And then I don’t know what I will do or what will happen. But I am focusing really hard right now.

I’m soon finished with the vision, the next step for Circular Monday – where we could go if we had funding at this stage, or at that stage. Because Circular Monday has grown into such a big campaign, and it takes a lot of time to organize. It needs to grow, it needs to scale – from a moment to a movement. It really needs to take that next step.

So that’s where I am right now. I’m having a few conversations. We are open to finding a new long-term home for the campaign. We are open to talking with investors. We are open to finding many different small contributors as sponsors. We are doing a lot of mapping and researching at the moment. Circular Monday is in transition, but there is no question that it will happen. It will happen regardless of whether I manage to secure the next chapter or not. That doesn’t matter. Circular Monday will happen.

So we will see, but it really is a salto, because at the same time I’ve never felt more trust – I know this is the right path. But I’ve also never found myself in a situation like this, out of paid income at least.

Piotr Nejman: Yeah, some people define it as a job, you know.

Alexandra Davidsson: Yeah, I’m still working all the time, but I’m out of a secure income source. But I have so much trust. I believe in this so hard. As I said, Henning and I got very close and he entrusted the campaign to me. So for me the campaign is extremely personal, too. I want to honor him by trying to take it to the next step. Maybe I will succeed, maybe not. But if and when I walk away from the campaign, or if we sell it or whatever – I don’t know – I will know that I did everything I could to make it survive.

When he left us, it was extremely lonely. But the most beautiful part right now is that we have a global volunteer network of 30 people. I’m not alone. We are doing this together, we are creating this together. You are running the campaign in Poland, you are the face of Circular Monday in Poland. We’re not alone.

Piotr Nejman: This year and last year were also characteristic in that sometimes you had to book double meetings, because it was very difficult to meet with everyone across different time zones and locations.

But what you say also represents a great opportunity for a company or organization that would like to support Circular Monday. As we said, it’s a recognizable initiative. It has a great audience, publicity, people are attracted to the whole idea. There are influencers in many countries promoting circular, sustainable consumption, and there are businesses, smaller and bigger. So it proves it’s an important thing. If someone listening to us now sees this as a one-time opportunity – we invite everyone, of course, to call Alexandra and say: we are with you.

Alexandra Davidsson: Reach out. Yeah.

Defining the circular economy

Piotr Nejman: We are talking about circular consumption. It’s also interesting that circularity in general is growing in popularity globally as a term. Circularity is more about resources than about waste. I think people are starting to understand it – or maybe not yet, because for a long time the circular economy was hijacked by recycling. They were stuck together for too long. And it’s so much about resources.

Do you have a personal definition or image of the circular economy – how you describe it when you talk to people, to businesses? What do you say about circularity?

Alexandra Davidsson: I love the simplicity of how Henning expressed it: the circular economy is an economy without waste. But it’s not only about waste. I define the circular economy as designing out waste, keeping products and materials in use at their highest possible value for as long as possible, and reducing the need for virgin extraction. We have to take care of the resources we’ve already got.

That includes reuse, repair, refurbishment, remanufacturing, sharing – and only after we’ve done all of that, as the last step, we recycle. I also think a serious circular economy must regenerate nature, not just manage waste better, as you said. It’s about much more than that. And that formulation is aligned with the European Commission and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.

God, I can talk a lot. You have to stop me.

Piotr Nejman: Of course, recycling technologies are developing very fast, and it’s very interesting – also an important part of the whole picture. But I have a sentence I’ve used probably a hundred times, because I meet this situation a lot. We sit with people, for instance at a workshop on some circular economy project, and they say: „So let’s think about what we can do with the waste.” And I always say: „I really love your heroic battle with this waste, but actually you’re working on problems you have created yourselves.”

Alexandra Davidsson: Wow. Yeah.

Piotr Nejman: And I say: maybe let’s think about how to avoid having that problem in the first place. It’s a bit like bureaucracy. People say bureaucracy creates bureaucracy, and then tries to fight and solve problems created by other bureaucratic problems. I think with production and waste it’s a very similar situation. Talking about the end – waste, recycling – we’re talking about a problem we have created, and we are super innovative in production and in creating that waste.

For me, the circular economy is a lot about innovation. What is interesting for me in the circular economy is that it creates constraints. When you have no constraints, both in business and in art, you can’t really create anything valuable – the result of your work is really average. But this creates interesting constraints that give you a boost of innovation.

There are also a lot of super interesting companies, as we mentioned, among the buddies, and encouraging business models. Do you have a current favorite business model from the database of buddies – something that surprised you a lot?

