Workshops
Ecological Design Thinking
for a Circular Economy
Join our immersive in-person workshops
Nature’s Playbook workshops help business professionals, organisational leaders, and learning communities reimagine circular economy challenges through the lens of living systems.
The workshops are interactive, hands-on, and grounded in extensive academic research. Participants work directly with Nature’s Playbook Ecological Design Thinking for a Circular Economy, using the physical toolkit to explore how ecological principles can open up new ways of thinking about business, value, systems, and change.
Through short lectures, guided reflection, outdoor observation, collaborative exercises, and facilitated dialogue, participants are supported to challenge assumptions, generate new ideas, and explore alternative approaches to circular economy practice.
The experience
A Nature’s Playbook workshop is designed as an experiential journey. Participants are invited to step outside familiar business language and engage with living systems as a source of prompts for systems thinking, circular economy innovation, and practical action.
Depending on the format, participants may:
-
work with the physical Nature’s Playbook toolkit;
-
observe ecological patterns outdoors;
-
reflect on how living systems navigate complexity, resilience, interdependence, and change;
-
connect ecological insights to circular economy challenges from their own practice;
-
explore overlooked dimensions of circular economy, such as relational value, place-based thinking, long-term resilience, and the conditions that make circular activity possible;
-
generate reframes, questions, and practical directions for action.
The aim is not to copy nature or treat ecosystems as simple blueprints. The aim is to use ecological thinking as a disciplined way of asking better questions about circular economy practice.
Executive workshop
A 5-hour, in-person workshop for business professionals and organisational leaders seeking new ways to approach circular economy challenges. This format combines short teaching inputs, hands-on work with Nature’s Playbook, field observation, group discussion, and applied ideation.
Team or organisation workshop
A facilitated session for teams working on a shared circular economy, sustainability, innovation, or systems-change challenge. This format can be adapted to focus on a specific project, strategy question, value chain, business model, or organisational context.
Education and professional learning
A workshop format for universities, executive education, professional development programmes, and learning communities. Participants are introduced to ecological design thinking and use Nature’s Playbook to connect living systems with circular economy practice.
Field observation workshop
A lighter workshop built around the Ecological Patterns activity. Participants go outside, observe living systems, and use ecological patterns as prompts for reflection, discussion, and systems thinking.
Facilitator training
A session for educators, consultants, sustainability professionals, and facilitators who want to learn how to use Nature’s Playbook with their own audiences.
“
"This is a truly valuable learning opportunity for anyone working in or wanting to learn more about sustainability, innovation, or systems change."
Ross Phillips
Sustainable Transport Manager at Cross River Partnership
Who is it for?
Nature’s Playbook workshops are designed for people working in circular economy, sustainability, innovation, design, business strategy, procurement, operations, policy, education, consultancy, social enterprise, local economic development, and systems change.
They are especially useful for individuals and teams who want to move beyond narrow product, waste, or efficiency framings and explore circular economy as a question of relationships, conditions, circulation, responsibility, resilience, and regeneration.
Meet our facilitators
Nature’s Playbook is supported by a growing network of ambassadors and facilitators who bring the work into different organisations, regions, languages, and learning contexts.
Ambassadors and facilitators may support workshops, introduce the toolkit to new audiences, adapt activities for local contexts, and help participants connect ecological design thinking to real circular economy challenges.
Dr Emma Fromberg
Region: UK and wider Europe
Dr Emma H. E. Fromberg is a circular economy researcher, educator, and designer based in the UK. Trained as an Industrial Design Engineer and Strategic Product Designer, she is currently a Research Fellow at King’s College London’s Centre for Sustainable Business, where she works on circular economy innovation, sustainable value chains, and academic–industry partnerships. Her doctoral research explored how insights from ecology can support a rethinking of economic systems and led to the development of Nature’s Playbook, a research-based circular economy innovation tool for applying ecological design thinking in practice. Previously, Emma was Course Director in Sustainable Business at the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership and led open education programmes at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
Yuki Hu （Yueling）
Region: Hong Kong and wider China
Yuki Hu is the Operation Director of xFuture ESG Consulting and Sustainable Marketing. A graduate in Economics from Nanjing University, she holds an MBA from Rotterdam School of Management and HEC Paris, and is pursuing a Master’s degree at the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership. Formerly a China business executive with Lenzing Fiber and Swarovski’s materials division, she has spent the past decade promoting greener fashion supply chains, sustainable marketing, and circular business models. In 2026, she introduced Nature’s Playbook to the Chinese market, helping managers translate ecological insights into resilient and regenerative business strategy.
Dr David Peck
Region: The Netherlands
David Peck is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment at TU Delft, where his work focuses on the circular built environment, climate design, sustainability, and resource security. His research explores how circular approaches to business, design, and urban development can help address the constraints of linear economy models, particularly in relation to cities, buildings, and critical materials. David previously worked in TU Delft’s Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering and is the TU Delft lead for its pioneer university status with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. He has led and contributed to major European research projects on secondary raw materials, remanufacturing, circular cities, and sustainable resource systems, including ProSUM, the European Remanufacturing Network, EIT Raw Materials projects, and Pop-Machina.