Ellen MacArthur Foundation names first chief AI and innovation officer

Nathan Allen, who spent eight years in sustainability at Google, has joined the Ellen MacArthur Foundation — a non-profit focused on building the circular economy — as its first chief AI and innovation officer, bringing two decades of experience spanning strategy, innovation and program management. 

The new role reflects a convergence of factors, Allen said, including growing corporate commitment to circularity, rapid advancements in AI and the foundation’s shift from agenda-setting to implementation.

“The use cases for AI in circularity are no longer theoretical,” said Allen. “Today, computer vision sorts recycling at industrial scale, digital twins model product lifecycles and generative AI is powering material science.”

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation was founded in 2010 to address challenges such as climate change and biodiversity loss. Alongside partners in business, academia and policy — including Google, Microsoft and Amazon — the foundation works to scale circular solutions across the priority sectors of critical minerals, fashion and textiles, and plastics and packaging. 

“My mandate has three parts,” Allen said. “Embedding AI across our own work, showing our partners how AI can accelerate circularity transitions and fostering new solutions.”

One example is Google DeepMind’s AI tool GNoME, which has discovered 2.2 million new crystals to date, including 380,000 stable enough to potentially replace traditional critical minerals. The foundation is collaborating with Google to find homes for these materials in EV batteries and elsewhere.

“Many companies underestimate how beneficial circularity can be to profit,” said Allen. “AI-enabled tools can optimize inventory management and unlock alternatives to scarce materials, addressing challenges such as resource constraints and geopolitical tensions.”

Allen also said AI is enabling companies to audit their value chains and improve processes in ways previously out of reach.  

“AI is the only technology that can create, optimize and track value across an entire value chain in real time,” Allen noted. “And that’s where the advantage of circular systems can easily beat linear business models in cost and ROI.” 

Allen is currently a doctoral student at the University of Oxford, researching AI for sustainable urban development.