Designing Waste Out of Climate Risk: A Zero-Waste Adaptation Framework for Cities, Informal Workers, and Circular Transitions

Son Nguyen

No fmz9g_v1, SocArXiv from Center for Open Science

Abstract: Climate adaptation planning still treats waste largely as a background service problem, while zero-waste advocacy often frames transformation mainly through mitigation, recycling, or circular economy efficiency. This paper asks: how can zero-waste thinking be translated into a concise, policy-usable framework that helps governments, institutions, businesses, and civic actors integrate waste and resource management into climate adaptation plans? Drawing on regional adaptation guidance, urban resilience literature, research on informal waste workers, and emerging circular economy methods, the paper develops a five-part framework for adaptation planning: risk mapping, waste-stream prioritisation, option design, actor integration, and institutional embedding. The argument is that zero waste should be treated not as a downstream environmental add-on but as an upstream resilience logic that reduces exposure, eases public health burdens, protects infrastructure, and strengthens local livelihoods, especially in climate-vulnerable cities. The paper’s anticipated contribution is threefold: it reframes zero waste as an adaptation strategy; it centres informal waste workers as resilience actors rather than residual labour; and it positions GXS and the Global Zero Waste Forum as ecosystem accelerators capable of convening pilots, peer learning, and policy translation across Asia and beyond.

Date: 2026-05-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-iue
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://osf.io/download/69fc3ed5992ed01d41f20358/

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:osf:socarx:fmz9g_v1

DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/fmz9g_v1

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in SocArXiv from Center for Open Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by OSF ().