India’s Roadmap to Circular Economy and Carbon Leadership – Yashodhan Ramteke, Head – Carbon Unit, MMCM

1. How can India leverage COP30 to showcase recycling as a key step toward emission reduction and climate leadership?
   

India is making tremendous efforts to improve the recycling infrastructure in the nation. The country’s waste, which was traditionally handled majorly by the informal sector, which was hazardous to the environment as it did not follow SOPs

Now, Government Think Tanks like NITI Aayog are working closely with relevant stakeholders to formulate policies leading towards the development of a more formal sector. This places India is in a strong position to leverage recycling at the heart of its climate strategy at COP30.

Additionally, India’s intrinsic culture of ‘Jugaad’-the knack for making the most out of any available resource-perfectly complements this transition by proving that frugal innovation can be scaled up, thus boosting its contribution to sustainability.

2) How do recycling and material traceability contribute to achieving a low-carbon and circular economy in India?

Recycling and material traceability are the double-edged partners for supporting India’s long-term vision of developing a carbon-neutral and circular economy.

Valuable resources like metals, plastics, and rare earth elements can be absorbed back into the manufacturing process due to recycling, which can help to reduce emission levels as well as dependence on imports.  Just to take an example of steel, the carbon footprint for 1 ton of virgin steel is 2.5 tons of CO2e. But if the same steel is recycled through the EAF route using renewable energy, the footprint can be as less as 0.5 to 0.7 tons of CO2e per ton of recycled steel.

Material traceability, enabled by digital technologies like blockchain, AI, and IoT, ensures that at every step of the value chain, sourcing, processing, and reporting of carbon emissions can be done with a sense of accountability and transparency. When material traceability is empowered with technology, it helps in the creation of waste as a quantifiable and tradable commodity, which plays a crucial role in empowering the country to set a global benchmark in data-driven circularity and climate-smart industrial growth.

3) What actions are needed to develop a transparent and credible carbon market that supports India’s sustainability goals?

A transparent and credible carbon market is central to the long-term sustainability and industrial transition goals of India. Going forward, this will be the foundation for India to institutionalize strong governance and uniform MRV standards, independent third-party validation of credit integrity and traceability, and leveraging digital tools, including blockchain-based registries for enhancing transparency, reducing friction in transactions, and reducing greenwashing.

Policy stability and sectoral clarity will be an enabler in ensuring global investors’ and industry confidence. Equally important is enabling enterprise participation, particularly MSMEs-through capacity-building initiatives and simplified frameworks.

The well-regulated carbon market, when aligned with India’s NDCs, forms the cornerstone of climate finance-driving decarbonization while strengthening India’s position as a trusted, innovation-led player in the global sustainability landscape.

4) Why should carbon credits be integrated into every company’s ESG strategy, especially in the Indian context?

Adding carbon credits to ESG strategy is no longer a choice; it is a business necessity for Indian companies. Carbon credits drive measurable market-linked accountability toward emission reduction goals and make the “E” of ESG more robust with tangible climate outcomes.

In India, where industries are trying to balance growth with increasing sustainability mandates, credits are effectively serving as a dual benefit, powering green finance and facilitating compliance with evolving carbon trading frameworks. They attract global investors looking for diverse decarbonization pathways and align the corporate strategy in line with national targets on net zero.

Innovation-centric models like Meta Materials Circular Markets have proved that a waste-to-value mechanism is capable of aligning circularity with desired carbon outcomes. Integrating such mechanisms within India Inc’s ESG strategy would play a significant role in decarbonizing the national supply chain scale, thus driving green change at a large scale.

5) How can public–private partnerships accelerate India’s transition toward a carbon-resilient and low-emission future?

Public–private partnerships can accelerate India’s low-emission transition by mobilising private capital, deploying climate-tech and DMRV systems (digital Measurement, Reporting, and Verification) at scale, and integrating government policies with industry execution for faster circular-economy and decarbonisation outcomes.

6) What policy measures are essential to align recycling, carbon trading, and ESG efforts ahead of COP30?

India should mandate digital-MRV standards, place recycling in the positive list of projects under the Indian Carbon Market, and explicitly include recycling projects in India’s Article 6.2 and 6.4 cooperation lists, enabling circular-economy investments, transparent carbon accounting, and high-integrity credit issuance ahead of COP30.