Room For All - S2 E13 - Live at the 2025 Social Enterprise Festival - Patrick Manley - Cercle

Innovative Solutions for Reuse: Patrick Manley on the Mission of Cercle

In this episode of Room for All, co-founder and CEO of Cercle, Patrick Manley, discusses the organization's efforts to reduce single-use food and drink packaging through a comprehensive reuse network. Patrick explains how Cercle provides fully managed services for reusable packaging, including collection and washing, while also emphasizing the social impact by employing marginalized communities. He touches on the challenges and potential growth areas for Cercle, such as integrating with high-density places like workplaces and airports. The discussion highlights the importance of trust and simplicity in promoting reusable solutions over traditional recycling methods.

00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome
01:54 Overview of Cercle's Mission
02:25 How Cercle Operates
03:15 Trust-Based System and QR Code Innovation
05:39 Inspiration Behind Cercle
06:20 Financial Model and Scaling Challenges
09:59 Future Goals and Expansion Plans
14:46 Social Impact and Employment Opportunities
16:54 Conclusion and Contact Information

Cercle is designed to make it easier for people to use reusable cups at work. Cercle provides office buildings and nearby cafes with a simple circular economy solution: Offering takeaway customers free reusable cups to enjoy their coffee in that can then be returned to Drop Pods in their workspace. This unique end-to-end service is available to building & workspace managers who are looking to reduce their single use waste. All workspace residents have to do is ask for a Cercle cup when they order their coffee. 

We believe true sustainability goes beyond just helping the planet. It’s about building stronger, more resilient communities. That’s why we're thrilled to introduce Cercle Social, our dedicated reusable washing service powered by members of our community in need of meaningful work.
 
Every time you choose reuse with Cercle, you're doing more than just reducing waste. You're directly contributing to fostering local jobs and strengthening our community.
 
From our operations to our partnerships, we're committed to creating opportunities that support local livelihoods for people exiting the prison system or escaping domestic violence.

http://www.cercle.com.au/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/cercle-cups/posts/?feedView=all

Transcript

Circle: Reusable Cup Economy Pioneer

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Speaker: [00:01:00] Welcome back to Room for All. We currently have Patrick Manley, Manley, uh, co-founder and CEO of Cercle. There we go. Welcome Patrick. Welcome Patrick to Room For All.

Speaker 2: Welcome to this, uh, very different version of they're very different. 

Speaker: 15 minutes. 

Speaker 2: Yes. Uh, fast, uh, fast and furious. Um. Patrick, introduce yourself in a few words and your organization. Who are you? What do you do? We usually say 

Speaker: one to two [00:02:00] sentences, which is like an elevator pitch. 

Speaker 3: Got you. Co founder a Cercle.

Cercle is a reuse network that focuses on diverting away from single use food and drink packaging and heightens the environment, workplaces, shopping centers, airport. 

Speaker 2: Fantastic. And we've got Yes. An example here. One of the things you do, right? I didn't 

Speaker: get a lid. I didn't, but there are lids, guys that There ares, right?

Yeah. There are lids. They're upstairs. I just, um. 

Speaker 2: So tell us, so, so what does Cercle like, be more specific? Um, what do you produce? Is it just these cups is more, is it like, I like color. How do, how do you operate 

Speaker 3: by the way? We provide a full, fully managed service for reuse. So we provide the products, we provide a method to collect the reusables once they've been used, and then we wash them in one of our wash hubs, uh, located around Australia.

Um, in Sydney we are focusing on employing marginalized communities. Fantastic. In the washing, and we've been rewarded a social enterprise certification for our role [00:03:00] doing that. 

Speaker 2: And so does it work based on honesty from the guests? 'cause there's no token that they need to return or anything. Like they could take it away, right?

They could take, I could take this home if I wanted to be naughty. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. 

Speaker 2: Yeah. 

Speaker 3: Most of our pla, most of our venues and places that we activate is based on honesty. Yeah. Okay. And we find it works amazingly well. Events can be up and down as you appreciate. Yeah. 

