Building the Future of Circularity

Editorial

Apr 22

Our key lessons from the Dignified Jobs Accelerator 2025 on circular innovation in India

India’s waste and circularity sector sits at a powerful intersection of climate action, livelihoods, and innovation. While waste management is emerging globally as a multibillion-dollar opportunity, the challenge is not purely technological. Circular value chains in India continue to rely heavily on informal workers navigating unstable incomes and fragmented systems. The future of circularity will therefore depend not only on better recycling solutions, but on whether we can build inclusive systems that work for both people and the planet.

In 2025, through the Dignified Jobs Accelerator: Circular Innovation Cohort (CIC) supported by ANDE’s Investment Innovation Fund, Upaya Social Ventures partnered with Global Business Inroads (GBI) and rePurpose Global to strengthen 60 waste and circularity enterprises building inclusive, job-rich value chains.

The results offer both encouragement and important lessons for the ecosystem.

FROM CAPACITY TO CAPITAL: WHAT WE ACHIEVED

The program combined broad-based ecosystem support with deep, hands-on engagement across two levels:

60 enterprises received virtual capacity-building support, what we called Level 1 support.
10 enterprises received high-touch, customized investment-readiness support, what we called Level 2 support.
Market linkage efforts translated into 80 Expressions of Interest, 37 curated B2B meetings, and 117 global connections, unlocking nearly $1M in potential commercial agreements for the cohort.
2 companies raised capital—I was a Sari and Scrap Uncle—with Upaya investing in both.

Through curated global partnerships, companies explored market linkages across Italy, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Canada, Malaysia, Turkey, and beyond. For several founders, this marked their first entry into global markets. As Vijaya Krishnappa of Kosha.ai reflected, “We secured our first international order from Italy.” More broadly, founders gained clarity, confidence, and strategic direction, reinforcing an important lesson: in emerging circular sectors, access to markets and networks often precedes access to capital.

DIGNIFIED JOBS: DEEP SOCIAL IMPACT IN CIRCULAR BUSINESSES

At Upaya, we invest in businesses that create safe, stable, inclusive, and rewarding jobs. The Circular Innovation Cohort demonstrated just how powerful that model can be.

Across 521 jobholders surveyed from 8 businesses across 9 states:

Average household income increased by 219%
Average daily jobholder income increased by 1,122%
86% of jobholders reported learning new skills
62% of surveyed jobholders were women

The most significant income gains were in waste collection businesses—often the least funded segment of the value chain—where jobholder incomes increased by nearly 1,968% on average. These are not marginal gains; they represent transformational shifts for families previously reliant on unstable or irregular earnings.

Waste-to-value manufacturing businesses generated more stable, production-linked jobs while advancing material substitution, linking industrial decarbonisation with workforce formalisation. Alternate materials and textile models enabled decentralised production and strong participation of women workers, expanding access to paid work closer to home.

Together, these models show that circular economies operate as employment ecosystems: upstream collection enables workforce entry, midstream processing builds skills, and downstream manufacturing creates longer-term pathways. Circular businesses are not just climate solutions, they are engines of economic inclusion.

CLIMATE IMPACT: MEASURING WHAT MATTERS

Impact measurement and certification emerged as one of the most valued aspects of the program, strengthening both investor credibility and market positioning. For many founders, structured climate assessments provided new visibility into their environmental impact. Through climate and impact reporting, companies measured:

Greenhouse gas reductions
Resource savings (including water and waste diversion)
Community and resilience co-benefits

The cohort, operating in plastics, textiles, construction materials and natural fibre manufacturing, demonstrates that circular economy businesses deliver multi-dimensional environmental impact, enabling 66,000+ tCO2e emissions reduction, over 1,100 tonnes of waste diversion, and nearly600 million litres of water savings annually.

“Climate reporting revealed significant water savings… an eye-opener for us.”
~ Payal Nath, Founder, Kadam Haat

Waste-to-value manufacturing businesses delivered the largest emissions reductions by replacing virgin materials and avoiding upstream industrial emissions. Textile circularity and alternate material businesses generated disproportionate water savings, reinforcing circularity’s role as a hidden water solution. Meanwhile, collection and aggregation businesses showed lower direct climate attribution but remained essential enablers of downstream impact.

Perhaps most strikingly, environmental outcomes did not scale linearly with company size. Smaller, well-designed circular businesses often generated outsized climate benefits, suggesting that impact intensity is driven more by business model design than by revenue scale.

Circular impact, in other words, emerges from interconnected value chains rather than isolated technologies.

THE HARD TRUTH: CAPITAL ISN’T FLOWING EQUALLY

Despite strong progress, one finding stood out: capital is not yet flowing where circular economies need it most. While founder confidence improved, only 2 companies from Level 2 raised capital during the program period. This reflects a broader ecosystem challenge. Investor capital in waste and circularity remains concentrated in:

Downstream, technology-led recycling models
Demand-driven innovations with rapid scale potential

Upstream actors—collection, sorting, aggregation, and material recovery—continue to be underfunded despite forming the backbone of circular systems. Without reliable supply chains, downstream innovation cannot scale sustainably.

Scaling circularity therefore represents not only an innovation challenge, but a capital design challenge. To build resilient circular economies, we need:

Catalytic and blended finance
Working capital solutions
Partnership-led capital structures
Stage-aware investment pathways

KEY LESSONS FOR THE ECOSYSTEM

From this cohort, three priorities are clear:

Broaden the Capital Stack: Different circular models require different forms of capital: equity, debt, grants, blended instruments, and patient funding structures.
Design Waste Stream-Specific Programs: Each waste stream operates at different levels of maturity. Programs should reflect stage-specific and value chain-specific realities.
Pair Capital with Deep Technical Assistance: Market access, partnerships, certifications, and follow-through support are essential to convert opportunities into contracts and long-term growth.

LOOKING AHEAD

The Circular Innovation Cohort concluded in February 2026. But its impact continues.

We now have:

A stronger pipeline of circular enterprises
Deeper insights into capital gaps
Clear evidence that waste businesses can create dignified jobs at scale

The opportunity ahead is not simply to fund circular innovation, but to build inclusive circular economies where climate resilience, business growth, and livelihoods advance together.

At Upaya Social Ventures, we remain committed to backing founders who are building circular systems and dignified livelihoods from the ground up.

This editorial is co-authored by Rachna Chandrashekhar and Shruti Goel

ABOUT UPAYA SOCIAL VENTURES:

Upaya Social Ventures is building a dignified economy by providing investment and support to early-stage businesses creating sustainable livelihoods for people living in the most extreme poverty.

Upaya’s award-winning impact-first model seeks out and supports oft-overlooked companies creating work that is safe, stable, inclusive, and rewarding—generating a transformative impact on families, communities, and economies.

Since its founding in 2011, Upaya’s portfolio companies have created over 100,000 dignified jobs across India. Please visit upayasv.org for more information.