Favorite circular business models

Alexandra Davidsson: That’s a great question. I get inspired all the time when buddies join. But there was this super cool company that joined just a few months ago, and I didn’t even know this could be done. They reuse old paint – dried paint – so it can be used again. I had no idea you could do that.

In many ways the circular economy is a driver of innovation. When you think: okay, we need to fix the problem here, you come up with new solutions and start to think creatively. I think that’s pretty cool.

As for a business model I prefer – together with the nonprofit Responsible Consumption, I invented a new word for the consumer of the future, and that is the circulant.

Piotr Nejman: It’s a nice word, actually. I think it should be more popular.

Alexandra Davidsson: It’s interesting you say that, because in this year’s Circular Monday communication, in 2026, we will use that word even more. In Sweden it’s already an official word, in the official word list, and it has been for a few years, so that’s pretty cool.

Going back to a business model I really like: being a circulant, you do everything but buy newly produced stuff. And I like that we are starting to challenge ourselves: do we have to own everything? Could we rent more stuff? If I’m giving a lecture somewhere or going to a sustainability gala, I don’t need to buy a new dress. I can just rent one.

I really love that business model, because – listen – we get tired of the clothes we have. I keep my clothes for a decade at least, but it’s nice changing things up. This jacket I bought from a business acquaintance. She posted on her Instagram: „Hey, I’m selling this”, and I was like: „That one, that one I want.” But yes – challenge ourselves not to be owners. I’m all over the place right now, but did I make a clear point here?

Piotr Nejman: Yeah, it’s the whole model of product-as-a-service, for instance. It’s a super interesting, very innovative model, and it can work on different levels – from sharing things with your neighbors up to bigger companies that rent electronics. We have a buddy company like that from Poland in our database.

Alexandra Davidsson: Is that your favorite one? The one you are most impressed by?

Piotr Nejman: In general I am very inspired by the product-as-a-service model. I like to work with this type of company. I think it’s very inspiring. First of all, you don’t have to own the product to use it. Many people can use it, so you don’t have to produce it many times.

But it’s also interesting that in the product-as-a-service model you still keep ownership of the product, especially if you’re a producer. There are companies, for instance, that sell light as a service to factories and offices, and they remain the owners of the light bulbs – probably LED lighting these days. You can design it so that you can repair it and reuse the resources from it. You have a completely different approach to designing and manufacturing this equipment.

But I have one buddy that actually blew my mind. When I heard the concept, I thought: why wasn’t this my idea? It’s so simple. In practice I’m not sure I’d like to do it myself, because it’s not an easy model. There’s a company from Poland – and there are companies in other countries operating in a similar model – that buys used, but almost new, cardboard packaging boxes from factories. When factories buy equipment from other manufacturers, it arrives in cardboard boxes that they never use again. They’re super clean, they’re beautiful. This small company has a network of partners, buys these big boxes that can be used as packaging, and sells them to e-commerce companies.

Because if you sell cosmetics, for instance, you probably want a beautiful box with a logo. But if you sell things for gardening or car parts, nobody cares about a beautiful box. You just need a box.

It was such an incredible business model. They sell used boxes in huge numbers. It was very inspiring for me because it’s that simple. They don’t even need any sophisticated equipment. But you can build a company, people work there, everyone is happy with the model.

Alexandra Davidsson: That’s so cool. That reminds me – I think it was in 2017 or 2018 – we had a similar company in Sweden, but with moving boxes. He made a business out of moving boxes. I think it was called ReBOX [do weryfikacji]. It was active for a few years. And then you feel: why didn’t I come up with that? But it’s so cool.

Piotr Nejman: Many circular business models are super simple. Of course, there are companies, especially closer to recycling, that use a lot of technology and science to transform products. There are a lot of interesting things there as well. So if a company listening to us thinks it has a circular business model and would like to join, there’s a form on the website, so you can join the movement.

Big companies and the shifting mood around sustainability

Piotr Nejman: But the circular economy is very difficult to scale, and I think that’s often a challenge, especially for established businesses. You also work with big companies – you’re a speaker, you consult, you meet a lot of people through Circular Monday. When you talk to bigger companies, do you see growing interest in and understanding of the circular economy? It’s not easy to change when you’re that big – like IKEA, which you mentioned.

Alexandra Davidsson: I’ve been working in this field for over a decade now, and I definitely see that it went up around 2018, then a couple of years ago – two, three years ago – it went up again, and now I see it going like this. Either they see the value in the circular economy, because money talks – it’s all about value: can we find new revenue streams? If you speak to them in those terms, they listen.

