LEYLA ACAROGLU
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LEYLA ACAROGLU
Sustainability & Circular Economy Provocateur, Designer, Sociologist, Experimental Educator and Impact Entrepreneur
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Dr. Leyla Acaroglu challenges people to think differently about how the world works.

An award-winning designer, sustainability provocateur, social scientist and entrepreneur, Leyla Acaroglu (PhD) developed the Disruptive Design Method and creates educational experiences, toolkits, and social enterprises that help design a sustainable, circular and regenerative future.

She's a mainstage TED speaker, LinkedIn Changemaker and was named UNEP Champion of the Earth in 2016 for her work in advancing science and innovation for sustainability. Leyla leads presentations around the world on activating positive social and environmental change through systems interventions. As an entrepreneur, she founded the UnSchool, Disrupt Design, the CO Project Farm, Circular Futures, and Swivel Skills. In addition to her entrepreneurial initiatives, Leyla holds the honorary role of Chief Circular Designer for Circular Australia.

Leyla is a sought-after facilitator and keynote speaker known for highly engaging, interactive, inspirational and humorous talks on activating positive change by design.


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People like Leyla Acaroglu are so important to driving this change. Leyla is a 2016 UN Environment Champion of the Earth for science and innovation. Leyla inspires and helps people to equip themselves with agency, tools, and knowledge they need to shape the world and transform our lifestyles.
— Erik Solheim, Former Executive Director UNEP

Get Leyla’s Latest Publications


Mainstage TED & TEDx Talks

Leyla’s 2013 Mainstage TED Talk, Longbeach, California

Leyla’s 2014 TEDx Talk on Rethinking Sustainability, Melbourne, Australia

Leyla’s 2019 TEDx Talk on Valuing Invisible things, Lisbon, Portugal



Talk Testimonials


 

Media Coverage


 

Opening Keynote at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s C100 Conference, July, 2017

 
It was a pleasure working with Leyla on our opening session for our 2017 Annual Summit. Drawing from Leyla’s experience in working with groups, we were able to be creative on how we structured the session, engaging the audience in a participatory way whilst also sharing her insights and integrity of thinking about the role of design in systemic change. We look forward to continuing to work with her and the team on how circular design can create more regenerative and restorative systems in the world we create.
— Jules Hayward - Education Lead Ellen MacArthur Foundation

ACHIEVEMENTS & CONTRIBUTIONS

Over the last two decades, Leyla has developed a range of projects and incentives to help activate positive social and environmental change, by design. Her work as been awarded several notable acknowledgements, including being named 2016 Champion of the Earth by the UN Environment Program. She has developed a range of award-winning creative projects and founded Disrupt Design, The UnSchool of Disruptive Design and the CO Project Living Learning Lab in Portugal. As a social entrepreneur, she is dedicated to finding unique and creative ways of making change through education, industry and activation projects.

 

UNEP CHAMPION OF THE EARTH AWARD

In 2016, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) named Leyla Acaroglu Champion of the Earth for her pioneering work in science and innovation for sustainability and social change.


THE UNSCHOOL OF DISRUPTIVE DESIGN

In her constant quest to explore how to activate creative change-makers, equipped with the tools to design for a positive planet, Leyla founded the award-winning UnSchool of Disruptive Design in 2014. The UnSchool is an experimental learning lab for purpose-driven creative rebels and change-makers; it runs programs around the world teaching the Disruptive Design Method.


THE DISRUPTIVE DESIGN METHOD

After years of exploring creative change-making, Leyla developed the Disruptive Design Method for activating positive social and environmental change. It combines systems thinking, sustainability sciences and design thinking for positive impacts on the planet.


AWARD-WINNING CREATIVE PROJECTS

Leyla has designed many award-winning activation toolkits for helping others make a positive impact on the planet. She has written several handbooks and creative provocations through her unique approach to cognitive experience design.


THE ANATOMY OF ACTION

Created by Leyla and her team, The Anatomy of Action is a free sustainable living toolkit born out of a partnership project between the United Nations Environment Program and The UnSchool of Disruptive Design to define and communicate the most positively impactful actions any one of us can take to add to the global movement around sustainable lifestyles and help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.


THE CIRCULAR CLASSROOM

The Circular Classroom is a free, trilingual (English, Finnish + Swedish) educational resource for students and teachers alike. It is designed to integrate circular thinking into high school classrooms, all packaged up in a fun, beautiful, mixed media format. The Circular Classroom Curriculum offers tools to learn how to redesign products and services so that they are more sustainable, equitable, and effective at meeting our human needs without creating negative consequences for the planet.


 
Leyla did a super engaging talk at Made in Space that the audience really loved - she is a visionary, progressive thinker that in an optimistic and constructive way can address some of the big challenges we face as a human race and still leave a room uplifted and filled with hope.
— Simon Caspersen, Made in Space, Copenhagen

HANDBOOKS