Members of the Fair Circularity Initiative have committed to advance and adopt the guiding principles in their waste and recycling value chains, in collaboration with waste picker organizations and to report on their progress annually.  

These annual reporting requirements have been designed to dovetail with other external reporting processes such as the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive. Company members can fulfil these reporting requirements through their existing reporting channels.

For context, company members shall report generally on the extent to which the informal waste sector is relevant for its business and sustainability priorities, including the specific packaging commodity areas of interest (not solely limited to plastic). Such contextual reporting should include discussion of priority countries where the informal sector is more relevant, depiction of the overall risks and opportunities. If possible, companies should identify from public records the total number of informal waste sector workers that may be within the company’s supply chain.

The FCI appreciates that reporting on informal waste sector engagement will be a journey for all companies, and in some countries and value chains there is still very limited data. Many company members will need to report generally against the principles before including specific details and examples. Where company members  are not yet taking any specific action, they should talk about their plans or how they are creating opportunities to progress towards and meet the principles.

To the extent possible, company members should increase transparency, accuracy and specificity against the principles over time in sustainability and/or human rights reporting. The ability of companies to report will be a function of the maturity of supply chain infrastructure, government engagement/support and collective action.

As in all reporting, when waste picker associations or other specific groups of waste pickers are mentioned, companies must check this content with the group in question, and obtain their consent, before publicising.