So right now I see – I don’t like to use the word „trend”, but I can’t come up with anything better in English – that you have to speak business, you have to speak revenue, you have to help them see alternative revenue streams. Because businesses want to survive. And I strongly believe that businesses that don’t transition now will be irrelevant in five to ten years. We can also see it in polls across generations – people are asking for more sustainable options.

But at the moment I also see a much more worrying direction. People are stopping talking about sustainability. They stop talking about the circular economy. I don’t know if it has to do with green claims or with the changes in the political climate, but I also see that direction happening.

But again, the facts are clear. We have one planet with limited resources. We have to take care of the resources we’ve got, and we’d better do it sooner rather than later. It’s not really a choice. It’s still a matter of business, a matter of the survival of businesses and of the society we live in.

That’s what I see. I’m curious – what’s your take on this? Do you see the same?

Piotr Nejman: Yeah, definitely. Personally, I believe business has to be sustainable in two ways. Sustainable in terms of the environment – for me that was always about my responsibility as a designer, entrepreneur, whatever. But it’s also a lot about rationality. When I see companies buying things, even for the office, and throwing things away – for me it’s such a waste of money. It’s just not rational. So one thing is sustainability in terms of the environment. The second is sustainability in terms of the business model. Business has to be sustainable: find new revenue streams, new business models, new customer segments, be aligned with clients’ needs.

From my perspective – I’ve also been around the circular economy for about a decade, maybe a little less. I think the first circular economy event I organized was in 2018, so about eight years ago. At the very beginning, talking about the circular economy was very much about recycling, about waste. Then we moved to optimization, because prices were high, energy was expensive, and we talked a lot about optimization. And I thought: okay, awareness is high, so the next step may be thinking about how we deliver value to the client. Can I, as a consumer, get the value in a different way?

But I am a little bit – I don’t know if „disappointed” is the right word – because I think people are now a bit tired of ESG, of the reporting regulations. Of course, there are a lot of advantages, and great things happened because of that – even the whole conversation about reporting, showing your numbers, showing your initiatives, being comparable with other companies. On the other hand, I see a lot of companies not thinking about the circular economy as an opportunity, as a solution, but thinking about regulations. And I think it went in the wrong direction – the second direction you mentioned.

Alexandra Davidsson: Or as a solution, too.

Regulation, green claims and communication

Piotr Nejman: What’s your view on the regulatory part? Because the green part of business – let’s call it that – sustainability, is so regulated now. I have a legal background, I graduated in law, but even for me it’s so difficult to understand all the regulations. I’m not really sure whether most of the people involved can capture the whole complexity of these regulations.

Alexandra Davidsson: Yeah, it’s hard, and I understand that it creates fear as well. I also see companies cutting communications staff or their sustainability directors. I would say that’s the worst decision they can make, especially now, when there are so many regulations around sustainability. You really need to make sure you communicate in a way that doesn’t break any regulations or laws.

I can also see the benefit of it, though. A quick and easy way to make sure you’re communicating in a way that’s okay by the regulatory rules is to back your claims with facts.

Piotr Nejman: Yeah, that’s important.

Alexandra Davidsson: That could mean, for instance, using a third party to verify your numbers. And the benefit is that it creates growth opportunities for the many small and medium-sized companies working in this sector. So there are pros and cons. I think the wrong direction is to stop talking or communicating about it at all. That’s a bit worrying. I do hope it’s temporary. And if not, I will keep doing everything I can to make sure it’s not.

And of course I’m focusing on Circular Monday this year, because again, I’m so struck by the results. We achieved these results without a single dollar in marketing. There are only costs connected to the campaign, no income yet. It’s a nonprofit campaign. It’s not connected to any company or organization anymore. It stands on its own legs, it’s independent. But these results tell a story. They tell a story about the demand for what we are offering, for circular consumption, for these solutions. It’s out there. It’s just a matter of time before people wake up to this. That’s my two cents on this.

Piotr Nejman: So as a company, it’s good to switch your thinking from how to navigate through regulations to how to really make the things consumers already want. There are opportunities on the market.

Alexandra Davidsson: Yeah, with the value.

Piotr Nejman: And what I meant earlier about regulations is that they did a great job in making things comparable and in building internal capabilities in companies – internal teams, internal systems, gathering data. I think that creates a great foundation for moving towards creating value. Because now you understand the ecosystem. You have great people inside or outside the company who understand it. You don’t operate on a superficial level. You can start to talk about value.

