Peter Windischhofer

↳ refurbed.co.uk ↳ linkedin.com/in/windp/

Calling All Consumers

Bring a Friend

Peter and his cofounder met in class­—Hult grads share the same drive. If you have a colleague, friend, or family member that you think would thrive at Hult, you could both receive rewards when you recommend them to us.

↳ Check out the Bring a Friend Scheme

Hult

So, what’s the story with refurbed, the company you founded with your classmate Kilian Kaminski?

Peter Refurbed is an online marketplace for refurbished electronics. We have 150 employees and recently received 54 million USD in Series B funding. We just launched in Ireland and Sweden and will add two more markets in Europe in the coming weeks.

Hult

It’s going OK then! 😀 Why sustainability for you?

Peter

Because climate change will kill us sooner or later and the general public hasn’t understood that yet. We have to move towards a more circular economy, it’s only a question of when. Our resources are limited. We cannot grow forever if we are running out of resources.

Hult

You’re right, of course. But how can we do it?

Peter

New is still “cool” for many people, this needs to change.

Hult

So it’s a mindset thing. We keep hearing the same—we need a new narrative.

Peter

The push, as always, has to come from the people. Politicians and big corporates will not bring the change we need, they have no incentive to do so. Hence, we, the people, need to demand the change.

↳ Forbes 30U30 listing

Hult

And is that happening, would you say?

Peter

We’ve seen a big change in consumer behavior already. When we started the company in 2017, less than 20% of our customers bought refurbished products because of the environmental impact. Now, that figure is >50%. Still, consumer behavior is far away from where it has to go.

Hult

What’s the single biggest change you want to see?

Peter

Forbidding companies to use the word “sustainable,” as 99% of the products we buy aren’t sustainable and have nothing to do with real sustainability. It’s currently very hard for consumers to differentiate between true sustainability and greenwashing.

Hult

So what’s been your greatest personal impact so far, and what’s next for refurbed?

Peter Personally speaking, making a meaningful contribution to our environment. Professionally, we want to go to 10x our current level both in terms of sales and environmental impact. We want to change consumption for good and offer many more categories apart from electronics. This will be very challenging but it’s an amazing goal.