John Lienhard | Abdul Latif Jameel World Water and Food Security Lab at MIT

Malaika Thorne | Terracentric Press

Mr. Bauccio will share insights about how Bon Appetit Management Company has led the restaurant industry in upholding Circular Economy principles that are inclusive of environmental, social, and economic responsibilities across food production and consumption.

Fedele Bauccio | Co-founder and CEO, Bon Appetit Management Company

Resilience is essential for the sustainability of our agricultural system. Crops must endure climatic variation, farms must remain viable businesses, and communities must remain empowered. Biodiverse farming can build this resilience across all production systems, including forestry, farming, grasslands, and aquaculture. This panel will demonstrate how farming techniques such as integrated pest management develop robust farming ecosystems that can yield bountiful harvests and hedge investment risks and how access to genetically diverse crops maintains social systems and food security.

John Piotti | President and CEO, Maine Farmland Trust

Ana R. Rios | Climate Change Specialist, Inter-American Development Bank

Katlyn Stillings Morris | LECTURER, University of Vermont

Retailers play an important role in connecting production and consumption of goods. This panel of speakers will focus on how retail stakeholders, such as grocery markets, restaurants, food producers, and more, can individually and collectively create a more circular economy through their supply chains and on-site practices. We will look at innovative business models for returning resources back to these players as well as how retailers interact with consumers to change awareness and behaviors.

Tim Greiner | Co-founder and Managing Director, Pure Strategies

Britt Lundgren | Director of Organic and Sustainable Agriculture, Stonyfield

Karen Franczyk | Green Mission Coordinator for the North Atlantic Region, Whole Foods Market

Namrita Kapur | Environmental Defense Fund, Managing Director of Corporate Partnerships Program

Transitioning to a more circular agriculture system will require a complete re-thinking of how food is produced, with a focus on making this production more sustainable without sacrificing yield. In recent years there has been a surge of technology and data use on the farm that provides a glimpse of how the agriculture system of the future can be more productive as well as environmentally sound. This panel explores the latest developments in crop modeling, precision agriculture and drone technology, with a focus on solutions that can be adopted by farmers at scale. The panelists will discuss the challenges and opportunities of using technology to change the shape of our agriculture system.

Jason Jay
SENIOR LECTURER AND DIRECTOR, SUSTAINABILITY INITIATIVE, MIT Sloan School of Management


Bruno Basso
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, Michigan State University


Molly Toot
SUSTAIN™ BRAND MANAGER, United Suppliers Inc.


John Rogers
GLOBAL DIRECTOR OF AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT, Anheuser-Busch InBev

Thomas Haun
VP OF STRATEGY AND GLOBALIZATION, PrecisionHawk

Biological materials can be "cascaded" through multiple beneficial uses before ultimately returning to the earth for conversion back into raw nutrients. Identifying creative and profitable cascades from food and biomaterials waste is essential to the circular economy. This panel highlights some innovative companies, technologies, and materials that are creating circularity through consumption cascades.

Cheryl Baldwin
VP OF CONSULTING, Pure Strategies


Lydia Baird
CO-FOUNDER, Ego Sum Terra


Sue Van Hook
CHIEF MYCOLOGIST, Ecovative


Sandy Merkel DeJames
HEAD OF BUSINESS RELATIONS AND DEVELOPMENT, Novozyme

This panel will focus on two elements of food systems in cities -- how to manage organic waste on a city-wide level, as well as how to produce food in an urban setting. How can we design systems via urban planning or technological advances to help facilitate this loop? How can we educate and incentivize city-dwellers about these opportunities?

Kelliann Blazek
VISITING FELLOW, Harvard Food Law and Policy Clinic


Malaika Thorne
FOUNDER AND CEO, Terracentric Press


Edith Murnane
FOOD SYSTEMS ADVOCATE AND DIRECTOR OF FOOD INITIATIVES, City of Boston

Ken Webster
HEAD OF INNOVATION, Ellen MacArthur Foundation

Interested in seeing some cutting-edge research and start-ups around waste-sector innovations from MIT students, alums, and the surrounding community? MIT Waste Alliance, in collaboration with the Sustainability Summit, invites you to the inaugural MIT Waste Research and Innovation Night! Snacks & refreshments will be provided. If you are interested in exhibiting, please apply here.

Mr. Matteucci will speak to how private sector capital can help jumpstart Circular Economy businesses with goals to build a food system that can feed 10 billion people.

Paul Matteucci | Operating Partner, US Venture Capital Partners

In a Circular Economy, outputs become inputs. Technological advancements and changes in the perception of waste, however, can help connect waste streams to new processes. Manure can power farms or be transformed into a commodity fuel that flows through pipelines. Human urine, if diverted from traditional wastewater systems, can function as a fertilizer. This panel covers the technologies and infrastructural changes necessary to turn these wastes into resources.

