French Solid Waste Partnership

Guide: Elected Officials, Waste, and the Circular Economy

Lucia Lopez — 2026-09-07T09:15:25Z

Waste management is a key responsibility for local governments.

AMORCE is releasing a new edition of this guide, “Elected Officials, Waste, and the Circular Economy,” which aims to support local elected officials in exercising this essential responsibility by providing them with the tools they need to master all aspects of it. The information presented here will enable them to grasp the issues at hand, make informed decisions, and take effective action to develop an ambitious waste management policy aligned with the following objectives:

Understand the environmental, economic, and social challenges associated with sustainable waste management,
Optimize performance drivers and engage local stakeholders in a collective effort to control costs,
Transform waste into resources in support of a circular economy rooted in local communities and benefiting citizens.

This guide will help you develop an ecological transition strategy for managing household and similar waste in your community, based on the following priority areas:

Promote prevention and reuse at the local level.
Facilitate and standardize waste sorting for all residents,
Recycle organic waste,
Strengthen local autonomy in waste treatment,
Adapting taxation to encourage best practices and control spending,
Planning a local waste management policy consistent with national and regional objectives,
Involving citizens in the evolution of public waste management services.

This guide is the result of AMORCE's expertise gained through its work with all local governments and stakeholders involved in the ecological transition.

UN Secretary-General's Call to Action on Methane

Lucia Lopez — 2026-09-07T08:57:29Z

Published by the United Nations, this report sets out the UN Secretary-General's call to action on methane, one of the most powerful and fastest-acting levers available to slow near-term global warming.

Methane is around 80 times more potent than CO₂ over a 20-year period, yet it remains in the atmosphere for only about a decade, meaning that emission cuts translate rapidly into slower warming. Drawing on the latest assessments from the IPCC, WMO, IEA and UNEP, the report identifies fossil fuels, agriculture, and waste as the three sectors responsible for the vast majority of anthropogenic methane emissions and sets out nine priority actions across them to be delivered by 2030.

For the waste sector, which accounts for roughly a fifth of global anthropogenic methane emissions, the report identifies three priority actions:
– phasing out open dumping and uncontrolled landfills through clear timelines and infrastructure planning;
– capturing methane from waste and wastewater through anaerobic digestion, landfill gas utilization, and treatment technologies;
– and building circular, low-methane urban waste systems through mandatory source separation, expanded composting, and integrated investment that prioritizes prevention, recycling, and energy recovery.

Rather than a purely technical reference, the report is framed as a call to action: it combines data on emissions, mitigation potential, and costs with concrete policy and investment priorities for governments, industry, cities, and financiers. It also highlights the significant economic case for action, noting that methane mitigation across all three sectors could deliver USD 330 billion in annual global economic benefits by 2030, alongside major public health and food security gains.

This resource is intended for national and local governments, development institutions, industry actors, financiers, and practitioners working on climate mitigation, waste management, and the circular economy.

Counting what Counts: A compass of progress for people and planet

Lucia Lopez — 2026-09-07T08:21:20Z

This UN report examines how the world measures progress and argues for moving beyond GDP growth as the primary yardstick towards indicators that also account for well-being, equity, and the health of people and the planet.

Commissioned under the 2024 Pact for the Future and chaired by economists Kaushik Basu and Nora Lustig, with contributions from Joseph Stiglitz and other experts, the report starts from a straightforward observation: GDP was designed to measure economic output, not well-being, yet it has become the default benchmark for judging national progress — even though growth has often continued alongside rising inequality, environmental decline, and falling trust in institutions.

The report proposes a dashboard of 31 indicators, organized around peace, human rights and respect for the planet, current well-being, equity and inclusion, and five forms of capital (produced, human, social, institutional, and natural) needed to sustain progress over time. It sets out a roadmap for governments to adopt national well-being dashboards by 2027 and for the UN system to begin annual global reporting alongside GDP.

