The most effective circular economy networks are not built from scratch. They are assembled from existing ecosystems—organizations that already have trust, membership, data, and credibility within their sectors. Episode two of the CSCC series brings the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and the Suppliers Partnership for the Environment to the table to show what convening conveners looks like in practice.
This is the second episode of a five-part series produced in advisory partnership between the Circular Supply Chain Coalition (CSCC) / Pyxera Global and Supply Chain Queen / Supply Chain Revolution. Episode 1 covered the CSCC origin story and why coalition building is required to scale reverse supply chains. This episode unpacks the network architecture layer: who is showing up, which networks matter, and why tapping into existing ecosystems is more powerful than starting from scratch.
What Does Convening Conveners Mean in Practice?
This episode brings three leaders to the conversation, each representing a different layer of the circular economy ecosystem. Danielle Holly leads the Ellen MacArthur Foundation in North America, covering the US and Canada. The Foundation works to accelerate the circular economy through research, thought leadership, and a large network of mostly global conglomerate companies. Kellen Mahoney is Executive Director of the Suppliers Partnership for the Environment (SP), an automotive industry leadership forum that has spent 25 years working with vehicle manufacturers and suppliers to accelerate environmental sustainability through the value chain. And John Holm returns from episode one as co-founder of the CSCC and strategic partnership lead at Pyxera Global.
The principle behind the network architecture is straightforward: do not build what already exists. SP has 25 years of trust with Ford, General Motors, Honda, Toyota, and their component suppliers, material suppliers, logistics partners, and end-of-life recyclers. The Ellen MacArthur Foundation has the largest global corporate network focused on circular economy. CSCC has the reverse supply chain operators, the buyers consortium, the policy relationships, and the place-based community infrastructure. Competing with those existing networks would be strategically absurd. Connecting them is where value unlocks.
When you tap into existing ecosystems rather than starting from zero, you are not just accelerating action. You are inheriting years of trust that cannot be replicated. Speed to trust is the competitive advantage of convening conveners—and it is the reason the CSCC model works.
Invite-Only Working Groups, Not a Membership Organization
John was direct about a structural distinction that matters: CSCC is not a membership organization. It operates on an invite-only basis in a working group format with specific lanes and a specific theory of change. The two target industries are automotive and technology. The coalition includes a buyers consortium—companies like Cummins that come to solve procurement problems upstream and downstream—and an operator ecosystem of reverse supply chain partners that provide data and processing capability to those buyers.
The invite-only model is deliberate. Open-door coalitions dilute focus. Working groups with clear criteria for participation create the conditions for the hard conversations that actually move material. John's framing is that trust is built not through alignment on easy questions but through the willingness to say to a partner: I do not agree with that theory of change, or that is hurting my brand. That candor is what separates performative coalitions from operational ones.
Why the Ellen MacArthur Foundation Moved Into Critical Minerals
The Foundation is best known for its work on plastics and fashion. Danielle explained that the decision to move into critical minerals was straightforward: they look for focal areas where there is a clear systems change play and an intersecting economic and environmental imperative. That intersection has never been more pronounced than in critical minerals.
The critical minerals market is projected at $770 billion, and e-waste is the fastest growing waste stream globally. The fundamental economic reality is that secondary markets for critical minerals are required to feed current demand. Extraction alone cannot keep up. That economic pressure is creating something Danielle has not seen in 25 years of working with corporates: tech companies coming to the table eager for pre-competitive collaboration on supply chain resilience in ways that are genuinely unprecedented.
This is not a sustainability initiative with a sustainability budget. This is a business-side problem with business-sized budgets. Companies are not showing up because someone convinced them to care about circular economy. They are showing up because they cannot secure the materials they need without it.
That signal matters. When inbound interest from companies replaces the need to pound the pavement for attention, the economics have shifted structurally. The Foundation's role is to set the vision, provide research and thought leadership, and initiate implementation. What CSCC brings is the regional, local, on-the-ground procurement implementation that translates vision into material recovery at scale.
