Rewriting the Business Case: Nicole Bassett on Circularity, Systems Thinking, and Sustainable Leadership
Rethinking the System
What if our biggest sustainability challenge isn’t about materials or messaging but about the models our businesses are built on? That’s the question Nicole Bassett has been exploring for over a decade. As co-founder of The Renewal Workshop and a long-time leader in the circularity space, she’s spent her career translating values into systems and showing that operational change and storytelling must go hand-in-hand.
Fresh off a 10-year chapter that spanned brand, service provider, and logistics leader, Nicole is now reflecting on what it means to lead with intention and what’s next for the future of circular business.
“More information doesn’t cause people to change quickly — incentives do.”
From TV editor to systems thinker
Nicole’s entry into sustainability didn’t come through business school or product design. It started with a story, a documentary segment she edited in the early 2000s about a UK company making biodegradable mushroom coffins. “It really struck me how powerful it is to make a different decision,” she says. That one story changed her trajectory, prompting her to leave media and dedicate her career to environmental change.
Since then, Nicole has worked across brand-side sustainability, co-founded The Renewal Workshop, and eventually joined logistics leader Bleckmann. With each transition, she developed a sharper view of how systems function and how they fail.
“I started my career inside a brand, then became a service provider, then joined a logistics company,” she explains. “Each layer taught me what different stakeholders need to succeed. Better solutions happen when you can sit in someone else’s chair and see what they need to be true.”
What brands still get wrong about circularity
One of Nicole’s core missions today is to reframe the common myths about what it takes to “go circular.” For many companies, she says, there’s a temptation to treat circularity like a plug-and-play add-on, something you buy into once a service exists. But that misses the point entirely.
“The myth I want to dispel is that there is a business case for circularity. But you have to go upstream. You have to make adjustments inside the business to unlock the opportunity,” she says. “It’s not a band-aid. It’s a shift.”
At The Renewal Workshop, she built a circular model that worked but even 10 years in, she notes that few companies operate with diversified revenue streams like they should. The business model still needs reimagining.
“The myth I want to dispel: there is a business case for circular. It just takes going upstream.”
Leading with intention, not ego
When Nicole became a CEO, she hired a business coach to help her grow not because she was unsure, but because she wanted to be intentional. “There’s no way, even with AI, to understand the impact of every decision on a system,” she says. “So you need feedback loops. You need to create a culture where adjusting is part of the process.”
She’s honest about the leadership trap we’re all vulnerable to: chasing visibility over substance. “Loud leaders get noticed. Quiet, tactical leaders less so. But thoughtful leadership isn’t about noise, it’s about clarity.”
“We can’t life-hack complex systems but we can design better ones.”
Storytelling isn’t fluff. It’s infrastructure.
While Nicole doesn’t claim to be a natural marketer, her years collaborating with communications teams taught her how powerful storytelling can be, especially when paired with accuracy.
“More information doesn’t cause people to change quickly, incentives do,” she explains. At prAna, she partnered closely with the marketing director to align messaging with impact. “She’d translate my data into stories people could feel. I’d make sure we stayed grounded in the facts. That balance mattered.”
Today, she encourages brands to resist black-and-white narratives and embrace nuance. “There are trade-offs in everything,” she says. “If you say yes to one thing, you’re saying no to another. Storytelling helps people make that real.”
“Loud leaders get noticed. Quiet, tactical leaders less so. But thoughtful leadership isn’t about noise, it’s about clarity.”
~ Nicole
What gives her hope
Despite the global uncertainty around sustainability and the economy, Nicole is optimistic. “I actually find comfort in the complexity now,” she says. “You can’t life-hack a system. But you can evolve it.”
Her current focus? Helping businesses transition their models, financially and operationally, to become truly circular. “Right now, a lot of companies are trying circular initiatives, but they’re still running linear financials. We need to flip that.”
She points to thinkers like Kate Raworth (Doughnut Economics) and Herman Daly as guiding voices, and believes we’re approaching a shift. “We’re on the precipice of a new economy,” she says. “Not one that’s just less bad, but one that’s better, and designed for more people to thrive.”