Compromiso de Sevilla (2025)

Lucia Lopez — 2026-09-07T08:03:35Z

Compromiso de Sevilla (2025) — Outcome Document of the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4)

Adopted in Sevilla, Spain in July 2025, the Compromiso de Sevilla renews the global Financing for Development (FfD) framework, building on the 2015 Addis Ababa Action Agenda, the 2002 Monterrey Consensus, and the 2008 Doha Declaration. It sets out a package of reforms and commitments across domestic public finance, private capital mobilization, official development assistance (ODA), international trade, sovereign debt, and the international financial architecture—intended to close the estimated $4 trillion annual sustainable development financing gap facing developing countries.

Key takeaways:

• Domestic resource mobilization: Commitments to strengthen tax systems, broaden tax bases, address undeclared income and wealth, and improve public financial management (PFM), including through independent supreme audit institutions. Developed countries are called to double support for developing countries' domestic revenue mobilization by 2030, targeting tax-to-GDP ratios of at least 15%.
• International tax cooperation and illicit financial flows (IFFs): Continued engagement on a UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation, implementation of OECD/G20 Pillar Two (a global minimum corporate tax), beneficial ownership transparency, and stronger enforcement of the UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC), including asset recovery mechanisms.
• Private capital mobilization: Scaling up blended finance, guarantees, first-loss capital, and local-currency lending instruments to de-risk investment and improve MSME (micro, small and medium enterprise) access to finance; a target to reduce remittance transfer costs to below 3% by 2030.
• Multilateral development banks (MDBs): A call to potentially triple annual MDB lending capacity, implement the G20 Capital Adequacy Framework recommendations, and expand use of hybrid capital and Special Drawing Rights (SDR) rechanneling.
• Sovereign debt architecture: New mechanisms proposed, including a consolidated global debt data registry (housed at the World Bank), a borrower countries' platform, and state-contingent debt clauses (e.g., climate-resilient and debt-pause clauses) to make restructuring more predictable, timely, and equitable.
• Trade and value chains: Reaffirmed support for the WTO-centered multilateral trading system, LDC trade preferences (duty-free/quota-free access), and local value addition for critical minerals and commodities.
• Governance and accountability: Broader representation of developing countries in IMF/World Bank governance structures, alongside a new biennial review cycle at the ECOSOC Financing for Development Forum to monitor implementation.

Senate Report: 2050 Horizon

Lucia Lopez — 2026-07-17T10:19:27Z

This Senate report calls for a profound shift in the way we think about the world, moving away from the mere pursuit of growth towards an economy that values resilience, the health of the living, sustainability and well-being, in line with the “One Health” concept.

The 2050 horizon, with its major challenges—climate change, resource depletion, ageing population, and technological transition—requires us to re-examine what we value in the economy, and what kind of economy we want for the future.

Far from being a purely theoretical exercise, this transdisciplinary report presents four scenarios of what our future might look like, ranging from innovation-driven hyper-growth to more frugal and resilient societies. It also proposes ambitious courses of action to reinvent our accounting tools, our public policies and our vision of progress. It is an accessible and highly topical text that inspires us to reflect — and to act — to build an economy capable of meeting the challenges of life, at the heart of which lies the concept of well-being.

Competition in the Circular Economy

Lucia Lopez — 2026-07-17T10:09:52Z

This document outlines how the French Competition Authority addresses issues related to the green transition.

Using the example of the household plastic packaging waste sector, this document demonstrates how competition law can support environmental policies without hindering market dynamics.

The study highlights recent changes to the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) framework and the recommendations made by the Authority to ensure a balance between environmental effectiveness, industrial innovation and fair competition.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and waste

Lucia Lopez — 2026-06-25T09:12:34Z

Resource and waste management is the cornerstone of sustainable development, at the intersection of public health, sustainable cities, pollution control, climate change, biodiversity conservation, and the transition to circular and resilient economic models.

This infographic, produced by the French Solid Waste Partnership (FSWP), highlights the links between waste prevention and management, the circular economy, and the Global Sustainable Development Goals established by the UN in 2015.

