The 10th Annual Circular Economy Conference and No Waste Festival has officially opened in Nairobi marking a decade of accelerating Kenya’s transition to a regenerative circular economy.
Co-hosted by Sustainable Inclusive Business Kenya (SIB-K), in partnership with the Kenya Plastics Pact (KPP), the Ministry of Environment, Climate Change and Forestry, and the National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) Kenya, the conference is powered by Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung Kenya and supported by a coalition of strategic partners.
The event, themed ‘Reimagine: Looking Back into the Future’, convened 300+ delegates, including policymakers, industry leaders, innovators, and youth, for a day focused on ‘Circularity in Action’.
Further, the opening session featured high-level addresses that underscored the urgency and opportunity of circularity for Kenya’s economic resilience and environmental health.
Presiding over the event, Principal Secretary (PS) for Environment & Climate Change Dr Eng. Festus Ng’eno insisted that a circular economy is foundational to Kenya’s national development goals through redefining growth, focusing on positive, system-wide benefits by minimizing waste and pollution by design, keeping products and materials in use for as long as possible, and ultimately regenerating natural systems.
Dr Ng’eno noted that Kenya’s current economic model, which is predominantly linear, is resource-intensive and deeply unsustainable and therefore this ‘take-make-dispose’ approach is not only detrimental to the country’s environment but also leaves the Kenyan economy vulnerable.
“We are exposed to external shocks, such as fluctuations in global oil prices and the cost of imported goods, as well as the unpredictable impacts of climate variability,” he illuminated, stressing that this linear model has directly contributed to Kenya’s escalating waste management crisis.
With rapid urbanisation and a growing population, Dr Ng’eno reported that the volume of waste generated is immense as currently, each citizen produces about 0.5 kilograms of waste daily, accumulating to approximately 27,500 tonnes across the country every single day.
According to the PS, the consequences are stark since a staggering 60 percent of this waste is not properly managed, resulting in widespread environmental degradation.
He observed that the proliferation of plastic pollution and the complex challenge of e-waste are particularly alarming, as they pose significant threats to human health and the rich biodiversity that is crucial to the country’s national heritage.
However, to effectively address these multifaceted challenges, Dr Ng’eno revealed that the Ministry of Environment, Climate Change and Forestry is spearheading a fundamental shift from a linear to a circular economic model through a comprehensive strategy of transforming value chains and mainstreaming the circular economy in the national development plan.
“While we have several fragmented policies related to circularity, we recognise the critical need for a unified national framework. This is why we are prioritising the development of a circular economy strategy in this financial year as part of the implementation of our 2023-2027 strategic plan,” affirmed the PS.
In addition, Dr Ng’eno pronounced that this strategy would go far beyond traditional waste management by transforming Kenya’s entire value chains, saying that it would promote waste prevention, reuse, recycling, and resource efficiency, directly reducing the environmental harm caused by unmanaged waste.
Equally, he highlighted that the strategy would also serve as a powerful catalyst for economic development, encouraging green investments and fostering partnerships that will lead to innovation. This will, in turn, create a new generation of clean and green jobs, offering significant opportunities for the youth and women to participate in and benefit from this economic transformation, he noted.
The PS emphasised that a clear and comprehensive circular economy strategy would ensure policy coherence and enhance institutional coordination across all sectors of the economy as he pointed out that the challenges and opportunities of circularity spanned across various industries, including agriculture, manufacturing, construction, energy, and tourism.
“We will unlock the untapped potential within these sectors, driving innovation, increasing value addition, and developing a robust domestic industry,” he vowed.
Additionally, Dr Ng’eno reiterated that adopting a circular economy would profoundly strengthen Kenya’s economic position.
“By establishing local resource loops, we will reduce our dependence on imported goods, thereby enhancing supply chain resilience. This will make our economy more robust and less susceptible to global market volatility,” explained the PS.
“By fostering circular production and innovation, particularly among SMEs and manufacturers, we will boost productivity and competitiveness,” added Dr Ng’eno.
Consequently, he established that this strategic shift would not only benefit the country’s domestic market but also position Kenya as a regional leader in sustainable trade and industry, opening doors to new opportunities such as green finance, carbon markets, and climate investment.
Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA) CEO Carole Kariuki highlighted the conference’s role as a catalyst for change over the past decade. “Circularity has moved from theory to practice, from pilots to programmes, from Nairobi to counties, and from waste management to full systems redesign,” she said.
Kariuki emphasised that the circular economy was not just an environmental agenda but an economic strategy that drives innovation and strengthens manufacturing.
The CEO pointed out that Kenya has seen the rise of its own circular pioneers including designers repairing goods, youth-led recycling startups, innovators turning waste into industry inputs, farmers practising regenerative agriculture, and manufacturers redesigning packaging to reduce environmental impact.
“We have seen brands, producer responsibility organisations, recyclers, and county governments find common ground through platforms like the Kenya Plastics Pact, which continues to drive collective action,” added Kariuki.
Similarly, she disclosed that the Pact has laid out an ambitious roadmap to 2030: elimination of problematic and unnecessary plastics; 100 percent of plastic packaging to be reusable or recyclable; 40 percent of plastic packaging to be effectively recycled; and an average of 15 percent recycled content across all plastic packaging by 2030.
Kariuki also divulged that KEPSA signed a historic Memorandum of Understanding with all six County Regional Economic Blocs to create a unified structure for private-sector county collaboration and provide counties with a structured pathway to build circular ecosystems, material recovery centres, recycling zones, green industrial parks, repair hubs, youth innovation spaces, and frameworks for local EPR implementation.
By Michael Omondi
