Ep64 Pierre-Emmanuel Saint-Esprit of ZACK

Catherine is with Pierre-Emmanuel Saint-Esprit, the co-founder of ZACK, France’s leading company enabling the second life of electronic products, through recycling, repair, resale and donation. Last year, the TECH FOR GOOD report by the Presidency of the French Republic named ZACK as one of the top 3 French circular companies.Pierre-Emmanuel has won multiple awards, and is nominated in the Forbes France 30 Under 30 entrepreneurs list.Pierre-Emmanuel is also Professor of Circular Economy, President of the ESSEC Alumni Entrepreneurs Club, pioneer of the Ellen MacArthur Foundation for the Circular Economy, among other mentoring and advisory roles..Pierre-Emmanuel explains how his MBA in entrepreneurship at Berkeley, California, helped him create a business to fight climate change, and reduce our pressure on natural resources.We hear how ZACK co-founders tested their minimum viable product concept, so they could get clear on the value proposition. Pierre-Emmanuel explains how ZACK works with customers through the process, understanding the potential outcomes for the end-of-use products, processing the equipment and building up detailed impact and financial reports for customers.We discuss the cognitive bias we all suffer from, where we focus on the short term, often favouring the lowest price, and Catherine recommends Wilful Blindess, an excellent book by Margaret Heffernan. Podcast host Catherine Weetman is a circular economy business advisor, workshop facilitator, speaker and writer.  Her award-winning book: A Circular Economy Handbook: How to Build a More Resilient, Competitive and Sustainable Business includes lots of practical examples and tips on getting started.  Catherine founded Rethink Global in 2013, to help businesses use circular, sustainable approaches to build a better business (and a better world).Stay in touch for free insights and updates... Read on for a summary of the podcast and links to the people, organisations and other resources we mention. You can subscribe to the podcast series on iTunes, Google Podcasts, PlayerFM, Spotify, TuneIn, or search for "circular economy" in your favourite podcast app.  Stay in touch to get free insights and updates, direct to your inbox... Don’t forget, you can use our interactive, searchable podcast index to find episodes by sector, by region or by circular strategy. Plus, there is now a regular Circular Economy Podcast newsletter, so you get the latest episode show notes, links and transcript delivered to your inbox on Sunday morning, each fortnight. The newsletter includes a link to the episode page on our website, with an audio player. You can subscribe by clicking this link to update your preferences. Links we mention in the episode: