Grassroots Circular Waste Collaborative

Bringing unsung workers the credit they deserve

Inclusive livelihoods & informal economy

Across Asia, an invisible workforce keeps recyclables out of landfills. But they remain excluded from formal finance.

We set out to change that.

The challenge

Vital work. No credit history.

Grassroots waste entrepreneurs — the individuals and small cooperatives who collect, sort and sell recyclable material — handle a substantial share of urban recyclable recovery across South and Southeast Asia. Without them, recycling rates would collapse and overwhelm already overflowing landfills.

And yet, the formal financial system treats them as invisible. No credit history. No assets. No track record that a conventional lender would recognise.

The result is a structural paradox: workers doing environmentally critical work at the base of a multi-billion dollar supply chain cannot access a simple business loan.

Our research showed that the barrier was not creditworthiness. It was evidence.

Lenders had never had a reason to look closely at this workforce. No one had built the data, the intermediary infrastructure or the de-risking structures needed to make first-time lending possible.

“The demand was always there. What was missing was the architecture to connect it with formal capital.”

Our innovation

Civil society as the missing link

The breakthrough insight was that trusted civil society organisations already had what lenders lacked: relationships, local knowledge and the ability to support enterprise development over time.

We didn’t need to force waste entrepreneurs into existing financial products. Instead, we redesigned the architecture around intermediaries who could make lending viable.

We developed a blended finance product that positions these civil society organisations as last-mile credit intermediaries — building a pipeline of credit-ready borrowers while de-risking lender exposure through guarantees and enterprise support.

“The model doesn't ask lenders to take a leap of faith.
It gives them a good reason to lend.”

Implementation

Designing a scalable model

Phase 1: Demonstrating potential

A catalytic facility combining risk-sharing instruments, like guarantees, with structured enterprise support and civil society intermediation.

The goal:prove that first-time lending is feasible and replicable, generating the repayment data that unlocks Phase 2.

Phase 2: Scaling operations

A pooled revolving fund, complemented by a grant and technical assistance facility, expanding loan ticket sizes and strengthening enterprise operations as confidence builds.

Each successful repayment cycle reduces the need for concessional support.

Phase 3: Democratising access

Shifting decision-making and flexible capital closer to local intermediaries and the communities best placed to measure and improve impact.

Moving from a centrally managed structure to a community-led model.

The impact

Proving the potential of an undervalued workforce

Phase 1 (Current)
___________

Facility live and validating demand

Scalable
___________

3-phase path based on defined triggers

Replicable
___________

Intermediation model built for replication

Phase 1 was designed to answer three questions:

Is there demand? Will borrowers repay? Can intermediation be done at scale?

The facility is structured so that every loan disbursed and repaid builds the evidence base for the next phase — and for catalysing a broader market transformation.

“The model has the potential to transform the waste economy – unlocking financial inclusion to lift the livelihoods of millions of underserved workers.”