Morning talks: Circular business – trendy buzzword or consumption of the future?
Webinar
More and more companies are launching themselves as sustainable or with circular business models. How does this work? Is it ”only” a trend or something that is here to stay? In this webcast morning talk, you will meet the consumption researcher who stopped consuming, Carys Egan-Wyer, and Therese Gerdman that works with communicating IKEA’s journey towards becoming circular by 2030.
How can companies act to succeed in turning their production in a sustainable direction? What challenges do they face? What do today's and tomorrow's consumers expect and demand in terms of circularity? How and why do we identify with what we consume? In this talk we focus on inspiration and on learning from each other.
Meet the consumer expert who stopped shopping and the furniture giant that has set goals to become ”People and Planet positive” by 2030. In other words, say hello to researcher Carys Egan-Wyer from Lund University School of Economics and Management (LUSEM), and Communications Manager Therese Gerdman from Inter IKEA.
Carys Egan-Wyer is an expert in consumption and retail with a strong interest in sustainability and a PhD in Marketing. She is a researcher at LUSEM who researches consumer culture, consumption as an identity and alternative forms of consumption. When she is not working, Carys runs a non-consumption social media brand called Buy Less Be More and now combines her work- and non-work interests in a research project that focuses on retail and alternative forms of consumption.
Therese Gerdman works as a Marketing & Communication manager at Inter IKEA; the company that everyone has a relationship with. Did you know that IKEA has set a goal that all their products should be circular by 2030? Recently, IKEA also inaugurated a second-hand part in all its department stores. How does this go together with general business ideas such as increasing turnover and profit? We'll hear more about that during this webinar.
Therese's mission is to create a way to talk about circularity towards customers, to show the opportunities there are for customers to tap into the circular economy and communicate where IKEA is on the journey towards becoming circular.
Quick facts
Where: Livestreamed open event on Youtube. You'll also find the embedded video on our website (lusem.lu.se and ehl.lu.se).
When: 5 May at 09:00–10:00. We start the conversation 09:01. Add the event to your calendar in Outlook.
How: Live conversation with a researcher, a business representative and a moderator. You follow the livestream via the link to the live stream on Youtube.
Questions: Feel free to email event@ehl.lu.se. You can also ask questions directly on the Youtube event before and during the livestreaming.
This Morning talk is arranged by Lund University School of Economics and Management (LUSEM) and our Sustainable Future Hub. The event is part of the Sustainability Week in Lund.
More about the participants
Therese Gerdman works as a Marketing & Communication manager at Inter IKEA with the assignment to create a way to talk about circularity towards customers, to show the opportunities there are for customers to tap into the circular economy and communicate where IKEA is on the journey towards becoming circular by 2030.
She has a Bachelor Degree in Business Administration and Marketing from Linnaeus University and LUSEM, as well as a Master's degree in International Marketing and Communications Strategy from ESCEM School of Business and Management in France.
After her university studies, a lot of years at IKEA and a long maternity leave abroad she changed course and wanted to deep dive into the field of sustainability and studied sustainable design and then took a sustainability leadership certificate at University of Cambridge to better understand the area.
”This supports me a lot in the work I am doing at IKEA today in order to expand and understand the part we all and the businesses play in the systemic change that is needed. I am a mother of three who are deeply passionate about sustainability, interiors, oceans, gardens and food. I am also a practicing yoga teacher at schools in Malmö to integrate a bit more personal meetings and slowness into my life.”
Learn more about Therese Gerdman on Linkedin
Carys Egan-Wyer has a PhD in Marketing. Her dissertation focused on the endurance running trend and how the consumption of such extraordinary experiences can be understood as a side effect of neoliberal discourses that encourage us to present a morally responsible and sellable self.
Read more about the dissertation here
Currently, Carys is carrying out a Postdoc research project at the Lund University School of Economics and Management, funded by the Swedish Retail and Wholesale Council (Handelsrådet). The focus of the project is retail and consumer attitudes towards anti-consumption.
More about Carys' new research project at handelsradet.se (in Swedish)
Carys is also also Deputy Director of the Centre for Retail Research at Lund University where her mission is to communicate cutting edge retail and sustainability research to retail practitioners. In her spare time, Carys is active as a sustainable influencer in social media.
Read more about Carys' commitment here
Louise Larsson, communications officer at LUSEM, will be moderating the talk.
This information may be subject to change.