Speaker: We'll see today, right? We'll see today, we'll see today you 

Speaker 3: counted them and then you do a stock take of the minister and we'll just see just how honest the SECNA community is.

Speaker: You hear that guy benchmark 

Speaker 3: that against some of other events that we've had throughout the year. But in our, so when we talk about environments, like if you imagine a semi enclosed environment, uh, like a workplace. We've got astonishingly good re returns. Of course. Yeah, of course. Yeah. And what's so important about trust is that we won't reuse to be adopted.

And so we can't put things in in the way of people. So having apps, having other types of things just makes things change. Yeah, of course. Of course. But if you 

Speaker: think about it, a shopping center, right? I think, [00:04:00] I hate shopping, but if we were, I would go to a shopping center, I would buy a coffee, I would walk around with my coffee if there was somewhere to put the cup, which there is.

Yeah. 'cause most people would chuck it anyway. Yeah. But I, 

Speaker 2: I mean, because they're so nice. I suspect that there will be some people there would wanna walk away with it. Yeah. There'll be 

Speaker 3: some, some sort of trophy. Uh, yes, that's right. But the other thing that we've built is on these, these QR codes on the side of the cup.

These, um, yes, that is actually our deposit system. Camera there. So 

Speaker: yes. So if you 

Speaker 3: scan one of those cups, it'll take you to a web app. That takes a temporary holding payment on your card for seven days. And if that cup doesn't come back into circulation in seven days, then it processes a payment. Oh, okay.

Otherwise, it cancels a transaction. No money ever left your account. Okay. Okay. And people 

Speaker: do that. People are pretty honest. 

Speaker 3: Here's the thing is to, to do that, the cafe operator sees sights, the person's mobile phone, once they've done that. There. Yeah. And when we deploy that, what we find is that, so nine times out of 10 people want to, cafe operators want to go to the trust model 'cause they don't want [00:05:00]any additional steps.

Friction? Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Because I 

Speaker 2: experienced something like this, I think it was in Paris. I was there, I went to the French open and I had this circular economy, um, type of approach. And they were giving you a receipt when you were paying with a QR code. And unless you return, when you return it, you had to scan it and, and you will get the money back or some, something along those lines.

And so, yeah, I think of course the less friction you create. 

Speaker 3: Yeah, the more likely. And also with those types of systems, you need all this additional infrastructure that's very expensive. Like we wanna normalize, reuse, we wanna make it so completely normal that there's no second question about using it. A hundred percent.

Yeah. Fantastic. So what inspired you to personally do this? I was working in an office building in Sydney and I was forgetting my keep cup every day. Oh my God. Yeah. 

Speaker: Got it. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. And so it just got to the point where I was like, right, I'm gonna invest a little bit of time in looking into this problem.

Chatted to a cafe owner downstairs who's now, uh, who's the, my business partner and co-founder of the company. Ah, fantastic. He runs a network of cafes in the, in Sydney [00:06:00] CBD, and one thing led to another, and before you know it, we've, we've got a company unbelievable. 

Speaker: I love it. I, I, in all honesty, my Yeti comes everywhere with me in the morning, but it always ends up being left in my car.

Yeah. So, 

Speaker 3: and that's the challenge. Challenge. That's the why we've challenge, gotta normalize, reuse, 

Speaker 2: and 

Speaker 3: just get, 

Speaker 2: make it completely easy for people. Silly question. Yeah. Yeah. How do you make money? Where does the money come from? How do you, like who pays who? 

Speaker: That's a good question. Actually. 

Speaker 3: It is a good question because, um, there isn't much.

We are competing against disposable cups and they're the cheapest and mm-hmm. Yeah. They 

Speaker: really are. Yeah. 

Speaker 3: Terriblest thing that there is made. Um, so we work with brands that are really interested in doing something. I mean, SECNA is a great example, right? Absolute. 'cause we're absolutely at the event today where they have an image that is important for them and a message to convey.

