What to expect at our 4th Annual Conference

CIRCULAR BY DESIGN: INNOVATION MEETS ACTION -By Ken Miller, Ci Board Member

The Circular Indiana board is excited to announce the complete agenda of speakers and events for the 2026 Circular Indiana Conference taking place on October 5. We are grateful to The Heritage Group for hosting the conference at their event venue, The Center, and for their sustained commitment to advancing circular economy principles.

This year’s conference will build on key themes from past conferences, specifically circular economy education, governance, and innovation that enables the continuous recovery and use of our planet’s finite resources.

At last year’s conference, we committed to focus on extended producer responsibility (EPR) in Indiana to achieve a greater accountability and better outcomes for products at their end-of-use. To establish a culture and cadence for EPR in Indiana, initial attention was placed on battery EPR due to the overwhelming opportunity to improve public fire safety and to recover strategically important metals.

Our first two keynote speakers at this year’s conference, Heidi Sanborn and Kent Holm, are widely recognized for their success at developing and executing EPR governance. Heidi, Executive Director and Founder of the National Stewardship Action Council, will share her experiences, insights, and challenges with EPR across a range of materials.

Kent Holm, Director of Environmental Services for Douglas County, Nebraska, will then describe why and how Nebraska successfully executed battery EPR legislation. These keynotes will be followed by other short presentations and a panel discussion with experts on the topic of battery EPR.

Many innovations are essential to achieve the economic, social, and environmental benefits of material circularity by reducing consumption, closing material loops, redesigning products, and eliminating material waste.

Therefore, the” innovation” focus of the conference will feature speakers who have delivered circularity to challenging end-of-use materials such as tires and building deconstruction waste.

Other conference speakers will describe how artificial intelligence (AI) enables tremendous productivity, efficiency, and quality in the separation of municipal solid waste and metal waste in architectural design. The innovation session will feature another keynote speaker, Dr. Eugene Tseng, the world’s most interesting and self-proclaimed, “most over educated” garbage man.

The conference line-up will end with a dynamic panel discussion with the innovation speakers and other invited content experts.

An exhibition and networking reception will conclude the day, allowing for an opportunity to network and to enjoy refreshments with conference sponsors, speakers, and colleagues across Indiana’s circular economy.

Registration is $75 or free for Circular Indiana members.