About ImpactPHL Perspectives:

ImpactPHL Perspectives is a multi-part content series that explores the many facets of the impact economy in Greater Philadelphia from the perspectives of its doers, movers, shakers, and agents of change. Each volume is written directly by a leader in this space to discuss best practices and share lessons learned while challenging our assumptions about financial and impact returns. For more thought leadership like this, check out the full catalog of ImpactPHL Perspectives.

Nic Esposito, Founder, Circa Tech

I’ve worked in the sustainability sector for the past twenty years. And while I’m very proud of my accomplishments– from operating multiple urban farms around Philadelphia to my tenure as the City’s Zero Waste and Litter Director– I have always been bothered by some of the underpinnings of sustainability.

Too often, I feel sustainability comes with the message of limit and scarcity. The thinking goes, “We’ve taken too many resources from this planet and created too much pollution, so we need to lessen our impact, consume less, and live more simply.” While this is well-meaning, when heard through the ears of people in Philly, where our poverty rate is one of the highest among big cities, or even residents of cities in the developing global South, it kind of sounds like “Party is over, sorry you’re late to it, but we have to save the planet.” And this doesn’t even acknowledge the many people on this planet and in our city who are never invited to the party in the first place.

It wasn’t until I discovered the circular economy that my misgivings about sustainability’s message started to ebb. It must be stated that the linear industrial economy of the 20th century brought us some incredible advances in the quality of life for many people, such as modern medicine, indoor heat and plumbing, and this computer that I’m writing this article on. However, the linear economy also came with its consequences – climate change, resource depletion, habitat loss, waste, and persistent inequality from the global South to even our US cities.

“The circular economy reimagines our economy as a continuous loop where products are designed for maximum reuse…The circular economy answers the question of how we can create the highest quality of life for most people without destroying the planet in the process.”

The circular economy reimagines our economy as a continuous loop where products are designed for maximum reuse. When those products end their lifespan, the resources that comprise them are recovered and reintroduced into the broader system. The circular economy answers the question of how we can create the highest quality of life for most people without destroying the planet in the process.

This may seem like pie-in-the-sky thinking, but as the co-founder of the circular economy membership non-profit Circular Philadelphia, I’ve worked with dozens of businesses right here in Philly that are using the circular economy to create sustainable businesses while having a less negative impact on the planet and a more positive impact for their employees, customers, and bottom lines.

While I’m very proud of the work I have done to support these businesses, I’m an entrepreneur at heart, and I have to admit, I got a little jealous of all the fun my colleagues were having with these businesses. So I decided to found my own start-up, Circa Systems.

“However, the linear economy also came with its consequences – climate change, resource depletion, habitat loss, waste, and persistent inequality from the global South to even our US cities.”

The guiding principle behind Circa Systems is that the way we do retail in our economy could be better for the triple bottom line. It’s bad for people as we have too much clutter in our homes from everything we buy. It’s terrible for the planet because many of these products consume precious resources yet end up in a landfill or incinerator, or even worse, end up as litter on our City streets and into our oceans. And honestly, it’s bad for profit.

In 2012, I founded the publishing company and now bookstore The Head & The Hand. While it was no easy feat to successfully establish a publishing company and independent bookstore in the age of Amazon and binging television shows –and I’m proud of the successes of that project –I also know what it’s like to print a run of books hoping to sell them all yet only getting through 60% of our stock and having to store the rest in the basement.

The Head & The Hand is not the only company facing this issue. As I write, billions of dollars of unsold clothes are collecting dust in warehouses around the world. We waste 40% of the food we produce before it can actually be consumed. And as I learned, in 2022, over 100 million toys at a value of 4.5 billion dollars ended up in landfills and incinerators as waste.

Circa Systems is looking to revolutionize our deeply flawed retail sector by using Circular Economy principles to create the necessary technology, operations, and logistics of the future. And given that last stat about toys coupled with my own personal parenting journey of trying to provide a fun childhood for my two boys while being conscious about the waste we produce, the first platform that Circa Systems is building is the fun, sustainable, and convenient toy buying site Unless Kids. A quote inspires the name in Dr. Seuss’s book, The Lorax; “Unless someone like you who cares a whole lot, nothing is going to get better, it’s not.”

This spring we launched a pilot platform for a group of early and eager adopters to help us shape the product engagement and experience. In the coming months we will use this early launch to inform our tech methods for increasing the platform scale. The way it works is that parents sign up as members and create a digital “Toy Chest” for their child. Caregivers can then buy what they want when they want, our large inventory of new and used toys all at a discount. We show up at the member’s house with the toys in a physical toy chest.

Once the kids are tired of the puzzle they’ve done a hundred times and want to freshen up their action figures, the caregiver goes back on the platform, buys new toys, and the caregiver can then hit “swap” on all of the previously bought toys that are still inventoried in the toy chest and are no longer wanted. We’ll show up to the member’s house with a new toy chest and take the old one away. The returned toys go back to our warehouse, where we give them a quick clean or minor touch-up and then get them back on our site.

Simply put, we run a retail business where instead of buying 10,000 toys and hoping to sell all 10,000, we can sell 1,000 toys 10,000 times. And it’s not just for toys. We have platform expansion plans for sports equipment, which is a natural progression for kids on our platform but also could serve their parents. Once in a household, we can move on to other goods like books, bikes, tools, housewares, etc.

The possibilities are incredibly exciting to the Circa Systems team. After countless product interviews with parents, intensive user testing of our UX/UI, and collecting over 1,500 toys from parents all around Philly as part of our toy collection campaign, it’s abundantly clear that there are a lot of excited people who care an awful lot. We’re excited to bring them this platform.

Nic Esposito is an accomplished writer, entrepreneur, urban farmer and circular economy professional. Nic served as the City of Philadelphia's Zero Waste and Litter Director from 2016-2020. He is currently the Director of Policy and Engagement for Circular Philadelphia and is the founder of Circa Systems, which is dedicated to building the circular retail platforms of the future. Nic also founded the non-profit bookstore and publishing company The Head & The Hand and co-manages Emerald Street Community Farm in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia. Nic was named one of the top 150 most influential Philadelphians in 2023 by Philadelphia Magazine.