Join the FCI - Fair Circularity Initiative

The FCI brings businesses together to create an ecosystem to implement the Fair Circularity Principles within global, regional and national policy, and within waste and recycling value chains to ensure the human rights of waste pickers are respected and their critical role in circular value chains is recognized.

We developed the Fair Circularity Principles applying the responsibilities and expectations of the UNGPs to the informal waste sector. In applying these principles, we aim to:

Influence policy and the public narrative
Impact waste and recycling value chains

Member companies are committed to respecting the rights of workers in the informal waste sector. They are aligned in support of the Fair Circularity Principles and the aims of the FCI to demonstrate their commitment to this issue and to encourage wider uptake of, and urgent action on, the Fair Circularity Principles. They invite others, including FMCG companies, and companies from other sectors and businesses across the value chain, to join.

Why join the Fair Circularity Initiative?

As part of the initiative you can help to create an ecosystem to implement the Fair Circularity Principles – impacting global waste and recycling value chains and influencing policy and public narrative.

Membership requires companies to actively engage with the Fair Circularity Initiative mission and vision outlined in our FCI Strategy.

All corporate members commit to:

advance and adopt these guiding principles in their value chains, in collaboration with waste picker organisations
report on their progress
encourage others to join the Fair Circularity Initiative

Member Testimonials

Source: FCI Progress Report, 2024

At Tetra Pak, we are committed to respect human rights across our value chain, and we see the Fair Circularity Initiative as critical to applying that commitment to the collection and recycling of packaging. If we are to help realize meaningful and sustainable change for informal waste collection workers, then companies must take action together with Governments, civil society and the workers themselves.

Tetra Pak

Francis West, Social Sustainability Director

The Fair Circularity Initiative provides an important starting point to examine the packaging supply chain and work with peer companies to strive for a just transition. Waste pickers are key players in waste management systems in many of the markets in which we operate, and it’s important we all seek to do our part to protect them. PepsiCo recognizes the role we can play to help improve livelihoods, protect human rights and create a more circular economy for our packaging.

PepsiCo

Jennifer Tsai, Vice President, Global Sustainable Packaging

Waste pickers are among the unsung heroes and heroines in recycling, collecting and sorting most of the plastic recycled globally. The Fair Circularity Initiative helps companies work together to make concrete progress in improving their working conditions with participatory and meaningful engagement with waste pickers and their representative organizations.

Unilever

Rachel Cowburn-Walden, Global Head of Sustainability (Human Rights)

We recognize our important role in helping to address the complex plastic waste challenges facing our planet and society and this includes working to respect the rights of informal waste workers. The scale of the plastic waste recycling supply chain requires collaboration to achieve true impact and we will continue to seek meaningful partnerships, such as our collaboration with the Fair Circularity Initiative, to drive collective action and help empower informal waste workers, while advocating for greater inclusivity.

The Coca-Cola Company

Paul Lalli, Senior VP, Global Human Rights

Eligibility

The Fair Circularity Initiative is seeking new company members who:

have publicly expressed a commitment to implementing the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights in their operations and full value chain
have made ambitious public commitments on recycling and reduction of virgin plastic, for example by signing up to the EMF global commitment or equivalent, or through their own public goals and targets
have strong alignment with the mission and vision of the Fair Circularity Initiative strategy
are ready to make a public commitment to advance and adopt the Fair Circularity Principles in value chains in collaboration with waste picker organisations, report on progress annually and encourage others to join the Fair Circularity Initiative

Application process

Please contact us indicating that you are interested in applying to become a member using our Register Interest submission form. If we think your organisation could be eligible for membership our team will be in touch to discuss the opportunity with you further.

Become a member

Why join the Fair Circularity Initiative?

Member Testimonials

Eligibility

Application process

Register Interest