Unscripted: The Circularity Gap
UNSCRIPTED: The Circularity Gap
Hosted by ZDHC Foundation; facilitated by Cortney McDermott
“To go out of your mind at least once a day is tremendously important. By going out of your mind, you come to your senses.” — Alan Watts
The world remains linear. Circularity is the solution, but making it work requires more than ambition, targets, or technology. It demands alignment across materials and manufacturing, capital and policy, technology and human behaviour.
The transition slows in the space between stakeholders: where responsibilities, commercial pressures and priorities do not yet align; where the conditions that sustain the linear economy remain intact.
What would it take to break the pattern?
Welcome to Unscripted: a deliberately different kind of systems-change gathering, creating room for candid conversation and genuine reflection, because some of the most useful insights happen off the record.
Join us in Vancouver for Unscripted: The Circularity Gap, a 90-minute facilitated dialogue exploring what must be true for circularity to work in practice and at scale. Together, we will move beyond what the future should look like to examine where we are stuck, how we must change, and what must change, commercially and structurally, to make circularity real.
This special Vancouver edition is facilitated by Cortney McDermott, international speaker, author and executive coach, and an expert in unlocking human potential through the science of change. Formerly with VF Corporation and Sustainability Partners Inc., Cortney will guide an experience designed to surface new possibilities, shared truths and practical openings for action.
Come ready to listen differently, think beyond familiar roles and discover what becomes possible when we stop reproducing the conditions that keep the linear economy in place.
The programme will be followed by informal drinks.
Practical Details
Date: Tuesday, 13 October 2026
Programme*: 18:30 – 20:00, followed by drinks
Location: Downtown Vancouver (precise venue TBC)
Format: In-person dialogue, held under the Chatham House Rule
About Cortney McDermott
Cortney McDermott is an expert in unlocking human potential through the science of change, an international speaker, author and executive coach, formerly of VF Corporation and Sustainability Partners Inc.
About ZDHC Foundation
ZDHC Foundation convenes brands, manufacturers, and chemical suppliers around a shared mission: to eliminate hazardous chemicals, advance circular production, and safeguard life, land, air, and water. With over 400 signatories, ZDHC’s Roadmap to Zero Programme and Manufacturing Restricted Substances List (ZDHC MRSL) equip facilities to implement non-toxic and circular practices. Together, these tools set critical industry benchmarks for regulators and investors while guiding brands and retailers toward decisions that support a sustainable future.
About Unscripted
UNSCRIPTED by ZDHC is a dialogue series dedicated to systems change, from circularity to environmental stewardship. Each UNSCRIPTED event features a 90-minute, expertly facilitated conversation that brings together industry leaders, investors, innovators, and cultural voices to confront a single challenge at the heart of how we produce, consume, invest and participate in and shape the systems of our time. Unscripted creates the space for honest exchange and the shifts in understanding required to spark real, lasting changes and transformation.