That’s why I say: we started with waste and recycling, then gradually moved to optimization, and now it’s the third phase – delivering value. We have a legal framework, we have people inside companies. This is very important.

Where should a big company start?

Piotr Nejman: Do you have any tips for big companies on how to start their circularity journey – rethinking their business model or their products?

Alexandra Davidsson: Yeah, I think many companies have more opportunities than they realize. It’s really about changing perspective, looking at things from a different viewpoint. You can bring in a consultant or a lecturer – but a workshop would be the very best, because it’s rare that people actually take the time to sit down with their key personnel. A workshop where you get help to shift your perspective on what you already have.

It’s not uncommon, when I lead these workshops, that leaders in companies realize: „Shoot, we actually already have circularity in our business model, or we’re very close to having it. We could put a rental option here, or a repair model.” It’s really about taking the time to talk, to communicate with the key people in your company. It’s very easy to just work day to day.

So my tip is: do that. And if you’re not willing to do that, do some quick research on the 12R principles. Then think of three things that are possible for your company to do, and bring them up yourself. Challenge the idea of doing everything the way we’ve always done it. And challenge yourself: how can I bring in more value based on a win-win-win perspective? A win for my company, so it survives for a long time; a win for the consumer, so we create the value that’s needed; and a win for the planet.

Piotr Nejman: I have very similar observations: companies often don’t even recognize what they already have. The opportunity, the low-hanging fruit – super low-hanging – is right in front of them, and growing awareness around the circular economy works really well.

That’s also an important aspect of Circular Monday, because there are two types of audiences. One is consumers, who are normally targeted by Black Friday sales communication. Here the communication is more about habits, about shopping decisions. But there’s still a big number of businesses that we target. It’s important for Circular Monday to reach those businesses and show them different ways of managing a company and delivering value to clients.

The resource agent and urban mining

Alexandra Davidsson: Yeah, 100%. You’re so right. We have a vast network with this knowledge within Circular Monday, and that’s what’s so exciting. I won’t spill too much about the future vision plans, but it is so exciting.

While you were talking, I was thinking about a report I read from Sitra in Finland. It’s a few years old now, but this one really stuck with me. They created a future scenario of which jobs could be created on the European market through the circular economy. One of these jobs was a resource agent – like a real estate agent, but for resources – helping companies find the resources they need. And I was like: wow, this could also be a driver of change, because your business idea or business model could actually create new jobs.

One thing I hear a lot when I’m giving lectures is that companies have a product or material as a by-product, but they don’t know what to do with it. And another company wants exactly that. That’s the beauty of workshops, because what’s actually happening there is that you become a resource agent. I would like to see more jobs like resource agent. Imagine the networking, how fun that would be. And I think it would solve a lot of problems for companies, too, because it’s through communication that you find the connections and the solutions.

Tying that back to what we said earlier: I strongly advise companies not to deprioritize communication, because that’s a huge part of your business model and your business future.

Piotr Nejman: Yeah, definitely. The circular economy is a lot about collaboration, networks, clusters, and also matchmaking in terms of resources. I like the name of the profession – resource agent.

When I run workshops, I always watch people’s faces when I talk about urban mining. They look like: „What is this guy talking about? What can we mine in the city?” And it’s like: there are a lot of resources here – materials, cables, all the equipment. You can be a kind of miner here, only it’s not underground. So „resource agent” seems very good. It’s like scouting for resources.

Can circular businesses scale?

Alexandra Davidsson: Yeah, that’s pretty cool. Before we end – I know you touched on this earlier, and this thought keeps coming back to me. You briefly mentioned it maybe half an hour ago, about the circular economy and growth – that businesses can’t grow or scale too fast or too much. Could you elaborate a bit?

Piotr Nejman: What I meant is that it’s much harder to scale labor-intensive work, and a lot of companies in the circular economy are based on, for instance, repair and reuse. In production, the real economics kick in with mass production – then you have profit and it’s easy to scale that way. A lot of circular businesses have it harder in those terms. You really have to think about your operations, your model, your value, because you can’t produce it in a mass way. That’s why I said it’s a bit of a challenge for the circular economy.

In those terms, recycling is much easier to scale, because you have a recycling plant and you can recycle plastics at scale. The more you recycle, the more money you make. It’s harder for the other businesses because they are labor-intensive.

