BVRio to catalyse innovative finance for circular economy with new circular action hub

BVRio has launched the Circular Action Hub, an online platform that connects circular economy projects and initiatives with supporting organisations.

Through the Hub, BVRio also introduces the Circular Credits Mechanism - a system of performance-based payments for environmental services of circularity, that aims at fostering inclusivity and wider social participation.

Circular Action Hub was originally created to host projects from the 3R Initiative founded by BVRio, Verra, Nestlé, Danone, Tetra Pak and others. BVRio is now expanding the Hub to promote a wider range of projects with various funding needs, waste materials and activities.

Recognising that there is a huge diversity of circumstances, technologies, and approaches that can be used by projects in different parts of the world, the Hub does not assume that a ‘one size fits all’ approach can be defined at the outset. Instead, it adopts a ‘learning-by-doing’ approach and strives for continuous improvement of its requirements based on the experience learned with participating projects.

To guide this learning process, an Advisory Group was created with representation from both the ‘buy-side’ (corporates, donors, investors) as well as technical, scientific and social sector organisations interested in the social and environmental quality of the initiatives promoted.

Confirmed participants include the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Yunus Environment Hub, Women in Informal Employment - Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO), UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), WRAP UK, Waste Aid, Regions for Climate Action (R20), Nestlé, The Sustainable Manufacturing and Environmental Pollution (SMEP) programme of UK’s DFID, to name a few.

Photo Credits: Myanmar Recycles Project

At the time of the launch, more than 100 projects from 35 countries are in the process of listing their initiatives in the Hub, with an aggregate capacity to recover more than 300,000 tonnes of waste materials from the environment.

BVRio hopes Circular Action Hub will become an effective and socially-inclusive circular economy mechanism enabling the cross-boundary support of projects through direct performance-based payments for the environmental services of collection, sorting and appropriate destination of waste materials that today pollute our environment.

Mauricio Moura Costa, CEO of BVRio, said: “BVRio is proud to launch the Hub. We see it as an important piece of the circular economy ecosystem, connecting and supporting a wide range of actors that play important roles in this space. In particular, we are glad to have designed an inclusive system that removes barriers to entry and gives access to smaller initiatives, such as the waste picker cooperatives that operate all over the world.”