Members

Africa Circular Foundation is a non-profit advancing the circular economy across Africa through local expertise and community-driven action. Founded in 2021 in the Netherlands it has been operating through a strong African structure spanning over 40 national focal points. The organization specializes in circular economy , but in particular in organic waste management, supporting governments with strategies while implementing practical solutions such as black soldier fly systems. Its flagship initiative, BUGS Africa, empowers smallholder farmers to transform waste into protein and soil improvers, creating livelihoods and contributing to global climate solutions.

B.ISA is a global storytelling NGO creating awareness, shifting narratives, and driving social and climate justice. Founded 2022, B.ISA amplifies impact by spotlighting everyday realities, innovations, and community solutions. Our work bridges the gap between lived experiences and public understanding, ensuring that stories shaping our world’s future are told by the people living them. Our Zero Waste Stories Bank initiatives bring this mission to life: by training NGOs on storytelling and digital amplification, organizing theater plays on zero waste and climate narratives , and producing digital platforms that trains, preserves and shares community-led zero-waste stories. Through a network of storytellers, ambassadors, and partners, B.ISA ensures communities are recognized as narrators of their own socially just and climate-resilient futures.

The Centre for Environment Justice and Development (CEJAD) is a public-interest Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) in Kenya whose mission is to promote sound management of chemicals and waste, to protect the environment and human health, especially vulnerable populations.

The organization's work on promoting sound management of waste focuses on conducting research on hazardous chemicals in plastics, advancing multi-stakeholder policy advocacy to support local governments in transitioning to zero-waste management systems and strengthening the collective action of waste pickers to promote a fair transition towards safer and improved working opportunities.

Fundación El Árbol is a socio-environmental organization founded in 2013 in Concepción, Chile. The organization works with communities, waste pickers, grassroots organizations, and public institutions to address the environmental crisis.

Through its areas of Zero Waste, Ecosystems, and Regenerative Economies, it promotes initiatives in environmental education, ecosystem restoration, sustainable waste management, and community strengthening.

Its mission is to contribute to a more balanced relationship between people, society, and nature, promoting just, resilient, and sustainable territories.

Future for Future is a youth led non profit organization founded in Benin in 2016, working at the intersection of climate justice, zero waste, circular economy, environmental governance, and youth leadership. The organization was created to respond to the environmental and social challenges affecting communities, with a strong focus on young people and women. Its mission is to empower communities to actively participate in building environmentally just and inclusive solutions through community action, capacity building, policy engagement, and civic participation. Future for Future implements grassroots initiatives on zero waste, climate adaptation, environmental rights, and community resilience, while amplifying civil society voices in national and regional policy processes. The organization collaborates closely with local authorities, grassroots groups, women’s cooperatives, academic institutions, and international partners. Through its community rooted and justice centered approach, Future for Future promotes youth leadership as a key driver of sustainable and equitable development.

GAIA is a network of grassroots groups as well as national and regional alliances representing more than 1000 organizations from over 100 countries. The network aims to catalyze a global shift towards environmental justice by strengthening grassroots social movements that advance solutions to waste and pollution. GAIA envisions a just, Zero Waste world built on respect for ecological limits and community rights, where people are free from the burden of toxic pollution, and resources are sustainably conserved, not burned or dumped.

Founded in 2014, GAYO works directly with local communities to reduce the vulnerability of groups that are at risk to climate impacts such as children, youth, and women who have a comparatively less adaptive capacity due to social and structural inequalities.
The work has spanned a variety of industries over the years, including climate change, the circular economy, disaster risk reduction, sustainable agriculture, and renewable energy activism.

Green Growth Africa (GGA) spearheads socio-economic, environmental, and technological development of rural and urban poor African communities with vulnerable groups like women and youth taking center stage. GGA works by mobilizing the people and resources needed to provoke drastic adoption of circular economy models across diverse thematic and work areas in African communities. Our work since inception has focused on key pillars, including environment and climate change, circular economy, agriculture and biodiversity, and socio-economic empowerment.

Documentary on the Beyond Waste Project: https://youtu.be/I6Afjg1nqUs

groundWork is a non-profit environmental justice service and developmental organization working primarily in Southern Africa in the areas of Climate & Energy Justice, Coal, Environmental Health, Global Green and Healthy Hospitals, and Waste. groundWork seeks to improve the quality of life of vulnerable people in South Africa, and increasingly in Southern Africa, through assisting civil society to have a greater impact on environmental governance.

Pólis Institute is a civil society organization (CSO) with national reach, established as a non-profit civil association, non-partisan, and pluralistic. Since its founding in 1987, Pólis has focused on the city as the locus of its work. The defense of the Right to the City is present in its research, advisory work, and public policy evaluations, always working alongside civil society to promote local development and the creation of fairer, more sustainable, and democratic cities.

Miya Ywech, meaning “give me the broom” in Luo, is a network of community-based organizations in Kisumu advocating for climate action through zero waste practices and raising awareness on sustainable waste management. Purpose Climate Lab (PCL) is addressing this challenge through the Kisumu Zero Waste Project—leveraging community partnerships, policy advocacy, and sustainable waste solutions to create a cleaner, healthier, and more climate-resilient city.

MEF has become a go-to organization for enabling local governments and NGOs in implementing Zero Waste programs in communities. Thus far, MEF has worked with four urban cities, eight barangays (villages), one province, and one island province in the Philippines—some of which are recognized outside of the Philippines as Zero Waste models. MEF has likewise enabled and/or supported other organizations in Asia to implement Zero Waste programs in their own countries.

Founded in 2013, Nipe Fagio drives systemic change in Tanzania and East Africa. Systemic problems require systemic solutions that are socially inclusive, address historical social injustice, and are environmentally built and climate resilient. Nipe Fagio works in a three-pillar strategy, aligning DATA gathering, POLICY advocacy, and ACTION to achieve systemic change.

Zero Waste Europe works with its members across Europe to shape policies and implement zero waste solutions on the ground, partnering with cities covering over 18 million people in 19 countries to implement some of the continent’s best zero waste practices. The member organisations and alliances promote zero waste in line with the zero waste hierarchy, manage the network of zero waste municipalities, and engage with decision-makers and companies.