The Living Library - meet the organisations nudging systemic change
The Living Library format at our conference offers participants the chance to chat informally with people who are tackling systemic change from different angles - be it accelerating new practices, dismantling old structures or working on mindset change.
We don’t believe in presentations in Zero Waste Estonia. We believe in genuine human interaction and talking to each other in practical language and sharing both our challenges and successes. That is why we theLiving Library is becoming traditional part of our conference.
Living Library means essentially that instead of listening to someone’s neatly arranged speech you get into a discussion with that person by asking them questions. At our conference, we have 8 tables with 8 “books”(+ one a bit different corner, which you can read about at the very end of this post!) who all have a story to tell and experiences to share. You can spend the whole 2 h session only at one table or chat with several “books” during that time. All conference participants get to choose the “books” most intriguing to them on the spot and ask questions together with other interested participants in a cozy around-the-table group.
In order to get your ideas and questions already going, let’s meet our Living Library “books” and the questions they can give you answers for.
Tallinn Circular Economy Center
Tallinn Circular Economy Center manages waste centres, repair makerspaces, and reuse points, while developing modern circularity spaces to make Tallinn home to the most beautiful, smart, and environmentally friendly circularity centres, where residents can easily embrace circular living.
Kädi Eelmaa is the Head of the Circularity Department at Tallinn Circular Economy Centre, fostering repair culture, enhancing the city’s reuse capacity, and developing practical circularity hubs across the city. She co-leads the transformation of former waste centres into upgraded circularity centres and the creation of new ones, driving systemic change that makes circular living approachable and engaging for communities.
Kädi can discuss with you questions like:
Why did the president of Estonia gave the „Beautiful Home 2025“ award to a waste centre in Tallinn?
What are the challenges of a self-service waste collection site and how to overcome these?
Where do you draw the line between waste and reusables?
How can City-run repair rooms/makerspaces become self-sufficient?
Tootjavastutusorganisatsioon OÜ (Estonian Producer Responsibility Organisation for packaging)
Tootjavastutusorganisatsioon OÜ is the Estonian Producer Responsibility Organisation for packaging. They believe that everything starts with the attitude that packaging is not waste, but a resource that should be used as many times as possible. They work daily to ensure that packaging is collected and recycled.
Gaili Eding is the Head of Marketing and Communications at Tootjavastutusorganisatsioon OÜ, a packaging collection and recycling organisation. She is passionate about educating people about sorting waste. This is one way to encourage people to make more environmentally friendly choices in their everyday lives.
From Gaili you can find out things like:
What are the main responsibilities of a recycling company?
How do packages get sorted and recycled in Estonia?
Why are the sorting numbers so low in Estonia?
What can municipalities do to increase sorting numbers?
What would be easily adaptable solutions to improve today's shortage in sorting waste?
Yhtenein pöytä (Shared Table, Finland)
Yhteinen Pöytä (Shared Table) is a city-led ecosocial innovation in Vantaa, Finland, where the municipality, NGOs, and parishes work together for sustainable food aid. Every week, they turn 15,000 kg of food waste into meals for 5,000 people.
Soile-Maria Linnemäki is an experienced professional in the circular economy and community building. She currently serves as the Manager of Yhteinen Pöytä (Shared Table) at the City of Vantaa, Finland.
Meeri Mäkimattila is a social policy expert (MSSc) and community worker at Yhteinen Pöytä in Vantaa, Finland. She works and facilitates collaboration in cross-sectoral food aid networks, supporting agency and participation in local communities to foster wellbeing and sustainable development.
With Soile-Maria and Meeri you can find answers to questions like:
How has Yhteinen Pöytä challenged the traditional ways of organising food aid in Finland?
How have they spread their model and good practices to other regions and actors in Finland?
Why is it important that surplus food is not only distributed in bags, but also used to create encounters and shared community meals?
What are the next big challenges in developing surplus food–based food aid in Finland – and how do they approach them?
What has been the most surprising or inspiring thing they have experienced on this journey with Yhteinen Pöytä?
Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) (United Kingdom)
ASH is a public health charity dedicated to ending the harm from tobacco. Founded in 1971, ASH has played a leading role in every major campaign to reduce smoking in the UK, from banning tobacco advertising to introducing smokefree laws.
John Waldron is Policy and Public Affairs Manager at Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) in the UK. With over seven years’ experience in tobacco control, John leads ASH’s policy work with local government and the National Health Service and plays a central role in its national campaigning activity.
John can share with you the details of this work, for example:
How have they kept the tobacco industry out of policymaking? Why do we need to protect policymaking from commercial interests?
