Just over 7% of used materials are cycled back into our economies. Meanwhile, in just the past six years, we have consumed over half a trillion tons of materials—nearly as much as all the materials consumed in the 20th century. If we continue on this trajectory, we will require resources equivalent to nearly three Earth-like planets by 2050. Meanwhile there is huge untapped business potential. The World Resource Institute projects that the circular economy offers a US$4.5 trillion economic opportunity by reducing waste, stimulating innovation and creating employment.
SDG(s)
Sustainable Development Goal(s)
12Responsible consumption and production
11Sustainable cities and communities
9Industry, innovation and infrastructure
R&D agenda
The Accelerator Labs’ R&D agenda on circular economy grew organically from waste experiments in Africa, the Caribbean and Southeast Asia. As prototypes, we have been working with informal waste pickers and partners to incentivize plastic recycling, find alternatives for packaging materials and turn trash into income. When we build coalitions of private sector, government and other partners, these small-scope experiments can create momentum towards the larger challenge of changing economic models away from take, make, waste. Our R&D agenda focuses on moving from experiments to scale by weaving a collective so that actors start to see like a system, testing out business incentives to encourage the adoption of circular practices, and connecting grassroots innovations to policy makers who are ready to drive systems change.
Some of the key questions we want to drive our R&D focus on are:
How can we de-risk waste innovation which is often ahead of regulation?
What kind of evidence informs government waste management decisions?
How can digital technology drive circularity in informal businesses?
A growing pipeline to boost circular economies
In Tanzania, the UNDP Accelerator Lab partnered with Jubilee Insurance to pioneer TakaBima, a very promising kind of microinsurance that benefits one of the most invisible and vulnerable groups of workers in the Global Majority: informal waste pickers. This innovative program offers waste pickers tokens when they deliver waste to waste banks that can then be used for medical coverage. This circular economy innovation has the potential to create multiple wins (no poverty, good health and cleaner cities) across the continent, and beyond.
UNDP Philippines has worked with city governments to turn storage space and waste plants into innovation labs. With support from the government of Japan and Rockefeller Foundation, this experiment has grown into a Green Economy Portfolio funded by the European Union. By 2028, the program will scale to 60 cities nationwide.
As part of this global circular economy R&D agenda, UNDP Accelerator Labs in 50 countries are filling data and knowledge gaps for green transformations, redefining waste value chains for sustainable business practices, accelerating local waste innovation and influencing waste-related cultural behaviors.