It shows how actions taken throughout the waste management hierarchy—prevention, reuse, recycling, and environmentally sound waste management—contribute to achieving the SDGs. It also emphasizes that achieving these goals creates an environment conducive to the development of more sustainable resource and waste management systems. Achieving the SDGs requires sound resource and waste management, which in turn depends on progress across all SDGs.

This infographic is part of the FSWP's efforts to raise awareness of the resource and waste sector's contribution to key sustainable development challenges and to ensure it is better integrated into national and international public policies.

Methane Alert and Response System (MARS) Snapshot – Top 50 Emitters, Country Responses and Mitigation

Lucia Lopez — 2026-06-08T10:07:46Z

Methane is one of the most potent greenhouse gases and a significant share of it comes from sources that can be identified, tracked, and mitigated. UNEP's Methane Alert and Response System (MARS) integrates data from more than 30 satellites to alert countries of major methane emissions and enable concrete action.

This April 2026 snapshot provides an updated picture of where the world stands: 41 major methane sources have been confirmed as mitigated following MARS notifications, representing an estimated 1,200,000 tonnes of methane, a climate impact comparable to nearly 24 million gasoline-powered cars driven for one year. Countries that have designated a MARS focal point consistently demonstrate higher response rates and more effective follow-through.

Waste sector landfills appear repeatedly among the world's 50 largest methane emitters — including sites in Chile, India, Angola, Iran, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and Yemen — illustrating the direct and measurable link between unmanaged waste and global methane emissions.

Position Paper on Circular Economy and a 2050 Vision

Lucia Lopez — 2026-06-04T15:13:45Z

Circular economy is not an end in itself. Its ultimate goal is not to “increase recycling” or “close loops”, but to build a future where value creation is decoupled from environmental bads —including resource extraction, and waste generation.

In public debate, circular economy is often reduced to recycling. However, recent international work – in particular the ISO 59004 norm, adopted in 2024, which breaks down the “10R” principle* into 13 actions ordered according to the life cycle – shows that a complete circular economy begins well before recycling and continues well beyond it. Refusing and avoiding some products or uses, rethinking the needs, adapting production through eco-design, reducing resource consumption, reusing, repairing, reconditioning, remanufacturing, repurposing, recycling, recovering energy, and even recovering materials stored in historic landfill sites: these actions form a coherent scale where recycling and energy recovery are at the bottom, once all the levers of reduction, moderation, sustainability, reuse and repair have been activated.

These coordinated actions only make sense when viewed in the context of the three objectives of circular economy: to reduce environmental and health impacts, to maintain an economy that creates value and jobs, and to ensure our societies' resource sovereignty and resilience.

Given the imperative of ecological, economic and social transition, the French Solid Waste Partnership (FSWP) is contributing to international discussions on what a circular economy could ultimately look like in 2050, both in France and around the world.

Read the full Position Paper about Circular Economy and a 2050 Vision.

To better understand this transition, watch our animated video on it: Transition to a Circular Economy

Global Push Presentation

Lucia Lopez — 2026-05-28T07:58:30Z

Sustainable resources and waste management is a key cross-cutting issue for public health, environmental protection, the fight against climate change, the preservation of biodiversity and the transition to more resilient economies implementing the actions of the circular economy.*

Many international initiatives are already working to achieve the SDGs and to the protection of health and the environment by improving the sustainable management of resources and waste. Nevertheless, their ambitions remain scattered and fragmented. There are many actors involved — national and local authorities, businesses, financial institutions, international organisations, civil society actors, academia — but they do not yet have a common space to structure dialogue, share experiences and collectively examine the necessary transition pathways. The absence of such a common space and of a shared global vision on resources and waste limits the coherence and impact of international actions.

It was in response to this observation that the international “Global Push” initiative emerged, of which the primary objective is to enable local action, developed under the impetus of the FSWP (French Solid Waste Partnership), with several discussion partners: ISWA (International Solid Waste Association), UNEP-IETC (United Nations Environment Programme), the Secretariat of the BRS Conventions (Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm) and UN-Habitat.

To learn more read aou page on the subject here :
Global Push Initiative

*Refer to ISO Standard 59004 for the list of 13 prioritised actions, also available here.