Supply Chain Revolution

Supply chain was rarely in the title at New York Climate Week 2026, but it was in every answer. In this Revolution Roundtable, recorded live on LinkedIn days after the week closed, Sheri Hinish brings together three practitioners to compare notes on what they saw, what felt real, what felt performative, and what executive teams should do differently on Monday morning.
Sandy Leyva, co-founder of Sustainability Decoded, is an engineer who works at the intersection of supply chain and sustainability. Wesley Herche, PhD, co-founder of Sustainability Decoded, is a former U.S. intelligence officer who now works across solar, battery storage, EV charging infrastructure, and on-site power. James George, founder of Provocative Human and a Supply Chain Revolution collaborator since 2020, spent 12 years as a Royal Navy clearance diver before moving into circular economy work with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. He now advises on critical minerals and rare earth supply chain risk in defense, aerospace, and automotive.
Each panelist names the week in one word: locked in, interdependence, economics, and access. The conversation then moves to the investor who told a room to stop framing climate action as an environmental choice, the quiet disappearance of net zero, the rollback of the Chief Sustainability Officer role and its cost to technical expertise and to women in the C-suite, and whether every job is now both a technology job and a sustainability job. An audience question brings the missing Scope 3 stakeholder into the room: the small and mid-sized supplier asked to fund the transition on margins that cannot absorb it.
 The roundtable closes with three decisions for Monday morning: price volatility itself, put critical materials on the risk register with a named owner, and treat disruption as information.
 Chapter Markers:
0:00 Welcome to the post-Climate Week Revolution Roundtable
0:57 Introductions: Sandy Leyva, Wesley Herche, James George
3:53 One word for Climate Week NYC 2026
6:10 "Stop telling me we're doing this for environmental reasons"
8:28 Supply chain was in every answer
10:03 The value was in the room, not on stage
11:44 What changed: net zero fades from the agenda
12:51 What felt performative: folding in the CSO role
14:19 The double loss: technical expertise and women in the C-suite
18:15 Is every job a technology job?
21:52 Is every job a sustainability job?
25:22 Audience question: the SME supplier missing from Scope 3
29:05 One decision for executive teams on Monday morning
31:37 Final word: circularity as a resilience discipline
 
Key Topics:
Climate Week NYC 2026, supply chain, sustainability, circular economy, critical minerals, material security, energy transition, price volatility, Chief Sustainability Officer, Scope 3, SME suppliers, just transition, ESG, AI, green jobs, Sustainability Decoded, Provocative Human
 
Connect and Learn More:
Sustainability Decoded (Sandy Leyva and Wesley Herche): sustainabilitydecoded.beehiiv.com
James George (Provocative Human): linkedin.com/in/james-george-20995b75
Sheri Hinish (Supply Chain Queen): supplychainqueen.com
 
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This is the series finale. Across five episodes, the Circular Supply Chain Coalition series has built the system around circular supply chains: coalition architecture, trusted networks, buyer-operator alignment, enabling policy. Episode 5 asks who owns the infrastructure, who has agency, and who benefits when reverse supply chains are built.

Deirdre White is CEO of Pyxera Global with nearly 40 years in supply chain development and social impact, from oil and gas localization on Sakhalin Island in the Russian Far East to the Jiva program, a 10-year partnership with the John Deere Foundation in rural Rajasthan that transformed agricultural livelihoods, girls' education, and community governance. Deirdre frames community ownership as the opposite of extraction: local people building and retaining the assets that should be theirs.

Nancy Charaya leads circular economy work at Pyxera Global India, with a decade of experience across tire, textile, plastics, and critical minerals value chains. Nancy built the Pride Cooperative in Guwahati, Assam, a female-led waste worker collective organizing 160 informal workers into a cooperative with collective bargaining power and shared governance. India has 4 to 5 million waste workers, up to 80 percent women working informally with zero agency. The cooperative model gives them a seat at the table.

John Holm, SVP of Partnership Development at Pyxera Global, moderates and connects the five-episode arc, framing community ownership as the "Trojan horse" for circular supply chains at scale.

