About

At Pristean Sustainability Consulting, we believe sustainability is most powerful when it’s both creative and practical. Founded by Dr. Julia Planko, Pristean was born from the belief that innovative thinking – grounded in deep expertise – can transform businesses for the better.

Julia’s strength lies in bringing creativity to complex sustainability challenges. With years of experience facilitating co-creation, she helps companies design future-proof strategies, circular business models, and market offerings that meet consumer needs, anticipate market trends, and stay ahead of evolving sustainability regulations.

She holds a PhD in Sustainable Development, with a focus on building innovation ecosystems for sustainability transitions. Her research showed how companies can proactively shape the systems they operate in – accelerating change and bringing innovative products and services to market faster.

After completing her PhD, Julia worked as a sustainability researcher and professor at the intersection of business strategy and systems change for sustainability and the circular economy. She has collaborated with innovators and front-runners to develop market-ready products and services, as well as to shape and orchestrate system-wide change.

Inspired by the consulting aspect of her work, Julia decided to dedicate herself full-time to sustainability consulting. Her expertise spans sustainable business strategy, circular business model transformation, ESG strategy alignment, network development, systems-change, stakeholder engagement, responsible supply chains, market offering improvement, and consumer behavior change.

Pristean works with a network of trusted partners to bring the right expertise to each project. We combine insight, imagination, and collaboration to turn sustainability ambitions into real-world impact.

Network of Experts

At Pristean, we believe in the power of collaboration and co-creation. We have a broad network of experts with different expertises. Below a few of our close collaborators:

System-Changer & Ocean Plastics Expert

Dr. Hanna Dijkstra

Hanna is a scientist, communicator, consultant, and educator focused on plastic pollution and innovative solutions. She has contributed to the UN Global Plastics Treaty, served as a monitoring specialist in the Plastics Odyssey, and is a skilled communicator and storyteller. Her expertise covers marine plastic pollution, circular systems, sustainable entrepreneurship, and environmental economics.

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LCA Specialist

Pien van den Heuvel

Pien van den Heuvel is a recognized LCA practitioner and reviewer with extensive experience conducting Life Cycle Assessments for businesses, consortia and large consulting firms. Her expertise lies in the built environment, infrastructure, and interior sectors. As a co-founder of LCALAB, she is dedicated to advancing best practices in LCA calculations.

Data Specialist

Ian Molenaar

Ian Molenaar is a data specialist with years of experience in data management and analysis. He excels at transforming complex data into clear, insightful visualizations and creating user-friendly dashboards.

Product Development Strategist

Cameron Watson

Cameron Watson is a Product Sustainability Strategy consultant with an engineering background and over a decade of experience. He helps original equipment manufacturers of complex physical products embed sustainability and circularity into product development, aligning teams and bridging sustainability goals with technical and commercial priorities.