What Automotive Suppliers Actually Want from Circular Economy Partnerships
Kellen's perspective from the supplier side of the automotive value chain is essential, because suppliers are where circular economy commitments either become operational or die. After 25 years of building trust between vehicle manufacturers and their supply chains, SP has a clear picture of what suppliers want. It comes down to three things.
First, clarity: what do their customers in the industry actually want and prioritize? Second, consistency: a relatively similar answer to that question across the customer base, rather than multiple competing priorities around carbon footprint, recycled content, and recyclability pulling in different directions. Third, open communication: a two-way dialogue where suppliers have the opportunity to shape the conversation, not just receive directives.
SP's scope is the automotive value chain. They have deep industry-specific data and have developed guidelines on design for recycling, design for collection, and safe handling. But the EV battery value chain, critical mineral recovery, and plastics circularity all extend well beyond the automotive sector. That is exactly where the CSCC network adds value: cross-industry learning, global policy context, and on-the-ground implementation in regions where it would make no sense for an automotive-focused organization to build a standalone team.
How Networks of Networks Actually Share Data and Build Trust
Data sharing is where most coalitions break down. Companies hoard data because it represents competitive advantage. The CSCC model addresses this through the buyers consortium structure: companies and reverse supply chain operators work in a shared working group format where data exchange is built into the operating model rather than negotiated transaction by transaction.
Danielle offered a principle that every network builder should internalize: spend the time to align on the North Star first, even if it takes days or a year. When the ultimate mission and vision are genuinely shared, the financial structures, the governance, the role definitions—all of that can be sorted through honest conversation. When the North Star is not shared, every conversation about data, money, and credit becomes a power struggle.
Kellen reinforced this from experience. Where SP has seen collaboration fall apart, it has consistently been a lack of shared principles and shared understanding at the root. The organizations that succeed in multi-stakeholder environments are the ones that invest in alignment before they invest in execution.
Competition is not going to unlock the value we need. Only through meaningful collaboration—really authentic and sometimes hard partnerships—can we bring this vision to life. Remove the ego of the mission. Focus on the goal.
Three Myths This Episode Busts
Network partners can actually collaborate
John named the myth that network-level collaboration is aspirational rather than operational. The CSCC, Ellen MacArthur Foundation, and Suppliers Partnership for the Environment are not issuing joint press releases. They are sharing data, aligning on theory of change, dividing operational lanes, and having the hard conversations that move material. The myth that competing conveners cannot collaborate is disproven by the fact that they are doing it.
Circularity is not just recycling
Kellen pushed back on the persistent reduction of circular economy to recycling. If the conversation does not include resale, repurpose, repair, and remanufacturing, it is missing the highest-value interventions—particularly for products like EV batteries where the embedded value is enormous. Recycling is the last resort in a circular hierarchy, not the first.
Circular economy is not purely environmental
Danielle named the myth that circular economy is an environmental initiative. It is a core economic strategy. Preserving resources and the planet matters, but the reason companies are showing up with business-sized budgets is that critical mineral security is now a business-side problem, not a CSR exercise.
Listen to the full conversation with Danielle Holly, Kellen Mahoney, and John Holm on the Supply Chain Revolution podcast. Learn more at ellenmacarthurfoundation.org, supplierspartnership.org, and circularsupplychain.org.
You do not need to build a new network to drive circular economy at scale. You need to connect the networks that already exist, align them on a shared North Star, and create the governance that turns trust into material flow. The CSCC is proving that convening conveners is not a metaphor. It is an operational model—and it is the fastest path to reverse supply chains that actually work.
Sheri Hinish is the Founder and CEO of Supply Chain Revolution Global LLC (d/b/a Supply Chain Queen®), a supply chain thought leadership, advisory, media, and community platform. A former Senior Partner at both EY and IBM Consulting, where she led global practices in sustainable supply chain and sustainability services respectively, she advises Fortune 500 companies and governments on supply chain transformation, AI-enabled operations, sustainability, circular economy, and just-transition strategy. She is recognized as a Top 250 Global Leader in Sustainability, Top 100 Women in Supply Chain and Technology, and Top 100 B2B Influencer in North America. She hosts the Supply Chain Revolution podcast, now in its third season, and speaks globally at COP, NY Climate Week, CES, and major industry events.