And so if you imagine that in our workplaces, we then work with like very forward thinking landlords and brands that are and corporate. So we obviously in 

Speaker 2: corporate environments or in festival environments, yes there'll be someone that pays 'cause it's their sponsor or the actual company [00:07:00] itself. Um, but in a public, in a cafe situation.

It's, it's the, like who, who covers those costs? 

Speaker 3: Well, the cafe owner. Yeah. 'cause I guess they've gotta buy them. Right. Going back to where we are working, yes, we are in those high density places. 'cause that's where we take a lot of, um, takeaway packaging. Yes. It's in airports. Shopping centers. Workplaces.

Workplaces in particular actually. 'cause you're there, you know, most days of the week taking, using a lot of take ratings. So it's sponsored by that landlord. And then they essentially, and they're just, I at the moment, we do, they're doing this to get this going. In the future, we will be take, we will have a, and we do have a model where we can integrate with cafes and basically charge 'em the same amount that they're 

Speaker: airports would be great, right?

Oh, absolutely. They stop me from taking a coffee on a plane Exactly. Like what do they think I'm gonna do with it or somebody. But they, they perfect. Like you have to, the minute you get on that gate, you put your cup in. 

Speaker 2: Yeah. I, I, I guess the, the more difficult and you can't take through security, the more difficult one will be the little operators that sort of need to balance.

Those, there's those costs with, [00:08:00] with, uh, the sense of environmental responsibility. Yeah, 

Speaker 3: yeah, yeah. But go back to the question like where, where this is going to scale is when we get big enough that the, and we are at this point now, it's a really interesting tipping point, but we are now washing, um, at a price that's comparable with a purchase of a single used cup.

That's great. So we still need to buy the, the reusables and there is a capital expend there, but we're now competing directly with the price point of That's great. Fantastic. And we're a social enterprise doing it. Name me a, a disposable, uh, packaging supplier that's ever gonna be a social enterprise.

Well, you're 

Speaker: a work integrated social enterprise, so I mean, you, that's employment opportunities for everybody, so, yeah. 

Speaker 2: And so what's the biggest barrier to you becoming huge? Like what, what's, yeah, where, where, 

Speaker 3: where is the hurdle? That's a great question. I, I, there's multiple parts of it. So number one I think is on the policy front is I don't think the, there's more that the governments, uh, need to do to.

Make sure reuse is put above other systems like recycling, um, because it [00:09:00] is better than recycling. Yeah. Um, we need to do more with these forward thinking brands to recognize the value in reuse. Like when they convert a venue over to reuse, it's, there's a lot of brand equity in that and so that will drive a of, a lot of in investment.

Yeah. We just need those big places to really take this seriously. And do you think it's stick or carrot or both that is needed? Oh, a combination, but more carrot. Right. Because there's the problem with the stick approach, like when you look at that politically, if you say, oh, we're gonna ban single use cups, the problem is that, is that independent cafe or politics, we'll see that as an attack on their way of business.

Yeah. And we cannot have that. Yeah. So the, the carrot here is really important. I, I think that with all the investment that's being made in trying to green up our economy. Why not find a really clever pricing structure to incentivize the adoption of reuse for our, for businesses, because that will drive the change in the economy.

Agree. 

Speaker: Uh, 

Speaker 3: we 

Speaker: haven't read any of these. We'll 

Speaker 2: loosely 

Speaker: follow the script. Where do you [00:10:00] see yourself in, we say 2025 and beyond, um, a year's time. Where do you wanna be? 

Speaker 3: A year. Two years. Yeah, two years. What, what does a future look like for Cercle? Well, you mentioned airports. We'd love to be in a few airports in Australia.

Airports. 

Speaker: Makes perfect sense. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, there's a new one popping up soon. Yeah. So, exactly. If they're listening, you know, I 

Speaker 2: think, look, I think that I'll send them the link, shall we? It's, it's more likely that you get buyin from that new one, then it's to show That's right. A sense of. 

Speaker 3: You know? No, that's right.

Because when they're building, when you're building a building, that's the point that budgeting decisions are made and service decisions are made, and it's very different to change. And so yeah, that's a very, very good point. And then that's what we're seeing with forward thinking landlords in the, um, workplaces.