Chapter Markers:
0:00 Introduction: from enabling policy to community ownership
1:05 John Holm: community benefit as the missing layer in circular supply chains
2:03 Deirdre White: 40 years of supply chain localization, from Sakhalin to CSCC
5:41 Jiva: 10 years with John Deere in rural Rajasthan
7:08 Why the changes held two years after the program ended
7:54 "Fall in love with the problem, not the solution"
8:25 India's waste sector: 4-5 million workers, 90% informal, 60-80% women
9:27 Pride Cooperative: 160 waste workers, collective bargaining, government access
10:26 The smart dustbin story: waste worker knowledge vs. high-tech design
11:21 Cooperatives in the global north: Land O'Lakes and hidden scale
12:37 Community-owned business: keeping equity local in reverse supply chains
14:44 Building trust: 36 person-weeks of listening in three villages
16:11 Pride as a female-led cooperative: agency and collective voice
17:15 Lightning round: misconceptions, capabilities, optimism
19:34 Series close: the complete blueprint for a circular economy

Key Topics:
Community ownership, cooperatives, circular supply chains, reverse logistics, waste workers, informal economy, critical minerals, cooperative governance, Pyxera Global, CSCC, Pride Cooperative, Guwahati, MSMEs, female-led enterprise, global south innovation

Connect and Learn More:
Circular Supply Chain Coalition: circularsupplychain.org
Pyxera Global: pyxeraglobal.org
John Holm: jholm@pyxeraglobal.org
Deirdre White: linkedin.com/in/deirdre-white
Nancy Charaya: linkedin.com/in/nancycharaya
Sheri Hinish (Supply Chain Queen): supplychainqueen.com

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Circular supply chains do not scale on corporate pilots alone. They require enabling policy: state-level incentives, workforce alignment, environmental regulation, capital pathways, and cross-border investment structures that make reuse-based business models viable. This is episode four of a five-part series with Pyxera Global and the Circular Supply Chain Coalition, exploring what the enabling environment looks like when policy moves from aspiration to implementation.

Secretary James Kenney leads the New Mexico Environment Department, where he has built one of the most ambitious state-level circular economy strategies in the US. Under Governor Lujan Grisham, New Mexico offers free education from pre-K through university and trade school, universal child care, a 50-year water action plan backed by $400 million in annual investment, and PFAS legislation that listed discarded PFAS as hazardous waste with a consumer-facing label accessible to every New Mexican. The department created economic development positions whose only metric is jobs created and net income generated.

Manuel Carmona Yebra is Deputy Head for Global Issues and Innovation at the EU Delegation to the United States. He has led EU-US circular economy engagement at the state level, engaging governors including Governor Wes Moore (Maryland), Governor Hobbs (Arizona), and Governor Lujan Grisham (New Mexico). His work has revealed that circular economy is bipartisan because it addresses economic development, environmental protection, employment, and supply chain security simultaneously.

John Holm, SVP of Partnership Development at Pyxera Global and CSCC representative, frames the enabling environment strategy and explains why the coalition focuses on governor-level alignment rather than federal solutions. Together they unpack why states are laboratories for policy that scales and why the EU Circular Economy Act is expected to require 25% of critical minerals supply from recycling.

Chapters:
0:00 Introduction: the enabling environment
1:00 John Holm: enabling environment in practice
1:33 Security economy framing
2:38 Why CSCC focuses on states and governors
3:42 Secretary Kenney: New Mexico's model
4:45 Free education, child care, workforce transition
5:46 50-year water action plan
6:19 Waste to marketplace: critical minerals
7:48 PFAS legislation and the consumer label
9:25 Consumer access to information about PFAS
10:08 Secretary Kenney on trade association lawsuits
11:12 EU Circular Economy Act and competitiveness
12:26 25% of EU critical minerals from recycling
13:04 EU-US state engagement
14:18 Why the EU engages US states directly
15:04 Circular economy as bipartisan
17:48 Replicability and interstate symbiosis
19:55 Sovereign supply chains, Mexico border corridor
21:01 How to engage

Topics: Circular economy policy, PFAS, EU Circular Economy Act, critical minerals, economic development, workforce transition, bipartisan policy, reverse supply chain

Connect:
New Mexico Environment Department: env.nm.gov
Manuel Carmona Yebra: linkedin.com/in/manolo
CSCC: circularsupplychain.org
Pyxera Global: pyxeraglobal.org
John Holm: jholm@pyxeraglobal.org
Supply Chain Queen: supplychainqueen.com

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This is episode three of a five-part series produced in partnership with Pyxera Global and the Circular Supply Chain Coalition. Recovering a material is only the beginning. For circular supply chains to scale, operators must understand what buyers can qualify and use, while buyers must create credible demand signals and procurement pathways for secondary materials. This episode covers the matchmaking layer: how the CSCC connects reverse supply chain operators with industrial buyers.