Abe Noe-Hays | Research Director, Rich Earth Institute

William Jorgenson | Managing Partner, Agreen Energy LLC, Bgreen Energy LLC

John Monaghan | Business Development Specialist, Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy

Jeremy Goodfellow | Vice President of Energy Operations, Harvest Power

Jon Duschinsky | CEO, The Conversation Farm

The technical processes for culturing fish using environmentally friendly methods have existed for many years, but historically the costs have made them economically unfeasible. However, over the past several years the market has seen more and more companies incorporate these processes into their operations. Some companies are even pioneering new ways to convert what were once waste streams into marketable products, which is making aquaculture a more circular system of food production. This panel explores the conditions and processes that have allowed companies to offset the higher costs of sustainable aquaculture, and discuss how aquaculture can contribute to a more circular agriculture system.

Norman McCowan | President and COO, Bell Aquaculture

Clifford Morris | Founder, Florida Organic Aquaculture

Bill Martin | President and CEO, Blue Ridge Aquaculture

Mike Finnegan | Co-founder, Continental Organics

Matt Thompson | Aquaculture Project Lead, New England Aquarium

Dr. Thrupp will leverage her diverse experiences with sustainable agriculture and food systems, both domestically and internationally, to discuss the role that private companies, governments, academia, and others play in the transition to more sustainable and equitable agriculture and food systems.

L. Ann Thrupp | Executive Director of the Berkeley Food Institute, U.C. Berkeley

Precious few North Americans have any idea of how much waste they produce, nor where it goes. Out of sight is out of mind, and in the last 50 years our societies have developed intricate constructs to ensure that we don’t have to worry about what we throw away. To get the circular economy truly turning, we have to understand these constructs and get really skilled in knowing how to change them. Just having great technology and production isn’t enough any more. We need to know how to engage people, change attitudes and help reframe the conversation about waste vs resource and what all that really means. Jon Duschinsky will draw on his double experience as a marketing guru and the CEO of one of North America’s most innovative circular economy businesses to challenge your thinking about what we need to do to truly “grow the circle”.

Jon Duschinsky | CEO, The Conversation Farm

The panel's focus will be to highlight start-ups that are actively changing food systems to be more self-sustaining. We will hear from food and agriculture-related start-ups that are operating across the value chain and learn about their successes and challenges, as well as the implications of how they are changing the status quo.

Catherine Fazio | Director, Lab for Innovation Science, MIT Innovation Initiative

Brad McNamara | CEO and Co-Founder, Freight Farms

Igor Kharitonenkov | Co-Founder, Bootstrap Compost

Lauren Rathmell | Greenhouse Director, Lufa Farms

Achieving a more circular agriculture system at scale will require private sector involvement in the form of venture capital, private equity and impact investing. This panel brings together experts in sustainable agriculture investing to discuss the unique challenges of funding ventures in agriculture, as well as the financial innovations that are being used to invest in real assets such as farmland. Collectively bringing decades of operational and financial experience in the agriculture sector, panelists will provide an in-depth discussion on the role of finance in a more circular agriculture system.

Rob Hurlbut | PRINCIPAL IN SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE, Equilibrium Capital

Gray Harris
DIRECTOR OF SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE AND FOOD SYSTEMS, Coastal Enterprises Inc.

Aaron Niederhelman
MANAGING DIRECTOR, Entrepreneur Agrarian Fund

Eric O'Brien
CO-FOUNDER AND MANAGING DIRECTOR, Fall Line Capital

This panel will focus on the tracking of data along the consumption value chain to reduce spoilage and track products from the perspective of food safety and quality. Everyone from distributors to the consumers play an important role in increasing the resiliency of food consumption systems, meaning that the solutions discussed as a part of this panel will focus on circular economy principles from the moment that the food leaves the farm until it arrives on our plates.

Timothy Swager
JOHN D. MACARTHUR PROFESSOR OF CHEMISTRY, MIT

Katherine Shamraj
FOUNDER AND CEO, Foodium

Ricky Ashenfelter
CO-FOUNDER, Spoiler Alert

Emily Malina
CO-FOUNDER, Spoiler Alert

John Lienhard
DIRECTOR, Abdul Latif Jameel World Water and Food Security Lab at MIT

Mr. Offenheiser will share an NGO perspective on how to collaborate with companies to increase transparency and provide consumers with information on how to make purchasing decisions that promote sustainable food systems and increase food security. He will comment on how we can take the Circular Economy principles we have heard about at the Summit beyond our gathering and into our daily lives.

Ray Offenheiser
PRESIDENT, Oxfam America