But on the other hand – what you mentioned with Sitra. I’m a fan of Sitra. I organized a webinar with Sitra at the very beginning of my journey with the circular economy. And you talked about different professions. That’s important, because we keep saying AI will just take our jobs, that a lot of jobs will disappear because of AI. And that’s very true, because a lot of our work will be automated. But as long as we exist physically, we will need a lot of physical goods and services and people around us. I think the circular economy creates labor-intensive professions and organizations in that sense. It’s also an opportunity to do things that are valuable – good for people, for the environment, but also for us as humans, as workers.

Alexandra Davidsson: Yeah, I totally agree, because the circular economy really sits at the interface of resilience, competitiveness, affordability, and the planet and the climate. It’s at the intersection of all of that, and that’s what makes it so exciting. That’s why for me it is a solution.

The risk, for me, is that we focus on what doesn’t work instead of what is working. I live by my favorite motto: why follow the current when we can create the wave? That’s really what Circular Monday was built on. That’s what I told Henning when I approached him all those years ago: they will read about us in the history books. If we have that vision, if we think about the possibilities, and that the circular economy really is at the intersection of resilience, competitiveness, the planet and so on – then it would be super interesting to see what positive side effects come from it.

So yeah, I’m an eternal optimist. And yes, I do agree that growth can be challenging in some circular business models, because they are built on local collaborations. But I really think we need that in the world, especially from a resilience perspective.

But now I’ve lost my thread. I don’t know where I was.

Circularity as a model for new founders

Piotr Nejman: What I also find interesting is that I see growing interest in circular business models among founders, startup founders. It has become popular. There are even VC funds that invest in sustainable or circular ideas. I think that’s very important, and there should be a platform to support them. And I believe Circular Monday is also a platform to support those companies, because we give them recognition and an audience.

Do you think it may be an interesting model for a new founder – not to go deep into technology, building a new blockchain solution or something, but to have a circular business model? Or maybe with blockchain, actually.

Alexandra Davidsson: Yeah, definitely. Absolutely. I think it’s really important not to treat circularity only as a communication layer, but as a business design challenge, and to build your business model on it.

Plans for the 10th edition

Piotr Nejman: Okay, before we finish – is there anything we should wish you for the next year? We talked a little about the transition. Do you have any big plans or goals ahead for Circular Monday?

Alexandra Davidsson: One of the goals – and this will happen – Circular Monday will take place on the 23rd of November 2026. It will be its 10th edition. I sincerely hope I manage, with my salto, to take the next step and find a long-term solution for the Circular Monday campaign.

Piotr Nejman: You will, you will.

Alexandra Davidsson: And before we finish this podcast, I realized I forgot to explain what Circular Monday is. So I’ll do that now. Circular Monday is a campaign for circular solutions. It happens every year on the Monday before Black Friday – this year on the 23rd of November.

It’s both a database where circulants, or consumers, can find circular products, services, or influencers working with this, and a social media campaign where all our buddies go out on the same day with a message about circularity. That in itself helps create awareness of circular consumption.

If you’re a company listening and you’re interested in joining as a buddy, please go to our website. If you’re an investor, a company, an organization or a really cool person who would like to know a bit more about the Circular Monday transition – holla at me. Let’s have a coffee or a meeting. It doesn’t have to be harder than that.

Or if you’re passionate about circular consumption and the circular economy and you’d like to be part of the local team in your country as a spokesperson, please contact us. You are all so welcome.

Piotr Nejman: It’s true that we started with Circular Monday without explaining it much – maybe because we understand it and spend time on Circular Monday every week and month. We’ll see how many people reach the end. If not, I’m sure people will Google it.

I hope, of course, that everyone has reached this final moment of our conversation, and I really invite you to check the website, circularmonday.com. There’s a database of buddies, everything is explained, there are interesting materials to download, information about local events, workshops and everything that’s happening.

This year Circular Monday will be on the 23rd of November 2026, so there is still time to join the initiative. Think about how you can get involved. There are still some blank spots on the map, so if you’d like to join as a local ambassador, I think Alexandra would be happy to talk to you – as well as with buddies. And as we said, there’s a great opportunity to join Circular Monday as a partner and support its next level after this current salto.

I’m really happy, Alexandra, that we had this conversation today. Thank you very much for being here. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that with this salto, both you personally and the initiative will land safely.

Alexandra Davidsson: Me as well.

Piotr Nejman: …on the ground. And I think those 100 million people will look back in two or three years and see that the number has grown. So thank you very much again for our conversation.

Alexandra Davidsson: Thank you so much for having me and inviting me. Great conversation. Thank you.

Piotr Nejman: Thank you very much.