Manuel Maqueda
Most corporate sustainability programmes are eco-efficiency exercises dressed as transformation. They reduce harm at the margin while the underlying business model still depends on extraction, waste, and single-use materials. Leaders increasingly sense the gap between their ESG narrative and the operating reality of their supply chains, and they need a credible framework for what comes next.
Manuel Maqueda teaches senior leaders how to move beyond eco-efficiency into circular and regenerative business models that produce commercial advantage, drawing on his Harvard, Berkeley and UCLA teaching practice.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Manuel Maqueda
- He teaches the working mechanics of circular and regenerative economics at Harvard’s Division of Continuing Education, and built the equivalent programmes at UC Berkeley Extension and UCLA Extension. The intellectual content has been tested on senior professional audiences for years.
- He co-founded the Plastic Pollution Coalition and runs SUPER, a certification programme that operationalises single-use plastics elimination inside real businesses. The advice is operator-grade, not lecture-grade.
- He bridges sustainability and AI through Viento.ai, applying machine learning to climate disaster response. Boards facing both decarbonisation and AI agendas get one voice across both.
- His client list includes Google, NASA, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Dell, Uber, Santander and the New Plastics Economy Conference. He is fluent across deep-tech, financial services and policy audiences.
- He delivers in English and Spanish, useful for Iberian, Latin American and Pan-American programmes where most sustainability authorities are anglophone only.
Biography highlights
- Special Program Instructor, Applied Circular Economics and Regenerative Economics, Harvard University Division of Continuing Education.
- Architect of the Circular Economy Program at UCLA Extension and the Circular Economy online course at UC Berkeley Extension.
- Co-founder, Plastic Pollution Coalition; CEO and co-founder, SUPER (Single-Use Plastics Elimination or Reduction).
- Co-founder, Viento.ai, applying machine learning to climate disaster response.
- Adviser to the Long Now Foundation; producer associated with the award-winning documentary Albatross on plastic pollution.
- Author of the forthcoming book The Meaning Economy on regenerative economics; speaking clients include Google, NASA, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Dell, Uber and Santander.
Biography
Most sustainability programmes inside large companies are still organised around doing less harm. They count carbon, swap materials, and add disclosures, while the core business model continues to extract, consume and discard. The leaders running them know the gap, and they are looking for a credible account of what an actual circular or regenerative business looks like.
That account is the working content of Manuel Maqueda’s teaching at Harvard’s Division of Continuing Education, where he is Special Program Instructor in Applied Circular Economics and Regenerative Economics. He built the equivalent programmes at UCLA Extension and UC Berkeley Extension. The frame he uses is practical: maintain the value of materials, components and products in use; eliminate waste and pollution by design; and where possible restore natural capital rather than only protecting it.
His authority is not only academic. He co-founded the Plastic Pollution Coalition, a global alliance on plastics, and runs SUPER, a tiered certification programme for businesses eliminating single-use plastics from their operations. Through Viento.ai he co-founded a venture applying machine learning to climate disaster response, which gives him a working view of where AI helps and where it does not in the climate agenda.
Maqueda has advised the Long Now Foundation, contributed to the documentary Albatross, and speaks for clients including Google, NASA, Salesforce, LinkedIn, Dell and the New Plastics Economy Conference. His forthcoming book The Meaning Economy sets out his case that only regenerative thinking provides a serious framework for the next phase of climate action and commercial reinvention.
Key speaking topics
- Circular economy strategy and implementation
- Regenerative economics and business models
- Plastic pollution and materials innovation
- Sustainability failure modes inside large organisations
- Supply chain redesign for circularity
- AI for climate resilience and disaster response
Ideal for
- Boards and executive committees of consumer goods, retail, materials and industrial companies revisiting their sustainability strategy.
- Chief Sustainability Officers, Chief Supply Chain Officers and Chief Strategy Officers preparing the next ESG operating cycle.
- Innovation, R&D and product leaders responsible for materials choices and packaging redesign.
- Policy, public sector and city government audiences working on plastics, circularity and climate adaptation.
Audience outcomes
- A working distinction between eco-efficiency, circular and regenerative business models, and where each one actually applies.
- The specific failure patterns that make corporate sustainability programmes stall, and what to do instead.
- A view of where AI changes the climate and resilience agenda for executives, and where it does not.
- Language and examples senior leaders can use with their board when proposing a more ambitious sustainability operating model.
Talks
A reframe of circular economy from recycling and waste reduction into a different model of how value is created and retained.
Key takeaways:
- Why most circular economy initiatives stay locked at the materials level
- The shift from product ownership to product performance
- Where circular models create durable commercial advantage
The case for regenerative business models as the credible successor to compliance-led sustainability.
Key takeaways:
- The limits of eco-efficiency and net-zero-only thinking
- How regenerative principles translate into operating decisions
- What senior leaders need from their teams to move from narrative to substance
A diagnostic talk on the recurring failure modes inside corporate sustainability programmes.
Key takeaways:
- The most common patterns that stall sustainability strategy at scale
- Why disclosure and reporting do not change operating reality on their own
- How to redesign sustainability governance around outcomes
A grounded view of where AI changes the climate and resilience agenda, drawn from work at Viento.ai.
Key takeaways:
- Where machine learning meaningfully accelerates climate response
- The risks of AI energy, materials and water footprints
- How boards should think about AI and climate as one agenda, not two