All right. So we, 

Speaker: we are gonna target Western Sydney Airport. Airport. Yeah. We're coming for, we can put in a good word in there. We'll put in, yeah. We'll let them know we're coming. Um, and corporates, I think. Yeah, definitely. So all these 

Speaker 3: large landlords, we'd love to be, we'd love, we used to be the norm in loads of really big venues.

And so, like the one we're in today, which is one of the universities, like, you'd walk onto the campus and you would, it would [00:11:00] just be, do you wanna, are there 

Speaker 2: any well known corporates that you're already working with? Do you wanna drop a few names? Yeah. Absolute. I mean, 

Speaker 3: our original customer, which has been a massive support of our work from, from the beginning is Mirvac and they, okay.

They've really been a great, um, organization to work with. 'cause also they do a lot in the social enterprise space and they really, they do, they 

Speaker: work a lot with two good as well. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. They really recognize the, the value in that and have done a great job in promoting our service to the tenants that they have as well.

Speaker 4: Great. 

Speaker 3: Um, then other, there's various other landlords that we're, we're working with and fantastic events venues, um, even like groups like the MCEC down in Melbourne, the big. Exhibition and Convention Center. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. Convention centers in, yeah. Without naming names, we'll definitely, um, be able to introduce you to a couple of, um, corporate, the Western Sydney Airport Corporate, um, no, but also other corporate partners that, that we work with.

So if you'd be happy to Absolutely. Um, along the same lines of the names that you've named. So, um, very, very good. So if, I suppose, I dunno the answer to this, but if you could wave a magic wand, what would you, what would you want it to do? [00:12:00]

Speaker 3: I would, um. Like us to recognize the true value of reuse against other systems that exist on Earth and the the ones that are promoted to us.

So I'll take aim just briefly on this podcast about recycling. Mm-hmm. Is that a system which is, I'm my opinion, overinvested in. Delivers very marginal outcomes to us if we're trying to generally improve the environment. 

Speaker 4: Mm-hmm. We don't really 

Speaker 3: know what's actually happening, happening to the stuff that goes in that yellow beam.

Right. Oh, well, well that's where some, you can put these trackers in and find out, and it, it's alarming all over the world. Uh, things that have said to be going to recycling actually end up being incinerated, either domestically, overseas and or, and the other, and we think, we think we've ticked our box by closing that lead, and that's it.

Right. This is, I think the problem is if you look at the. Sustainability strategy for any council or any government. And therefore the people you know who live there, we, it is all based on the recycling. Mm-hmm. And we are diligently separating our recycling only for about, in the Australia, about 9% of it to ever actually be recycled.

And in [00:13:00] food packaging it's even less than that. So it's, it's, they're completely misleading. Yeah. And that we've gotta stop with that. We should gotta stop being misled around that. 

Speaker 2: It's unbelievable. Like in, in Italy, my, my family lives in Italy and every time I, every time I go and visit at six months or 12 months, whatever, they get stricter and stricter on their recycling procedure.

So my mum one year had one bin. The following year she has two bins and then three bins, and now she does, but it's just like, like five different bin outside the house. It, but they seem to be much stricter it seems. They seems to stick with it a little bit more. 

Speaker 3: Are strict and you do amazing source of, you've gotta put trucks on the road to come and collect all that.

You've gotta Oh yeah, of course. True. It's not an efficient way, it's the wrong way of framing the problem materials on planet earth. It creates vast amount of pollution. It looks very good. You can make beautiful products out of it, but it is. Not an economic and it's not massively great for the planet, and I just think we're diluting ourselves.

Yeah. Just be honest about that and, and, and put the investment into things that are better at keeping the materials in where you [00:14:00] need them. And that's why reuse is powerful, is that we concentrate the use of materials in a more closed loop environment where we're not melting and grinding stuff down every time we use it.

Speaker: Yeah. 

