Morph Bags is not a typical company. We exist to turn waste into opportunity.
My wife and I launched Morph to reduce waste, support skilled makers, and show what circular production can look like in practice. This includes identifying and recovering materials that would otherwise be wasted, partnering with skilled makers, and demonstrating what circular production can look like in practice. But sustainable products alone aren’t enough. Getting to a genuinely sustainable economy requires new ways of thinking, communities willing to work together on hard problems, and institutions willing to be challenged.
That’s why teaching and community engagement remain central to my work. They embody the same values and commitments that gave rise to it. Building community, sharing ideas, creating programs, and advocating for beneficial policy all help foster systems-level change beyond the scope of our products and operations. This page highlights some of that work.
— Chris Oestereich, Founder, Morph Bags
University Teaching & Guest Lecturing
Thammasat University — School of Global Studies
For the past decade, I’ve lectured at Thammasat University’s School of Global Studies in Bangkok. While there, I’ve taught courses focused on systems thinking, social innovation, advocacy, and social enterprise. The program I teach in, Global Studies and Social Enterprise (GSSE) features an active learning model designed to help students gain comfort dealing directly with real problems and real constraints.
GSSE prioritizes engagement over passive instruction. Students work together to deal with messy challenges, test ideas, and develop the skills and confidence needed to drive change. Teaching there has been one of the most rewarding parts of my career. Every classroom is filled with sharp, engaged students who are service-oriented.
In 2017, I led the launch of an effort to develop case studies focused on social entrepreneurship and social innovation in Southeast Asia. The SGS Case Centre was established through a grant partnership between SGS and The HEAD Foundation. We started this effort to develop contextually relevant cases for our students. The case studies help students get comfortable dealing with the uncertainty involved with addressing complex challenges.
Why I Teach
Guest Lecturing: Asia, the US, and Europe
Beyond Thammasat, I’ve had the privilege of sharing and teaching about circular economy and systems thinking to groups across Asia, the US, and Europe. I’ve done so in classrooms, businesses, workshops, community settings, and conferences in working to help people rethink resource use.
When teaching, I try to introduce new ideas and help students understand concepts well enough to know when and how to apply them. The goal is give them a practical understanding that shapes future decisions, actions, and outcomes.
If you’re organizing a program or interested in developing something where this perspective could add value, I’d be glad to hear from you.
Community Building, Education, & Collaboration
We’re living through uncertain times. Rapid change and upheaval are norms. Complex challenges, the so-called wicked problems, are mounting all around us. Community building is a powerful response to this uncertainty. Bringing people together around shared interests and concerns creates opportunities for knowledge sharing, trust, and collaboration.
While we believe deeply in Morph’s potential, we are certain of the necessity of community-building. The more we come together, the stronger we become.
CircularSTL
CircularSTL is a community effort that brings together businesses, nonprofits, universities, government, and residents to advance a circular economy in the St. Louis region. The coalition works to build ties, raise awareness, educate, and advocate, while highlightin innovative models and initiatives that eliminate waste and keep materials in circulation. I co-chair the effort’s a steering committee that’s working to continually grow our community and lay the foundation for transformative change.
Learn more: circularstl.org
The Circular Design Lab
The Circular Design Lab was born from the desire to foster a community capable of helping address some of the biggest challenges facing cities like Bangkok? My CDL co-founders, Jett Virangkabutra, Courtney Savie Lawrence, and Praewa Satutum, were also on the faculty of Thammasat’s School of Global Studies. With CDL, we brought people together to dig into environmental and social challenges using a systems thinking lens, while centering genuine community participation.
In our workshops, participants would use storytelling to help others understand their perspective, as we worked to build a shared understanding of the problem. Doing so helped allowed us to merge insights, while uncovering misperceptions and identifying opportunities to learn more. Next, they would dig deeper and work to understand the forces driving undesired outcomes. Once we had a reasonable understanding of the system, we’d move on to the design phase where we’d develop and test ideas and worked towards implementing beneficial change.
Learn more via the CDL’s site: circulardesignlab.org
Programs
CDL Workshops & Events
The CDL’s workshop programs took participants through our adaptive systemic design process as they focused on some of Bangkok’s most pressing challenges. Workshops were complemented by curated panel discussions featuring diverse expertise that included everything from global to hyperlocal efforts. Those events also had breakout sessions that picked up where the panel left off, so that everyone could share and learn from each other.
The Incubation Network’s Circular Innovation Jam — the Incubation Network partnered with the CDL and Linear to Circular to launch the first Circular Innovation Jam. Together, we ran a virtual design sprint developing inclusive solutions to advance circular economies for plastics and waste management across South and Southeast Asia.
