Emilian Cartis Launches Cartis & Co to Help Organisations Build Sustainability Into Strategy — Not Just Reporting

LONDON, July 05, 2026 — Emilian Cartis, a design and innovation leader with more than two decades of experience at the intersection of sustainability, strategy, and product design, has launched Cartis & Co, a London-based creative transformation studio positioned to help organisations move beyond compliance-driven sustainability into commercially grounded systemic change.

Cartis & Co operates at the intersection of design thinking, innovation strategy, experience design, and business transformation. The studio's core proposition is direct: helping organisations make sense of complexity and identify where meaningful innovation can emerge — translating sustainability ambition into integrated strategy rather than after-the-fact reporting. At a moment when EU directives such as the CSRD are compelling companies to demonstrate full-lifecycle impact across their supply chains, the timing of the launch reflects a clear market need.

A Career Built on Doing, Not Advising

Cartis brings a track record that spans corporate design leadership, academic research, and independent consulting. At PepsiCo's West Europe Design Innovation studio, he served as Head of Brand Experience and Design for Sustainability, leading product design innovation with a focus on design thinking, sustainability systems, and what the industry now calls "beyond packaging." One of his most visible projects was the PepsiCo x Loop reusable packaging initiative — a direct-to-consumer model piloted with the Tropicana and Quaker brands. Launched at Davos in January 2019 and taken to market in Paris that May, the project attracted coverage from Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal, and The Verge, and demonstrated how circular economy principles could be applied at scale inside a global food and beverage business.

Prior to his senior PepsiCo roles, Cartis worked with Humanscale and the Romanian Design Council, and was a BraunPrize Finalist as early as 2003 — an indication of the longevity and consistency of his design practice. He holds an Executive MBA from Imperial College Business School, completed in 2020, with a final project focused on sustainability innovation and circular economy.

Research That Crosses Into Practice

Cartis does not limit his contribution to client work. In collaboration with Professor Nancy Bocken, he co-authored a peer-reviewed paper published in the Journal of Cleaner Production, examining how to encourage consumers to resell used products — using LEGO bricks as a detailed case study. The research, based on interviews with LEGO employees, resellers, and a survey reaching nearly 400,000 LEGO consumers, found that consumers are significantly more likely to sell used products when they better understand their residual value — a finding with direct implications for sectors ranging from fashion to consumer electronics. The paper also proposed a "manufacturer-enabled resale" model, arguing that brands which actively support second-hand markets for their products do not cannibalise new product sales, but instead unlock new revenue streams and measurable sustainability outcomes.

This combination of practitioner experience and published research gives Cartis & Co an unusual positioning in a market crowded with consultancies that offer frameworks without implementation depth.

What Cartis & Co Delivers

"Real change starts long before the first product ships — in the design brief, in the materials list, in the sourcing contracts," said Emilian Cartis, Founder of Cartis & Co. "What we do at Cartis & Co is help organisations design the system, not just the deliverable. Sustainability only becomes durable when it is also commercially compelling."

The studio's methodology draws on systems mapping, design thinking, and foresight to frame opportunities grounded in business reality and technology. Services span strategy development, innovation pipelines, experience design, and transformation programmes — with sustainability woven into each stage rather than layered on at the end. Cartis has also brought his expertise into the academic setting, serving as a workshop coordinator at the Politecnico di Milano's Design School, where he co-led sessions alongside peers from De'Longhi Group, PepsiCo, Sony Corporation, and TU Delft — guiding more than 120 international students in developing concepts across product, service, and system design.

The Big Picture

The launch of Cartis & Co arrives as pressure on businesses to demonstrate credible, integrated sustainability strategies intensifies. Regulatory demands, investor scrutiny, and a consumer base increasingly attuned to greenwashing mean that design-led, commercially anchored transformation is no longer optional — it is a competitive requirement. Cartis & Co is built to meet that demand, combining boardroom-level strategy with hands-on design capability.

For organisations looking to close the gap between sustainability ambition and operational reality, Cartis & Co is open for engagements now.