The financial system as an accelerator for the circular economy

about the programme

Why?

The Circle Economy Finance Programme exists to help the financial sector become the critical enabler for the circular economy transition. By supporting both financial market participants and businesses to navigate the financial, institutional, and operational obstacles that prevent circular economy initiatives from receiving funding at the scale and immediacy required, the Programme addresses the transition from both the top-down and the bottom-up.

What?

The Finance Programme engages with local, national, multilateral and international financial institutions, circular enterprises, accountants, legal experts and policymakers to help meet two broad goals:
Improve the salience of the circular economy as a cross-cutting approach for financial market participants to meet a range of sustainability objectives, while equipping the sector with the expertise required to identify, understand, and assess effective circular economy initiatives.
Help businesses access capital directly for circular economy projects by mitigating the myriad challenges of being circular in a largely linear system. This includes addressing difficulties in financing and solving the reporting and accounting challenges that can arise for circular business models.

How?

Finance plays a critical role in allocating capital to projects and initiatives that accelerate the transition to a low-carbon circular economy. However, the relative novelty and complexity of the circular economy as a topic means that there is considerable difficulty in identifying and differentiating high-potential projects. In the absence of global standards for circular economy investing, financiers have been required to develop their own approaches. As such, the landscape of circular finance is scattered and misaligned - financiers struggle to find suitable investments in the circular economy, while businesses are unable to effectively communicate their own developments in circularity.

In order to address this unique problem, the Circle Economy Finance Programme engages in distinctly collaborative approaches to improving the allocation of capital to the circular economy. Our projects focus on knowledge sharing and exchange, and a belief that greater harmonisation will be key to unlocking the potential of the financial sector in the circular economy.
Check out our initiatives
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our collaborators

MEET THE TEAM

marvin
nusseck
Senior Strategist
luke
bailey
Consultant
Giorgia
CHERUBINI
Project Manager

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