The ASEAN Workshop on the Promotion of CSR for Social Welfare and Development
The CDL was invited to lead workshops for the ASEAN Workshop on the Promotion of CSR for Social Welfare and Development, which brought together government representatives from across the ASEAN region to advance corporate social responsibility and sustainable development. The program was a meaningful opportunity to bring systemic design methods directly to people leading relevant efforts throughout the region.
CircularSTL Symposia
I’ve helped shape and facilitate two annual CircularSTL Symposia, bringing together leaders across sustainability, policy, civic institutions, and business to share knowledge, build shared understanding, and co-create a roadmap toward a more circular St. Louis.
Siam Motors Group & the Thai Government – In collaboration with my CDL co-founder and a member of Thailand’s Government Innovation Lab, Dr. Jett Virangkabutra, I’ve co-led programs that brought circular economy and systems thinking frameworks to corporate and public sector audiences at scale. The former led to the development of at least one product made from waste generated by the firm, filling a resource need while broadening team members’ perspectives and encouraging cross-pollination and collaboration across traditionally siloed units. The latter program handed community members the reins as they designed change that improved the mix of waste entering an incinerator, thereby reducing operating costs, while doing so in ways that benefited the community. That approach led to the desired improvement in the incinerator’s performance, while also increasing incomes, supporting local food production via community gardens, and it also led to the unexpected benefit of waste smell reduction in the street via the removal of compostable organics from the waste stream.
Local Programs in St. Louis
I’ve been teaching classes on circular economy and systems thinking to local audiences across St. Louis, including programs with the Principia Scool, where I taught case studies as part of their annual Impact Challenge that’s focused on climate change. I’ve run related classes at MICDS, including teaching the Zero Waste Game, a board game I created to help students think about waste as a resource.
Selected Collaborations & Engagements – I’ve supported a wide range of other programs and initiatives:
- Covestro – Supported an effort to develop 3D printing filament with waste from Covestro’s operations. The project was going to be ended in favor of one that was closer to providing direct, measurable benefits, so I asked to take over the project. Covestro agreed to support us and we managed to develop a prototype filament that produced sturdy models, but its appearance did not meet our expectations. This project was headed back for additional testing and prototyping when the pandemic began. Those circumstances killed the project, but the effort led to the formation of Morph.
- The Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s Disruptive Innovation Festival — the Ellen MacArthur Foundation was among the CDL’s early organizational collaborators and we’ve participated in their flagship annual festival and other events.
- The Systemic Design Association – We engaged in multiple programs with the Systemic Design Association, including an interview in which we shared our story and learnings from launching CDL, as well as leading workshops for systemic design facilitators.
- The RSA — the CDL’s first lab was funded in part by a seed grant from the Royal Society of the Arts. I served as an RSA Global Ambassador and Bangkok Network Lead, and have contributed to multiple RSA programs.
- UNDP’s SEA Circular Program — a regional initiative focused on reducing marine plastic pollution across Southeast Asia, with which the CDL collaborated.
- Bangkok Design Week — I gave a talk about the CDL’s work to Bangkok’s annual design festival, in which I encouraged designers to consider the potential benefits of using systems thinking when working with complex challenges.
- The Circular Economy Club – As the Thailand Representative for the Circular Economy Club, I planned and hosted events aimed at growing the CE community and building support for change.
Tools for Systems Thinking
These are a few of the tools I’ve created to help others learn about the circular economy and employ systems thinking.
The Zero Waste Game
The Zero Waste Game is a hands-on group exercise that makes the circular economy tangible. Participants work with physical materials representing different waste streams, sorting and categorizing them to surface the resource value embedded in what would ordinarily be discarded. By doing rather than listening, players gain a better understanding of the opportunities that exist.
The game has been used in classroom and professional settings and is available for workshops and events.
Idea Triage
Idea Triage is a tool that gives workshop participants the opportunity to out forth topics they’d like to explore in the program. Once everyone has had a chance to share, they work together to create clusters which are then named. Individuals then opt-in to whatever cluster they prefer. This gives them the chance to collaborate with others on a topic of mutual interest, rather than being assigned to a group and then having to decide on a topic within the group.
The templates is shared on the Doughnut Economics Action Lab (DEAL) site, so you can check it out and download a copy for your own use there. View the tool at doughnuteconomics.org
Speaking & Collaboration
Whether it’s a classroom in Bangkok, a conference in Europe, or a community meeting in St. Louis, I’m always happy to share ideas and experiences related to the circular economy and systems thinking to new audiences. If you’re organizing something and think my perspective would add value, I’d love to hear from you.
Humanity’s Choice: Paradigm Shift or Bust
With that, please check out my talk from tedX Chiang Mai. It’s an urgent call for change to bring human civilization back within the Earth’s ecological limits.