Global climate diplomacy is moving beyond the search for new rhetorical pledges and entering an implementation-focused phase that asks whether existing commitments are actually being delivered on the ground. COP31, which will be held in Antalya in November 2026, is widely regarded as the symbolic threshold of this shift. Hosted by Türkiye and presided over by Australia in the negotiations, the summit advances the claim of a fairer and more inclusive climate diplomacy in which no one is left behind. The Zero Waste Forum convened as part of this process is positioned along the same lines. It treats zero waste directly as climate action and turns its attention toward the Antalya Summit. In doing so, it reframes the central question of the climate agenda, moving to the heart of the debate not only finance and institutional mechanisms but, above all, whether these are actually being put into practice on the ground.
From Commitment to Implementation
The approach that dominated the sessions followed throughout the forum was that commitments in the fight against climate change have already accumulated in abundance, while the real shortfall lies in turning those commitments into practice. From the opening address onward, this gap was set out in plain terms, and the fact that food waste is often treated merely as a management heading, even as a large part of the world faces food insecurity, was recalled as a striking contradiction. According to the assessments voiced at the forum, considerable progress has been made in bringing actors together, and the forum itself was offered as evidence of this, yet a comparable success has not yet been achieved at the implementation stage. For this reason, it was stressed that what is now needed is finance and on-the-ground delivery rather than further plans and promises, and that the zero waste agenda must focus on producing concrete results. The forum’s prominent watchword of implementation over promises and mechanisms over plans captured this understanding, and the call that none of us are passengers and we are all crew, underlining that responsibility belongs to every stakeholder, reinforced the same view.
One of the core issues addressed at the forum was the place of zero waste within the climate agenda. The shared emphasis was that zero waste should cease to be a secondary environmental heading and become a recognized field of climate action. The point underscored was the need to move beyond words and genuinely get the work done. As stressed throughout the forum, zero waste was framed as a measurable, inclusive, and implementable systems approach, in a deliberate effort to lift it beyond the level of a slogan.
Multi-Actor Governance and the Role of the Private Sector
A second key emphasis running through the entire forum was that the transformation cannot be carried out by a single actor, that the state alone is not enough, and that all parties, including the business world, must take part in the process. Although national governments can align tools such as regulation, fiscal policy, public procurement, and industrial strategy, large-scale transformation becomes difficult without the involvement of cities, civil society, and especially the private sector. The concepts of partnership and cooperation therefore became the common denominator of nearly every session, and it was frequently recalled that waste outcomes are largely determined at the design, production, supply, and logistics stages. The approaches discussed on the industrial side rested on the same logic. They envision an arrangement of industrial symbiosis, in which the waste of one production facility enters another as raw material and complementary businesses come together, a model in which waste is eliminated as early as the design stage.
Bringing the private sector into the equation also pushes the question of finance to the fore. The forum found that solutions such as prevention, reuse, repair, and composting generate strong public value yet struggle to access suitable financing. The core message here was clear. Capital is expected to move beyond supporting individual pilot projects and to finance systems that are ready for implementation.
The Place of the Circular Economy in Climate Mitigation
The forum’s most important conceptual contribution was to take zero waste out of the narrow frame of solid waste management and place it at the center of emissions reduction strategy. The data underpinning this approach are striking. According to the Circularity Gap Report 2025, only 6.9 percent of the materials used in the global economy come from secondary sources. This share has, moreover, fallen from the 9.1 percent recorded in 2018. As annual material consumption in excess of 106 billion tons outpaces the gains made through recycling, the same report sets out another striking figure, showing that roughly 70 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions are linked to the extraction, processing, and use of materials. This picture indicates that the waste question is, in essence, a matter of emissions, biodiversity, and resource security.
The forum also carried this framework into concrete sectoral areas. Foremost among them, food waste arises across the production and distribution stages that stretch from the field to the supply chain and on to retail, and it is directly associated with methane emissions. The right to repair, one of the most tangible expressions of circularity in everyday life, covers access to spare parts and the repair economy, and it entails moving away from the logic of planned obsolescence as well as reducing electronic waste. The clean energy transition was assessed within a similar frame, with attention drawn to the way infrastructure ranging from electric vehicle batteries to end-of-life solar panels could generate a new waste problem, and with emphasis placed on the need for circularity that begins at the design stage in order to prevent it.
These areas share a common feature. Compared with abstract carbon targets, the zero waste approach is far easier to grasp in everyday life. Examples such as a repaired device, food that is put to renewed use, or organic waste separated at source make the circular economy tangible in the eyes of the ordinary citizen. The satisfaction expressed at the forum that zero waste had entered the climate negotiations in such concrete terms was voiced in this context.
Türkiye’s Institutional Leadership and Diplomatic Position
What carried the forum beyond a technical gathering was its direct link to Türkiye’s position in climate diplomacy. For Türkiye, zero waste has become an institutionalized field of policy. The movement is led by the Zero Waste Foundation. This effort acquired an international policy framework on December 14, 2022, when the UN General Assembly adopted the Zero Waste resolution on Türkiye’s proposal and with the support of 105 countries, and March 30 was proclaimed the International Day of Zero Waste. Emine Erdoğan, the global pioneer of the movement and Honorary President of the Foundation, also chairs the United Nations Secretary-General’s Advisory Board of Eminent Persons on Zero Waste. This institutional record gives the country an important advantage, allowing it to prepare for its COP31 hosting with a concrete thematic agenda. Indeed, in the Antalya process Türkiye is responsible for steering, alongside voluntary commitments, the action agenda that mobilizes non-state actors such as cities, the business world, and civil society, and zero waste stands out as a tangible part of this agenda.
The appreciation expressed at the forum for the Zero Waste Foundation, in recognition of its leadership in implementation, takes on its full meaning within this frame. Beyond merely proposing zero waste, Türkiye has been putting it into practice on the ground for more than eight years and is now carrying that experience onto the international agenda. In this way, the discourse of leaving no one behind gains the chance to find a concrete counterpart. Another debate that came to the fore at the forum concerned the false dilemma drawn between environment and development. The portrayal of environmental protection as a luxury reserved for wealthy countries was criticized, and it was recalled that many developing countries have taken pioneering steps in areas such as clean transport and curbs on plastic use. Zero waste, too, secures a clear place in this debate, since it aligns with these countries’ demands for climate justice and stands among the solutions that fit the priorities of the Global South.
Conclusion and Assessment
The picture the forum laid out contains both opportunities and risks. On the opportunity side, the circular economy is regarded as one of the principal instruments of emissions reduction, and Türkiye is assuming institutional leadership in this field. On the risk side, the forum’s own self-assessment is clear. The real problem is concentrated in the implementation gap far more than in any shortage of ideas. Three areas stand out when it comes to closing this gap. The first is integrating zero waste and circularity targets into countries’ climate commitments. The second is redirecting finance from pilot projects toward systems that are ready for implementation. The third is establishing a reliable data and indicator infrastructure capable of measuring progress. These three areas will be decisive in the Antalya process.
Ultimately, the success of COP31 will be measured not by the number of new promises produced but by the extent to which existing commitments are turned into finance, mechanisms, and results on the ground. The multi-actor understanding of responsibility highlighted at the forum reinforces this, showing that the burden falls not only on states but also on cities, the private sector, and individuals. At this point, the Antalya process offers Türkiye the opportunity to move zero waste beyond a slogan and turn it into a measurable field of climate action. To the extent that Türkiye succeeds in this, it will establish itself as an actor that makes a lasting conceptual contribution to the global climate agenda.
