This document discusses UNEP's current and upcoming work related to measuring circular economies and reducing plastic pollution: 1) UNEP is drafting guidelines for countries to measure their progress towards a circular economy, including key terms, data sources, statistics, and institutional collaboration. 2) A new project will build countries' capacity to measure their transition to circular economies and produce waste data to inform policies by 2026. 3) UNEP's Plastic Initiative from 2023-2028 aims to accelerate the global shift to circular plastics by developing guidelines to help countries measure plastic flows and inform policies. 4) The plastics guidelines will be developed through partnerships and consultations with experts and stakeholders, with

1. Data and indicators towards circular and
sustainable oceans
3rd Regional Ocean Policy Dialogue - Addressing Common Challenges in Data, Policy Coherence, and
Financing to Tackle Marine Plastic Pollution
May 2023, Bali, Indonesia
Therese El Gemayel
3 May 2023

2. UNECE Task Force on Measuring Circular Economy
Purpose
➢ Draft practical guidelines for measuring circular economy:
➢ Including clarification of key terms and definitions,
➢ Identifying the data sources and key statistics and indicators needed from the policy
point of view, and
➢ Describing the required institutional collaboration
Outcomes
Part A: Conceptual framework, statistical framework and indicators (2023)
Part B: Guidance on data sources and on using indicators (tbd)
Status
Part A: submitted to the CES (January 2023), circulated for external consultations
Part B: not yet prepared
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3. Proposed Indicators related to Waste
3

4. UNEP’s current and upcoming work
EC project on enhancing countries’ capacities for measuring progress on the transition towards a circular
economy (2024-2026)
Purpose
➢ Build national capacity to accelerate the transition towards a circular economy in the
context of sustainable development at global, regional and national levels.
➢ Enhancing the technical capacities of NSOs and relevant line ministries to regularly produce
circular economy and waste datasets to inform and develop evidence-based policies.
Expected outcomes
➢ Development of tools and training for capacity building
➢ Identification and methodology development for (a) selected waste stream
Status
➢ Project proposal approved end of March 2023
➢ Project document being developed
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5. UNEP’s current and upcoming work
ONE UNEP Plastic Initiative (2023-2028)
Purpose
➢ Accelerate global circular plastic economy to reduce plastic pollution and its impact
Expected outcomes
➢ Component 6: KNOWLEDGE, CAPACITY, REPORTING:
• Develop technical guidelines to enable NSOs and other relevant organizations to measure flows of
plastic along the lifecycle
➢ Title: Statistical technical guideline on measuring flows of plastic along the lifecycle
➢ Purpose: provide policy-makers with high-quality and comparable statistics on plastics to
inform policies on responsible consumption and production, the circular economy and others
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6. UNEP’s current and upcoming work
Statistical technical guideline on measuring flows of plastic along the lifecycle - Partnerships
The technical core group
includes experts from:
• UNEP
• UNITAR
• BRS
• University of Leeds
• …
Technical core
group
Scientific
community: CoP on
potential
harmonization of
methodologies and
models for plastic
pollution monitoring,
GPML, …
Global statistical
community: UNSD,
UN Reg. Com-s,
OECD, Eurostat,
UNCTAD, …
Policy makers: UNEP,
INC, …

7. 2024 2025 and beyond
Finalization Publication
First
draft Initial
consultati
ons with
CoP
Global
Stat
Consultati
ons
- Capacity
building
activities;
- Plastic
Monitoring
2023
UNEP’s current and upcoming work
Statistical technical guideline on measuring flows of plastic along the lifecycle - Timeline
•First draft of a technical statistical guideline to measure flows of plastic along
the lifecycle
June
•Consultation webinar with the CoP on potential harmonization of methodologies
and models for plastic pollution monitoring
July
•Update of the draft technical statistical guideline after the consultations with
CoP
October
•Consultations with the Global Statistical Community
beyond October

8. National action plan
National Inventory
Statistics on
plastic production,
imports, use and
lifecycles
(links to SDG
12.2.1 and 12.2.2)
Waste
management
statistics (linked
to SDG 11.6.1 and
12.5.1)
Monitoring of
freshwater and
wastewater
(possible links to
SDG 6.3.1 and
6.3.2)
Monitoring of
coastal and
marine waters
(SDG 14.1.1)
Legislation
and
advocacy
Policy
review
UNEP’s work

9. Thank you!
For CE project, Therese El Gemayel, elgemayel@un.org
Global Footprint tool, Dany Ghafari, dany.ghafari@un.org
For ONE UNEP Plastics, Ekaterina Poleshchuk, ekaterina.poleshchuk@un.org