NATURE+ circular bioeconomy activities reach more than 5,000 people

By 2024, the NATURE+ Initiative’s circular bioeconomy activity reached dozens of communities in five countries, creating, enhancing or establishing new and independent sustainable circular economy income sources. The successes demonstrate that the Initiative’s RECYCLE work package created wins for both people and nature, embodying the ethos of the Initiative. The highly collaborative work shows that governments, the private sector and landholders around the globe are enthusiastic about adopting circular economy practices that have the potential to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in sustainable income.

The transition toward nature-positive agriculture requires several simultaneous, often paradigm-challenging, actions. These include innovations for the conservation, management and restoration of biodiversity, especially agricultural biodiversity. Additionally, producers need policies, accessible research, and evidence-based, professional support to reduce their dependence on industrial inputs, including costly seeds that do not always perform well on degraded landscapes, and expensive chemical fertilizers that contribute to land degradation.

Yet to complete the nature-positive circle, circular bio-economic action is crucial. This is why the CGIAR Nature-Positive Solutions Initiative (NATURE+) emphasized research and implementation of circularity, which – like all NATURE+ work packages – were interlinked as part of the Initiative’s innovative approach to researching and promoting the nature-positive transition.

Waste not

From coffee bean husks in Colombia to rice stems and leaves in Vietnam, organic waste from agriculture tends to pile up in any community where NATURE+ works, now as part of the Multifunctional Landscapes Science Program. While some communities manage this waste efficiently, agricultural leftovers are generally treated as a nuisance, to the detriment of the natural environment. Multiplied across the world’s estimated half-million smallholder farmers, the amount of agricultural waste in the Global South is staggering. And that’s not even counting the food waste.

But managed properly, organic chaff has the potential to be converted into fertilizer, animal feed or energy – and create much-needed rural income. At scale, deft waste management can help make landscapes healthier and farms more resilient. In short, functional circular bioeconomies are a win for people and for nature.

“There is huge potential for circular bioeconomies in the Global South. Unfortunately, it’s still mostly untapped,” said Solomie Gebrezgabher, who led the RECYCLE work package. “NATURE+ laid robust foundations for circularity in the communities across the five countries where we worked.”

Crop circles

Gebrezgabher, a researcher at the International Water Management Institute, and the RECYCLE team began the Initiative by studying the circular bioeconomy (CBE) potential in Burkina Faso, India, Kenya, Colombia and Vietnam (and 13 other countries). They took the results to communities to learn what CBE models could most efficiently be implemented and further researched. The results were remarkable.

Between 2022 and 2024, NATURE+ established hubs for circular bioeconomy innovation in three countries (Ghana, India, Vietnam) and held two innovation challenges (Colombia, Kenya). The innovation challenges were paired with two “boot camps” for circular economy entrepreneurs in Colombia, which built a country-wide network of like-minded enterprises, many of which measurably grew through collaboration with NATURE+. Many were selected for an acceleration program under CGIAR’s Accelerate for Impact Platform.

NATURE+ implemented Black Soldier Fly farming demonstration systems in Colombia, India and Kenya. Inexpensive to establish and easy to manage, BSF farming converts organic waste into frass (a compost) and fly larvae that are a high-protein animal feed, including for aquaculture. A BSF installation at an aggregated farm in Kenya (another NATURE+ innovation) is already a pillar of the farm’s multiple activities focused on community-led production and landscape restoration. Frass and larvae feed reduce farmer expenditures because they are viable substitutes for high-cost industrial farm inputs.

The Initiative also launched projects for biochar, an organic “coal” used to improve soils, in India.

At least 5,000 people were directly involved in these ongoing – and growing – circularity activities. In addition to the initial country studies, NATURE+ produced a series of publications to fill the multiple knowledge gaps in Global South bio-circularity. The work is also backstopping policy proposals to improve enabling conditions for circular economies in different jurisdictions.

“NATURE+ demonstrated that circular bioeconomies successfully contribute to conservation, restoration and livelihoods,” said Carlo Fadda, the leader of NATURE+ and the Agrobiodiversity research area at the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT.

NATURE+’s RECYCLE team made several more accomplishments. In Kenya, NATURE+ helped 30 women, who previously made briquettes from organic material individually, to form a cooperative. The Initiative supported them with training and equipment, and the cooperative is now a self-sustaining organization. It sells a better product than individuals did previously. Similarly, in India, the Initiative worked with a women’s group that makes biochar. The group is now an independent, self-run organization with an improved product.

In Vietnam, the Initiative worked with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) focusing on circular bioeconomy models for coffee and rice value chains. “UNDP was initially focused on plastic and industrial waste, not necessarily agricultural waste,” Gebrezgabher said. “We filled that gap for them.”

Closing the loop

While circularity interventions need to be tailored to local conditions (people at the Vietnam sites, for example, were not interested in BSF; they were more focused on coffee and rice waste management), NATURE+ found several common threads in its RECYCLE work.

Researchers found significant support from communities for circular economy practices. In particular, women’s groups were eager to adopt CBE activities. In general, recycling activity is widespread but largely informal – meaning current practices have the potential to be formalized to make them safer, scalable, and more profitable.

Challenges remain. Start-ups struggle to find financing, a major disincentive. A lack of standardization can lead to poor-quality products, damaging the circular economy’s reputation. Regulation and government incentives are sparse. And collaboratively designing interventions with communities takes time – but co-design increases the likelihood of success.

Still, Gebrezgabher and NATURE+ see circular bioeconomy activity naturally growing from the farm to the landscape level through bankable models under the CGIAR Multifunctional Landscapes Science Program. One way is to ensure that waste generated from what is extracted from rural areas for urban consumption is reconstituted and returned as valuable agricultural inputs, such as compost, biochar, animal feed and energy products, closing the loop for sustainable resource use. By reducing waste, replenishing soils, and lowering reliance on industrial inputs, circular bioeconomy practices contribute to conserving biodiversity, restoring degraded landscapes, and promoting more resilient ecosystems. “This is what it means to have a circular economy at a landscape level,” Gebrezgabher said.

RECYCLE’s publication highlights

Circular bioeconomy: a pathway to sustainable development in an age of global crisis

A multi-criteria decision support tool for selecting circular economy business models

Enabling environment for circular bioeconomy sector in Burkina Faso

Investment climate assessment for circular bioeconomy sector in India: an assessment of the institutions, policies, regulations and financial environment

Investment climate assessment for circular bioeconomy – review of national policies and strategies in Kenya

Assessing the investment climate to promote a circular bioeconomy: a comparison of 15 countries in the Global South (Includes Colombia and Vietnam)

Investment climate for circular economy enterprises in Nigeria: Firm-level insights

Biomass briquetting: a training module for trainers and practitioners

Circular bioeconomy business models – energy recovery from agricultural waste: cases from Kenya and Burkina Faso

Circular bioeconomy business models – recovering food products to reduce agricultural waste: cases from Burkina Faso, India, Kenya and Vietnam

Promotion of circular economy entrepreneurship in Colombia

Emerging circular bioeconomy business models – consumer products from agricultural waste: cases from Kenya and India

Report on the monitoring, evaluation, learning and impact assessment (MELIA) of the circular bioeconomy innovation hub in Ghana

Black soldier fly farming for feed and biofertilizer: a practical guide