How do they build a cross-party political consensus in support of policy change?
ASH coordinates a national coalition of over 300 NGOs and health organisations who are committed to ending smoking. What are the key things to consider when building coalitions to campaign for policy change?
Why is tobacco control relevant to the environmental agenda?
Health Care Without Harm Europe (Europe)
HCWH Europe works to create a sustainable healthcare sector - one that does no harm to patients or our planet.
Anastasiia Martynenko is a Circular Economy Research and Training Coordinator at NGO Health Care Without Harm Europe. She is leading on organization's educational activities, supporting the implementation of practical projects to reduce waste and toxicity in healthcare, as well as strengthening organizations' collaboration with the academic partners.
Anastasiia can discuss with you things like:
Why system change in healthcare is so important and what does it look like?
What are the economic, environmental and social benefits of circular systems in healthcare?
How is the safety of patients insured when transitioning to more circular practices?
What single-use items are necessary in healthcare and what can be replaced with reusable alternatives without compromising safety?
How to raise awareness about the toxicity issue of plastics and other materials within healthcare systems?
What are some best practices and cases of system change in healthcare?
Collectif3R (France)
Collectif 3R is founded in 2010 by several NGOs (Friends of Earth, National Information
Center about Waste - CNIID - now Zero Waste France, ATTAC, and several local NGOs) to fight against the waste incinerator Ivry-Paris 13 reconstruction (biggest in Europe). They are the source of an alternative plan for Lower Household Waste, "Plan B'OM" (Baisse Ordures Ménagères) which shows that the incineration plant becomes useless if we reduce waste.
Daniel Hofnung was a civil engineer (now retired) in the town of Ivry-sur-Seine - Paris suburb - where there is the biggest waste incinerator in Europe (700.000 t of waste burnt in a year). He has helped to create the organisation Collectif 3R (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle). He has contributed to the pollution monitoring around this big plant, creating evidence that there is no clean incineration.
Daniel can shed light to following questions:
What dangerous chemicals can be found in the smoke emitted by waste incineration and how do they affect human health?
What negative effects are there, even if the incineration plant fulfills the criteria set by EU regulation?
What alternatives to waste incineration are there for mixed waste?
What has been the response from the media regarding the pollution studies connected to incineration?
What action has been taken towards the elected representatives regarding incineration and how is it going currently?
Telaketju network (Finland)
Telaketju is a Finnish circular textiles network. Their latest input to circularity of textile is in increasing reuse and decreasing consumption within the Baltic2hand project.
Johanna Liipola is a Senior Advisor at Turku University of Applied Sciences, combining design, engineering, and systems thinking. With over 20 years of international experience, she brings creativity, technical insight, and a bold, curious mindset to circular economy development. Johanna specializes in textile circularity, focusing on raw material collection, reuse, upcycling, and waste legislation. She integrates design and systems thinking into sustainable business models and RDI activities.
Inka Mäkiö is a service designer and circular economy expert. She is focused on systems thinking, shared understanding and co-creation. She has been working over 10 years for Finnish circular textiles network Telaketju, first developing sorting of post-consumer textile waste, recycling opportunities and education of textile field in Finland and continuing to finding new opportunities in clothing as a service, increasing textile reuse and decreasing consumption.
With Inka and Johanna you can chat on these topics:
How the recycling of textiles has been developed in Finland and what new materials there are?
What's the role of the consumer in the circularity of textiles?
How and where can design make an impact?
What should happen in the textile field to make it more circular and why?
European Commission Representation in Estonia
European Commission Representation in Estonia communicates information about the EU, its priorities and policies in Estonia. Circularity is increasingly at the core of different EU policies. A more circular and resilient economy also requires the transition to more sustainable production and consumption practices.
Speakers: Elis Paemurd, Riin Saluveer
Elis and Riin are happy to discuss questions like:
What funding models, support structures, cooperation networks is the EU creating to better support circularity?
Estonians’ support for climate-related goals is the lowest in the EU. How to help people get on board with these actions?
How can every one of us contribute to a more circular economy?
…
Additionally we have one quieter corner in our Living Library which is:
Mental health cafe by Peaasi.ee
Working for a better world can sometimes take a toll on our own mental health as well. That’s why we have brought a bit of a special corner to our Living Library - a Mental Health Cafe. There you can find a safe space to share your own worries or struggles, be it climate anxiety, burnout or something else. The trained volunteer from Peaasi.ee will listen, offer reflection and some guidance if needed. You will find her at the conference wearing a shirt with the text “Olen olemas” (“I’m here for you”).
Note: this is not a substitute for professional psychological therapy.
