As governments and organizations across Canada seek to support circular economy (CE) activities through forward-looking policy, programming, partnerships, and investment, the need for shared tools and a consistent understanding is critical. The new CE Policy Inventory and CE Initiatives Inventory provide structured, cross-jurisdictional databases and reference points for identifying existing CE-related policies and initiatives in Canada.
You can explore the inventories using your preferred spreadsheet software (e.g., Microsoft Excel) to identify existing CE efforts, locate relevant policies or initiatives, and pinpoint opportunities for alignment and collaboration across jurisdictions, sectors, and stakeholders.
These newly created inventories, developed through Circular Economy Leadership Canada’s Government-to-Government (G2G) CE Policy Incubator, are a snap-shot in time and while robust are not meant to be exhaustive. They are foundational tools designed to support government, private sector, and other stakeholders as they navigate the over 250 combined policies and initiatives across Canada’s evolving CE landscape. This effort is by no means complete. If you would like to contribute, please see below for more information!
The inventories highlight some of what’s already being done and spark key questions: Where are the gaps? How can we better align CE efforts across public, private and civil society actors? And (perhaps most importantly) where can we work together for greater impact?
The G2G CE Policy Incubator is a multi-year, collaborative platform designed to foster this collaboration – through relationship building, knowledge exchange, and peer-to-peer dialogue among public sector leaders. The Policy and Initiatives inventories were developed as outputs of the G2G Incubator by Smart Prosperity Institute (SPI) in collaboration with Circular Economy Leadership Canada (CELC) and G2G Partners. They are based upon the work of the Canadian Climate Policy Partnership (C2P2), led by Dr. Jennifer Winter (uCalgary), and were completed by graduate students of uOttawa’s Institute of the Environment.
The partners involved in the G2G Incubator initiative include: Environment and Climate Change Canada, Natural Resources Canada, Standards Council of Canada, RECYC-QUÉBEC, Divert Nova Scotia, Government of British Columbia, and local governments including Vancouver, Richmond, Metro Vancouver, Mississauga, Toronto, and Halifax. Participation from other governments is welcome! The G2G Incubator also benefits from the support of the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) Group and the National Zero Waste Council.
The inventories project was supported with funding from Environment and Climate Change Canada and the Canadian Climate Policy Partnership.
The inventories were informed by publicly available resources and the knowledge of G2G partners, following a three-step approach.
Scoping and Definition:
The CE Policy Inventory captures policies, regulations, programs, and strategies that explicitly reference CE goals, approaches or were highlighted as relevant by our government partners. This included extended producer responsibility (EPR) frameworks, waste reduction strategies, green procurement mandates, bylaws, and related tools.
The CE Initiatives Inventory, inclusion was based on whether an initiative directly supported circular outcomes with a focus on multi-stakeholder efforts. Initiatives could include community-based pilots, research projects, business accelerators, public education campaigns, and resource-sharing platforms, while excluding individual business goods or services.
Categorisation Framework:
A consistent classification system was used across both inventories to support searchability and future analysis. Inventory entries are tagged by sector (e.g., construction, food systems, plastics), 9R strategy (e.g., reduce, reuse, recycle), and type of policy or initiative, along with a range of inventory specific categories. The coding framework for each inventory is located on the second tab labelled Category Definitions on both inventories. Users can search and filter by keyword within each inventory.
Data Collection:
Both inventories were built through targeted desktop research and stakeholder input. Contributions from G2G participants and CE practitioners were essential to identifying relevant content. Policies and initiatives from 2020-2025 were considered in scope, but others were included if considered by stakeholders as significant.
While these inventories offer valuable insights, they are starting points and not comprehensive databases or definitive benchmarks. Users should be aware of the following limitations, which apply across both inventories:
The CE policy and initiatives inventories support the broader G2G CE Policy Incubator’s mission: to create a more coherent, coordinated, and effective approach to CE policymaking in Canada. These inventories are a foundation for shared understanding. The inventories may grow and evolve through continued collaboration, feedback, and research.
Please contact us at CELC if you would like to provide comments and/or suggestions for improving the database and/or additional policies/initiatives that can be added to the inventory.
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