CEBUS Industry Breakfast: Regenerative Circular Economy

CEBUS Industry Breakfast Event: Regenerative Circular Economy.

Tuesday 11 November 7:30-9:30am

Owen G Glenn Building, OGGB 5 (Level 0), Symonds Street, University of Auckland, Business School

We warmly welcome you to our latest CEBUS event, our Industry Breakfast Event on Envisioning a Regenerative Circular Economy. Much of the current conversation in sustainability is about reducing harm — minimising waste, lowering emissions, or improving efficiency. But what if we aimed higher? The concept of the regenerative circular economy asks us to go beyond “doing less harm” and instead design systems that actively restore and renew.

For business, this raises powerful questions:

• What does it mean to be regenerative, and how is it different from simply being “sustainable”?

• How might this shift change the way organisations relate to people, nature, and communities?

• What opportunities and challenges does regeneration create for strategy, innovation, and value creation?

• How do diverse worldviews — from European policy frameworks to Māori perspectives of interconnectedness — shape how regeneration is understood and practiced?

This breakfast will provide a unique chance to hear from leading voices and to engage in dialogue about what a regenerative future could mean for businesses in Aotearoa and beyond. We are excited to have Professors Nancy Bocken (Maastricht University), Jason Mika (University of Auckland) and Oana Branzei(Western University in Canada) join us as keynote speakers and panellists.

Schedule

• 7:30 – 8:00 am | Breakfast and networking

• 8:00 – 9:30 am | Main session

  • Keynote speaker

  • Panel session
    

Speakers and Panellists

Nancy Bocken

Nancy Bocken is Professor in Sustainable Business & Circular Economy at Maastricht University, the Netherlands. Nancy has coordinated (inter)national research projects with a focus on business as the driver for sustainability transitions. Her research investigates sustainable business models, business experiments, circular economy, sufficiency, regeneration, and closing the 'idea-action' gap for sustainability through novel tools and methods. She leads Circular X, a €1.5m research program funded by the ERC, about experimentation with circular business models. Nancy is also Fellow at Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership, scientific advisory to the Global Circularity Protocol for Business, and supervisory board member of Circle Economy.  She co-founded her own circular business called HOMIE. She holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge. Previously, she worked for University of Cambridge, Lund University, and TU Delft, and was visiting fellow at Yale University, LUT Finland and Aalborg University. Currently she is also visiting professor at NHH Norway. Before, she was a board member of the Philips Foundation and worked for DHL, ING, and Accenture. 

Jason Mika

Jason was born in Whakatāne and raised in Rotorua. At He Manga Tauhokohoko, University of Auckland Business School, Jason is a Professor of Māori Management, Associate Dean Māori, Co-Director of the Dame Mira Szászy Research Centre, and Acting Director of the Māori Development programme within the Graduate School of Management. Jason is a kaupapa Māori business researcher whose research, writing, teaching, and practice centres on Māori and Indigenous business philosophy in multiple sites, sectors, and scales. As co-leader for two Sustainable Seas National Science Challenge projects­—Whai rawa, whai mana, whai oranga—mapping the Māori marine economy and Indigenising the blue economy—Jason has been keen to draw attention to the role of Indigenous knowledge in achieving wellbeing, human potential, and relational balance in Indigenous economies.

Oana Branzei

Oana Branzei is the Paul MacPherson Chair in Strategic Leadership and Professor of Strategy and Sustainability at the Ivey Business School at Western University in Canada. Professor Branzei leads major research initiatives on prosocial, circular, place-based, regenerative, and restorative organizing. She has convened communities of inquiry that actively promote positive social change through social innovation, social enterprise, sustainable communities, and cross-sector partnerships. Oana has raised CAN$3.5 million in external funding by collaborating with, and impacting, more than 1000 organizations worldwide.