e hear more and more buzz about the ’circular economy,’ but the idea is nothing new. It’s something that previous
generations just called practicality and value for money. To your grandparents, purchasing something that you knew would be obsolescent in five years wasn’t a sign of progress and forward thinking – it was at best a sign that you’d been duped; and at worst that you were a wasteful, ostentatious spendthrift. The main quality of a circular economy is the elimination of waste and pollution – a principle which has to be baked in from the moment a product or process is conceived – and that products are reused multiple times. MPB, headquartered in Brighton – with offices in Brooklyn and Berlin – is one of the top destinations for buying, and selling, used camera gear. From DSLRs to lenses, tripods and drones, its massive inventory provides carefully inspected and warrantied equipment from, and to, filmmakers and photographers around the world. Selling and trading over 300,000 cameras, lenses and accessories each year, MPB is built around the notion that top technology shouldn’t be disposable, and can be made available to anybody. The company’s dedication to thrift and value goes beyond platitudes of ‘reduce, reuse, recycle,’ and has become a guiding principle of the business – so much so that last year, MPB brought aboard a dedicated head of sustainability, Rachel Thompson. A SERIOUS APPROACH Thompson isn’t new to the sustainability sector. She has worked at the coalface (pun intended) of sustainability and corporate responsibility her entire career, including years as head of sustainability at Gatwick Airport. At MPB, she sees an opportunity to make real progress in growing a low-carbon, genuinely sustainable business. “MPB was a really good fit for me,” Thompson explains. “It’s about making the kit for storytelling affordable, accessible and sustainable, and that is really the origin story of the business. It’s not something that has to be added on or evolved into – compared to an airport, where the ethos around the environment is a longer, harder journey.” Thompson’s task is to formalise the sustainable practices the company already
From its headquarters on the British coast, MPB is rethinking camera equipment for the era of sustainability
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