Ryan Melsert is the co-founder and CTO of American Battery Technology Company (ABTC), which operates a battery recycling facility selling approximately one thousand tons per month of critical minerals back into the market. Ryan's career spans Tesla (where he helped design and build the first gigafactory) and the company is now BASF's exclusive battery recycling partner for all of North America. Rafael Vasquez Lombardo leads sustainability strategy and customer solutions at Cummins, a 100+ year industrial manufacturer with global remanufacturing operations. Anita Schwartz returns as CSCC co-founder.

Together they unpack what it takes to move from collecting battery feedstock to producing materials that industrial buyers can evaluate, qualify, and integrate into established supply chains. Rafael outlines the performance-cost-trust triangle that governs sourcing decisions at scale, and Ryan explains why the qualification process will never get shorter (consumers demand zero tolerance for component failure). They close with a lightning round where Rafael delivers the episode's defining line: stop talking about circular sourcing, this is just sourcing.

Chapter Markers:
0:05 Introduction: buyer-operator matchmaking in reverse supply chains
1:19 Meet Anita Schwartz (CSCC co-founder)
2:06 Meet Ryan Melsert (ABTC): Tesla, gigafactory, battery recycling
3:47 Meet Rafael Vasquez Lombardo (Cummins): engineering to circular economy strategy
6:33 From convening to active matchmaking: what changes
7:50 Operator perspective: from feedstock to buyer-ready supply
9:10 BASF partnership: becoming their exclusive North American battery recycling partner
10:51 Buyer perspective from Cummins: performance, cost, trust
15:04 After the introduction: what happens day-to-day
16:59 Data exchanges, audits, and the high-trust environment
17:33 Validation steps from pilot to production
20:07 Lightning round: what to stop, what data matters, optimism

Key Topics: 
Reverse supply chain, buyer-operator matchmaking, battery recycling, critical minerals, Cummins, ABTC, BASF, circular procurement, secondary materials, supply chain qualification, remanufacturing, performance specs, supply chain trust, CSCC, Pyxera Global

Connect and Learn More:
American Battery Technology Company: americanbatterytechnology.com
Cummins: cummins.com
CSCC: circularsupplychain.org
Pyxera Global: pyxeraglobal.org
Sheri Hinish: supplychainqueen.com

This is episode two of a five-part series produced in partnership with Pyxera Global and the Circular Supply Chain Coalition. If episode one was the origin story, episode two is the architecture layer: who is showing up, which networks matter, and why convening existing conveners is more powerful than starting from scratch. 

Featured Guests:

Danielle Holly leads the Ellen MacArthur Foundation in North America. Kellen Mahoney is the executive director of the Suppliers Partnership for the Environment, an automotive industry leadership forum. John Holm returns as CSCC co-founder. Together they unpack how the CSCC network model creates value through pre-competitive collaboration, why tech companies are showing unprecedented eagerness to collaborate on supply chain resilience, and why the automotive industry needs alignment beyond its own value chain. 

Danielle reveals that the critical minerals market is $770 billion and growing, that e-waste is the fastest growing waste stream with critical minerals embedded in it, and that secondary markets for critical minerals are now necessary because extraction alone cannot meet demand. Kellen outlines what automotive suppliers actually want: clarity, consistency, and an open lane of two-way communication. 

Chapter Markers: 

0:00 Introduction: the architecture layer 

1:09 Meet Danielle Holly and Kellen Mahoney 

2:07 Why convening conveners matters 

4:02 Speed to trust through existing ecosystems 

5:11 Target industries: automotive and technology 

6:12 What suppliers want: clarity, consistency, communication 

7:28 Unprecedented pre-competitive collaboration in tech 

8:14 CSCC model: invite-only working groups, buyers consortium 

11:59 Critical minerals: $770B market, e-waste as fastest growing waste stream 

14:30 Data sharing, trust, and clarity of roles 

17:29 Alignment on North Star over structure 

20:09 Lightning round: myths busted 

21:44 How to engage 

Key Topics:  

Circular economy, network architecture, Ellen MacArthur Foundation, Suppliers Partnership, pre-competitive collaboration, critical minerals, EV battery, automotive supply chain, e-waste, convening conveners, trust, CSCC, Pyxera Global 

Connect and Learn More: 

Ellen MacArthur Foundation: ellenmacarthurfoundation.org 

Suppliers Partnership: supplierspartnership.org 

CSCC: circularsupplychain.org 

Pyxera Global: pyxeraglobal.org 

Sheri Hinish: supplychainqueen.com 

Subscribe to Supply Chain Revolution on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever you listen.