This report provides guidance for governments to finance zero waste systems. It highlights fiscal benefits, including job creation and cost reductions of 66–75% compared to incineration. It details mechanisms like procurement reform and extended producer responsibility while identifying pitfalls such as capital-intensive debt traps and dependency on grants.

This research outlines a two-tier strategy for financing zero waste, highlighting systemic barriers and the economic value of resource recovery. It details how aligning national policy with local implementation through tiered city archetypes can generate fiscal savings, improve public health, and create inclusive employment opportunities in circular economies.

This report evaluates the Circular Economy Innovation Cluster (CEIC) programme in Bengaluru and Nairobi from 2023-2025. It identifies impacts including 124 collaborations, support for 1,550 informal workers, and a potential reduction of 218 kt CO2eq annually through upstream innovation and enhanced ecosystem coordination.

This report examines transition strategies for solar value chains, focusing on circular business models for photovoltaic and solar water heating systems. It explores lifecycle management, modular design, and policy frameworks needed to manage projected cumulative solar waste of 60–78 million tonnes by 2050 while recovering critical materials.

This report explores implementing traceability in recycled plastics value chains. Drawing on pilots in Viet Nam and Indonesia, it identifies misaligned incentives and data governance as primary barriers. It recommends integrating traceability into existing business processes and provides a decision framework to support organisations at different maturity stages.

This report examines barriers and enablers for scaling up textile recycling in the EU. Combining literature reviews with 20 stakeholder interviews, it identifies technological, financial, and regulatory constraints. Recommendations include supporting demand-side measures, funding sorting technology research, and strengthening value chain collaboration to achieve circularity targets.

This research evaluates advance market commitments to bridge the supply-demand imbalance for recycled materials. It identifies opportunities in mixed plastic, textile waste, and paper-based alternatives, advocating for binding financial agreements to incentivise investment in recycling capacity and support global sustainability targets.

This report examines India’s transition to a circular economy, highlighting policy frameworks like Extended Producer Responsibility and NITI Aayog’s strategic focus areas. Through case studies of Siemens, Tata Steel, and Volvo Construction Equipment, it demonstrates how circular principles drive resource efficiency, waste reduction, and business value.

This report examines how urban planning can operationalise the circular economy by addressing spatial dimensions. Drawing on European city experiences, it explores circular developments, infrastructure, land management and multi-level governance. It provides strategic directions for integrating circularity into core planning instruments to support systemic, territorially grounded transitions.

This research establishes regionalised characterisation factors for microplastic emissions across marine, freshwater, and terrestrial ecosystems. Using fate modelling aligned with USEtox, it evaluates 14 polymers and five size categories. Findings demonstrate that particle size and density significantly influence environmental persistence and subsequent impacts on global species richness.

What a Waste 3.0 provides a global assessment of municipal solid waste management across 217 countries and economies. It analyses waste generation, collection, treatment, recycling, financing, employment, climate impacts and circularity pathways to 2050, highlighting rising waste volumes, infrastructure investment needs, resource recovery opportunities and policy frameworks for sustainable waste systems.

The article interprets Copernicus’s Global Climate Highlights 2025 as a shift from episodic extremes to a structurally warmer, more volatile baseline. It argues that persistent temperature exceedances, ocean heat, cryosphere decline, and overlapping hazards demand a move from climate risk awareness to disciplined adaptation and continuity planning.

This article argues the global food system is the largest source of human-caused methane and deserves far more policy and funding attention. It maps key emission “hot spots”—ruminant livestock, food waste in landfills, biomass burning, and flooded rice fields—and outlines practical mitigation options from dietary shifts to landfill capture and improved rice management.

This series provides an overview of the artisanal and small-scale mining sector, examining its structure, operating context, and governance considerations. It explores economic, social, environmental, and regulatory dimensions to support informed analysis, comparison, and ongoing assessment of developments across the sector over time.

The Corporate Plastic Pollution Scorecard is a benchmark series that assesses how large consumer-facing companies address plastic packaging responsibility. It reviews corporate policies, commitments, disclosures, and practices across key areas of packaging design, reuse, recycled content, transparency, recycling support, and producer responsibility, enabling consistent comparison over time.

This report argues that embedding circular economy principles within the Sustainable Development Goals could revive stalled progress. It outlines five global policy priorities and proposes a 2050 blueprint linking circularity, inclusive growth, trade, finance and standards to post-2030 development agendas.