How can we better support acceleration and incubation efforts to push for the transition from the linear to the circular economy?

Looking to answer that question and with the support of the MAVA Foundation, Accelerate2030 codified Circular Economy (CE) knowledge and best practices from the global Impact Hub network, Switzerland’s CE ecosystem and the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and embedded them into Accelerate2030’s 2021 program. 

If you slept on it, Accelerate2030 is the world’s leading program for entrepreneurial solutions towards the Sustainable Development Goals. They believe in the power of business for transformative change and catalyze innovative startups in emerging and developing economies. 

On their efforts and outcomes to accelerate the transition to a circular economy: in their latest chapter, six countries – China, Croatia, Colombia, Nigeria, Tanzania and Turkey – were selected to pilot and fully integrate the “future proof business” framework of circular economy into their national programs with the aim to provide technical support to green and circular entrepreneurs and foster nascent circular economy ecosystems at the national level. 

Talking about key numbers from the Accelerate2030 Circular Economy program pilots:

• At the national level, 64 entrepreneurs were selected to take part in the program among more than 450 applicants; 
• 47% of ventures in pilot countries were women-led, i.e. women make up at least 50% of the leadership team;
• 98% of participating entrepreneurs increased their knowledge of circular economy throughout the program;
• 89% of ventures are implementing new circularity principles (65%) or improving upon their existing circularity approach (24%) as a result of the program, including designing out waste, enabling maximum reuse and recycling of their products, avoiding the use of toxic compounds and ensuring energy comes from renewable sources;
• participating ventures were able to attract over 300,000 USD in total investments from green funders in the past year!

Regarding lessons learned, Accelerate2030 developed a robust capacity building infrastructure and was able to validate the strong interest and need of capacity building on the topic of circular economy as a strategy to combat climate change in developing and emerging economies.

Learn more about the Accelerate2030 participating countries, ventures and stories here.

Circularity is part of our broader Environmental Strategy – discover how Impact Hub Global Network is addressing our time’s most pressing issues here. For more inspiring stories like this, head to our blog.

To learn from already-tested approaches, discover new activities and opportunities to integrate the Circular Economy knowledge into your entrepreneur support programs design and implementation, discover our toolkit!