Founder of USE-IT; MD of Chris Whyte & Associates, Sustainable Tech, Pyrolysis Group & SDG Africa; South African Chapter Lead and Director of the African Circular Economy Network (ACEN); Co-Founder of the ACEN Foundation; Director of ImagineIF NPC.

Since 1992, Chris has been involved in environmental and sustainable project developments across Africa and channelled his focus into waste from 1999. He founded and headed USE-IT the Waste Materials Recovery Industry Development Programme in Durban, South Africa from 2009 to 2020 facilitating more than 2600 jobs in the waste and recycling sector in that time, leveraging 4.5 times their funding in landfill savings to municipality and an additional 10 times that funding in commercial project development. This created a model for green economic development and innovation in South Africa that worked.

Chris deals in every aspect of the waste stream to explore, invent and create sustainable opportunities in waste beneficiation that touch on waste management, water management, infrastructure, energy, social upliftment, environmental benefit, economic development, low-carbon development, enterprise development and skills development – all key aspects of sustainability and drivers of the Circular Economy.

In June 2020, Chris moved on from USE-IT to focus on the commercial development of his other business interests in the waste sector and to expand his vision for a Circular Economy to the rest of Africa and to global opportunities. His passion and vision are to transition corporates and countries to a Circular Economy where waste is a resource.