Trade is an effective enabler of circularity that can, in turn, lead to better nature preservation and faster decarbonization, while creating sustainable economic value. However, governments and businesses encounter significant hurdles on the way to circularity – standards divergence, restrictions on import/export of second-life goods, and illegal waste flows – to name a few.

Trade-related measures and concerted international cooperation can mitigate a lot of these barriers, bolstering efforts to reduce strain on natural systems that result from overexploitation of resources and poor waste management infrastructure. Trade facilitation, in particular, can help foster efficient circular logistics to enable environmentally sound treatment of second-life and end-of-life goods, including remanufacturing, refurbishing, and recycling.

Crucially, to avoid circular divides, trade, environment, and development communities must come together to ensure that developing countries are not locked out of global circular value chains. In other words, developing countries need support in building circular competitiveness – identifying and growing sectors that can contribute to global circular value chains and being able to comply with other countries’ circular trade measures.

This session will take stock of existing measures to promote circular trade and discuss how trade and trade facilitation can further contribute to a just and inclusive circular transition and better environmental outcomes.