Speaker 3: Very good. Very good. I love that. I love 

Speaker 2: that. Well, look, um, this is 

Speaker: hard to do 15 minutes 'cause we just wanna talk. It's really to everybody for a lot longer. Yeah, it's 

Speaker 2: absolutely, um, well first of all, let me say before I forget, thank you for supplying these cups today to our room for all cafe upstairs on level three.

So, um, we are really excited that we, we can contribute a little bit by, by doing what we're doing and, and not filling the bin with, uh, with cups that 

Speaker: Absolutely. Yeah. Go 

Speaker 2: wherever. Um, so thank you. But, um. What's one thing that we haven't spoken about as we sort of heading to the wrapping up, uh, that you'll really like to say to the people that are listening?

Well, we, 

Speaker 3: we haven't spoken about what happens when these cups get used, so we put them in our drop pods. Mm-hmm. Um, they'll get collected by our team who are, uh, in Sydney. These are women who have faced challenges seeking or getting into employment. So typically, [00:15:00] uh, escaping from domestic violence or out of the prison system.

They're taken to our wash hub. Which one of the most advanced wash hubs in Australia for Reusables. It can process over 10,000 Reusables. Okay, 

Speaker: that's insane. A few 

Speaker 3: hours. Where is it? Uh, it's down in the CBD actually underneath one of our, in, in one of the, with these, one of these partnering landlord. Oh, fantastic.

Brilliant. And we are finding some really interesting stuff with the employment there, because reuse actually creates brilliant opportunity for employment. 

Speaker: Absolutely. And 

Speaker 3: these, in these, this marginalized group that need to use it as a stepping stone, it's fascinating working with them on it. So I'll give you one quote to finish.

Mm. Yes. One of our team members said to me this week. Patrick, when I put put on the Cercle shirt and I go out to collect the cups and take them back to the washroom, people smile at me. And I've never had a job where people smile at me like that. Wow. 

Speaker: I'm a very emotional person for like inclusion and for creating job opportunities.

So that just you, you are tearing up. You are. I didn't see your eyes. Eyes a tear. [00:16:00] I think anywhere that you can feel included and, uh, do you know how many people don't smile at you? Mm. So for that, 

Speaker 3: but it's 'cause we are doing this good for the environment. Yes. Like so. People are loving it. That reuse is being normalized.

And so they see one of our team members out and they're like, yes. You go, girl, that's fantastic. I love it. I love it. And look, it, 

Speaker 2: it's very, we, we, we experience that at the hotel ourselves. 'cause we can, we sit there on a Friday night or a Saturday night, observe our trainees, interacting with the public.

It's unbelievable. And you can see the smiles on both sides. Uh, and you know, like it's because people give time to others, uh, to express.

Speaker: Do people want to give time to others? 

Speaker 2: Fantastic. That's a, that's a great quote. Business for good. 

Speaker: Definitely. 

Speaker 2: And, um. Maybe we can introduce, um, Patrick to some of the hotels we work with as well.

Yeah, definitely hotels would be perfect. Will be another perfect as well. Yeah. Yeah. Another good, um, area. So where can people find you? How can they learn more about you? 

Speaker 3: So we are, we are a [00:17:00] startup. Um, we are in, um, about 12 large commercial assets across Australia. So in some of those workplaces, you know, like the banks and consulting firms, people will already be using our service.

When it comes to the general public, we are. Releasing a cafe network. There's a pilot happening up in Port Douglas at the moment with our cups, which is looking to target, actually, it's got some hotels in there Nice as well, which is Streetwide activation. We're doing a lot of work in Byron Bay where there's the council.

There is, is is actually moving away from single use events. Amazing. And best way to contact you? We'll, we'll, um, website. Website, online. LinkedIn. Yeah. We, our team will be very happy to. Fantastic. We'll put that all on the show notes. 

Speaker 2: And so yeah, we hope that more people will reach out to you and, uh, yeah.

Thank you. Promote you as much as possible. Thank you, Patrick. Sorry for being quick, but No problem. Very, uh, very, um, articulate and communicative, so very, very good. Thank you very much, very much. Thank you. 

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