Building an AI-Assisted Thought Leadership Library for Circular Sydney

The brief: building a public circular economy library

• Build a diverse interview library showcasing Sydney’s circular economy

• Share real-world stories, motivations and challenges across sectors

• Create accessible public content to support future collaboration

01 Built from the ground up

We identified and interviewed 30+ businesses and organisations across First Nations practices, design, architecture, manufacturing, science and startups. These included OzHarvest, UNSW SMaRT Centre, BlockTexx, Citizen Wolf, Urban Beehive, Planet Ark, Boomerang Labs, Regen Sydney and more, alongside advisers Gemma Dawson (City of Sydney) and Matthew Wright-Simon (Engage Change).

All contributors were based in Sydney and introduced mostly through community referrals, which meant the network stayed genuine, connected and diverse from the start.

02 An AI-assisted publishing system

We built the full production system in-house, using AI to help speed things up without losing quality. The process ran in four steps: tailored interview questions created with AI prompts, content written, edited and fact-checked by science and sustainability graduates, AI-assisted editing to sharpen clarity and tone, and publishing through our blog as an open-access content hub.

We grouped the interviews into seven key areas of the circular economy: design, materials, manufacturing, logistics, consumption, reuse and recycling. This lean, AI-supported approach let us publish 33 interviews in three months, at a pace and scale that would have been hard to reach otherwise.

03 An accessible, unfiltered content library

The content is publicly accessible, giving councils, brands and businesses a rare, unfiltered look at who’s actually doing the work in Sydney’s circular economy and how they’re doing it.

We also shared the project with over 1,000 attendees at Purpose Conference 2023, which helped broaden its reach well beyond our own audience.

Browse the full interview library:

• Anna Minns on Circular Economy Startups in Australia

• UNSW on Turning Banana Waste into Bioplastics

• Mike Ritchie on Australia’s 2030 Waste Targets

• Ninotschka Titchkosky on Circular Architecture

• Zoltan Csaki on Making Fashion Circular

• Craig Reucassel on Reuse and the War on Waste

• Dr Danièle Hromek on Designing with Country

• Dr Paul Callaghan on Caring for Country

• David Beaumont on Learning from First Nations Elders

• Alexx Stuart on Low Tox Living and Gentle Activism

• PACK & SEND on Hyperlocal Logistics and Circularity

• Ryan Collins on Planet Ark’s Circular Economy Hub

• Henri Turra on Running a Zero Waste Catering Company

• Gemma Dawson on the City of Sydney’s Waste Strategy

• Vicky Brown on Urban Beekeeping in Sydney

• Jo Taranto on Citizens and the Circular Economy

• How to Recycle in the City of Sydney

• Mikey Leung on Storytelling for Positive Change

• Andrew Douglas on Bringing Green Ceramics to Market

• Sally Hill on Purpose Conference and Business

• Jess Scully on Systemic Change and Fairer Systems

• Liane Rossler on Creativity and Designing for Good

• Nila Rezaei on Designing Products for Circularity

• Piers Grove on Funding Circular Economy Startups

• Regen Sydney on Regenerative Consumption

• Ronni Kahn AO on Food Waste and Food Security

• Claire Maloney on Storytelling for Behaviour Change

• Nick Gonios on Product Usage over Ownership

• Adrian Jones on Recycling Blended Textiles

• Professor Veena Sahajwalla on MICROfactories and Green Steel

• Justin Frank on Circular Logistics and Supply Chains

• Natalie Isaacs on Women and Climate Action

• Franz Siasat on E-Waste and Refurbishing Tech

04 Government funding support

This project was made possible by a grant from the City of Sydney’s Knowledge Exchange program, which supports ideas that help share local knowledge.

We’ve since used what we learned here to help other purpose-led teams win their own grants and funding.

05 Circular Sydney LIVE event

The interview project helped inspire ReCo LIVE 2025, our event focused on helping purpose-driven brands grow through better research, branding and strategy.

Project impact

• 33 interviews published in 3 months

• Shared with 1,000+ attendees at Purpose Conference 2023

• Widely read and shared among councils, businesses and changemakers

• Built an AI-supported library to inform future research and projects

• Delivered successfully through City of Sydney funding support

Key takeaways

• AI speeds up production without cutting corners: combining expert insight, AI tools and emerging talent makes content faster to produce and still accurate and engaging.

• Interviews surface insight you can’t get from a report: talking directly to the people doing the work reveals things a desk review misses.

• Grants can turn an idea into something real: government funding gave a small team the resources to build something at genuine scale.

• A content library outlasts a campaign: unlike a one-off push, the interviews keep working as a resource long after publication.

Thought leadership building project: FAQs

How do you produce 33 in-depth interviews in three months with a small team?

By building a repeatable system instead of treating each interview as a one-off. We used AI to help draft tailored questions for each interviewee, then had science and sustainability graduates write, edit and fact-check the content, with AI-assisted editing as a final pass for clarity and tone. That structure let a small team move at a pace that would normally need a much bigger one.

Why use AI for something as personal as an interview series?

Because AI handled the repetitive parts, not the human ones. It sped up question drafting and editing, but the interviews themselves, the relationships and the judgment calls about what mattered in each conversation, stayed with our editors. That balance is what kept the content feeling genuine rather than automated.

How did you find 30+ organisations willing to take part?

Mostly through community referrals rather than cold outreach. Once a few respected names in Sydney’s circular economy space were on board, like Planet Ark and UNSW SMaRT Centre, other contributors came through their networks. That approach naturally built trust and kept the group diverse across First Nations practices, design, manufacturing and science.

What did winning a City of Sydney grant involve?

It started with a clear proposal showing how the project served a public knowledge-sharing goal, not just our own brand. The Knowledge Exchange grant specifically supports ideas that help share local knowledge, so we framed Circular Sydney around that public benefit from the outset. That experience is now something we help other purpose-led teams apply to their own funding.

What happens to a content library like this after it’s published?

It keeps working. Councils, brands and businesses use it as a reference point for who’s active in the space and what they’re doing. We also took it beyond the blog by presenting it to over 1,000 people at Purpose Conference 2023, and the project itself became the seed for a new event, ReCo LIVE.