Scaling With Purpose: A Framework for Inclusive Circular Economy Transitions

July 10, 2025

The IMT World Café session, hosted by ANDE, and the “Catalyzing Innovative Technologies in Waste & Circularity for Dignified Jobs” workshop, held in partnership with Villgro, brought together a diverse mix of stakeholders – including innovators, policymakers, financiers, and ecosystem enablers – for two insightful and grounded discussions. Each session offered a platform to explore the current landscape and emerging potential of waste and circularity solutions in India.

This blog captures key insights that emerged across the two discussions, highlighting existing barriers, opportunities for scale, and cross-cutting reflections on how innovation, finance, governance, and community engagement can converge to foster dignified and resilient livelihoods through circular solutions.

Current Gaps and Challenges:

Innovators face steep barriers in scaling due to high upfront capital requirements and limited access to localised technology solutions. The absence of integrated policy enforcement, such as Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), further hampers progress. Meanwhile, societal barriers like consumer stigma and limited awareness of sustainable alternatives constrain demand-side uptake. The ecosystem remains fragmented — with solutions often piloted in isolation and lacking systemic coherence.

What Scaling Could Look Like:

Scaling waste and circularity (W&C) solutions calls for a multifaceted strategy. Value chain integration – through backward and forward linkages – can enable diversified waste stream management and geographic expansion. Strategic partnerships with Urban Local Bodies (ULBs), corporates, and governments are essential to unlock procurement and infrastructure pathways. On the enterprise side, readiness includes navigating authorisation processes, building cost-effective models, and securing access to blended finance and regulatory support.

Importantly, ecosystem-level solutions – such as collaboration across supply chains, conversion of waste to energy or value-added materials, and engagement of informal sector players—can ensure sustainability and inclusivity.

Defining What Success Looks Like:

Success in this space must go beyond financial returns. It includes dignified job creation, formalisation of the informal sector, reduced landfill burden, and systemic behaviour change among consumers. True impact lies in circularity – where waste is minimised, reused, and reimagined as a resource. Effective models should be replicable, inclusive, and capable of influencing adjacent sectors.

Financing the Transition:

There is a critical need for blended finance models combining government grants, innovation pilots, plastic and carbon credits, and interest subvention schemes. Corporates can play a key role through CSR and supply chain integration, while impact investors, DFIs, and P2P platforms offer much-needed private capital.

To unlock scalable and accessible W&C solutions, a community-based, user-friendly approach must be at the center – grounded in local awareness, driven by partnerships, and supported by innovative finance and policy reform.

SOME REFLECTION

To unlock the potential of waste and circularity solutions in India, we must align innovation, policy, finance, and community engagement. A system-level approach – grounded in inclusive value chain integration, behavioural shifts, and financing mechanisms tailored to local needs – will allow circular enterprises to scale sustainably, inclusively, and replicably across regions and sectors.

Unlocking value across the waste chain requires de-risking capital flow. Scaling isn’t just about business growth – it’s about aligning public finance with private innovation, and using blended finance to support infrastructural and behavioral shifts.
The goal should be “systems replication, not just business scaling” – solutions must be modular and inclusive to spread across geographies and sectors, e.g. Sistema.Bio. Innovation must be judged not only on novelty but also on its capacity to generate dignified jobs, reduce working in silos, and embed circularity.
Demand-side scale depends on building community ownership and awareness. Enterprises and enablers must design with behavioural nudges and ground-up participation in mind– not just supply-side innovation.
Financial innovation must match material innovation. Viability of alternative materials depends on mechanisms like subsidies, floor pricing, and cross-sectoral coordination to make sustainable products cost-competitive.

Cross Cutting Insights from “Catalyzing Innovative Technologies in Waste & Circularity for Dignified Jobs” Workshop in partnership with Villgro

Dignified Livelihoods at the Core

Common threads: Infrastructure (sanitation and safety gear), social protection (health insurance), livelihood expansion beyond waste picking (upcycling)

Shared Insight: Strong emphasis on redefining dignity in waste work by coupling better working environments with opportunity pathways

Technology as a Tool

Common threads: AI, sensors, and dashboards for improving transparency and efficiency without displacing workers.

Shared Insight: Both workshops stressed that technology should be enabling and inclusive, designed with informal waste workers in mind; not as a replacement but as a support system.

Behavioral and Systemic Change

Common threads: Behavioural change in both citizens and government agencies – IMT participants noted that behaviour change interventions are scattered and not prioritised. The workshop participants called for structured campaigns through schools, digital nudges, and local champions.

Shared Insight: System-wide change requires consistent behavioral change interventions that are rooted in community engagement and driven by champions from within.

Governance and Policy Action Gaps

Common threads: decentralized planning, unified local action plans, and inclusion of worker voices, lack of inter-departmental coordination

Shared Insight: Integrated governance and cross-sector buy-in are crucial for real change. W&C must be positioned as interlinked with urban health and economic planning.

Scaling Innovation Responsibly

Common threads: platforms for validation, finance, and market access for early-stage investors, NGOs as intermediaries, lack of local government trust, and disconnect between innovations and actual needs

Shared Insight: A clear need exists for co-created, scalable pilots grounded in local context and backed by flexible finance and public sector trust.

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