THE
FUTURE
IS
CIRCULAR.
_________
At Circular Finance Lab we strive to accelerate the transition towards a circular economy through leveraging finance as a catalyst. There are still many unknowns about the development of circular markets and business models and how we need to adapt our (financial) systems to be aligned with the circular future.
That is why we believe in the power of building a designed ecosystem where circular finance professionals from different backgrounds collaborate and experiment with new business models, financial processes and structures and share actionable insights into how the financial system can contribute to this urgent task. Step by step.
ABOUT US
Elisa graduated as MSc. Econometrics in 2012 and started her career as a financial risk consultant at RiskQuest. Whilst developing risk models for various financial institutions, she started an education in permaculture; designing regenerative agricultural ecosystems, such as food forests. Learning the principles of living systems made her realise that there exists a major gap between our financial system and the real economy.
Elisa worked on transforming the financial system for a circular and regenerative society for 8 years, by leading pioneering projects bringing together circular business leaders and finance providers. With her knowledge from such diverse areas as econometrics, financial risk, circular business models and permaculture design she is able to put theoretical ideas into practice and convert them into concrete solutions.
Elisa lives in Amsterdam Noord with her family, Jeroen, Hella, Ilja and cat, Sjakie. Part of her workweek she spends as a forest gardener: “if you become more directly dependent on nature, it becomes increasingly difficult to treat our environment the way we do.”
Hilde is a seasoned finance professional with strong roots in the banking sector. After finishing her MSc International Business & Finance in Maastricht, she started at Rabobank where she worked close to 9 years with clients all over Europe and with fixed establishments in Utrecht, London and New York. Hilde knows the ins and outs of establishing and managing credit lines, due dilligence, termsheet and legal negotiations and writing credit applications. However with a passion to work with people on sustainable challenges and being triggered by the need to transition to a circular economy, she was missing the fulfilment in her daily job. As from 2017 Hilde has fully dedicated her careerpath to accelarating the financing of the circular economy. She became an expert in crowdfunding, co-established the peer-to-peer impact investing community in The Netherlands Co-Financing our Future (CoFoF) and initiated the nationwide Working Group Financing the Circular Economy together with the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management. She is a strong believer in the strength of building ecosystems to leverage knowledge and skills and translate insights into action.
Hilde lives in Zeist together with her husband Alex, Otis, Fynn and their dog Kaat. The outdoors is where she recharges herself, with a walk through the forest with the dog or a great trip on the roadbike.
HOW WE WORK.
Clarify.
We seek to demystify circularity and we are not wary to seek to address root causes for our current linear economy. We believe that to create a circular financial system we need to optimise the current financial system to start favouring circular projects over linear ones.
Collaborate.
Circular Finance Lab works together rather than compete. We believe that the pooling of knowledge and experience in an open learning environment is optimal to create the best possible results and the most efficient process.
Demonstrate.
We develop financial concepts and actionable insights and together with relevant stakeholders we co-create solutions to tackle the financial challenges faced by circular initiatives. Try and fail, but do not fail to try.
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