IFC launches regional initiative to accelerate investment-ready industrial plastic circularity in Latin America and the Caribbean

São Paulo, March 4, 2026 - IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, is launching a regional initiative in partnership with BlackForest Solutions GmbH and ABIPLAST to identify and accelerate investment in ready-plastic circularity opportunities in Brazil and across Latin America and the Caribbean.

The circular economy offers a multi-trillion-dollar opportunity to build resilience, create jobs, and spur innovation while regenerating the environment. Across 177 countries, at least 121 to 142 million people are employed in the circular economy, equivalent to 5 to 5.8% of total employment^[1]. The circular economy replaces the linear "take-make-waste" model with systems that reduce waste, reuse materials, and restore natural capital. Fostering the circularity ecosystem in the region through firm level support will be critical to promote the reduction of single use plastics and reduce amounts of fossil-fuel based virgin plastic resins.

According to Abiplast, Brazil leads plastic production in Latin America and the Caribbean, a region generating 15.7 million tons annually (3.8% of global output). In 2024, over 20% of the waste from Brazil's 8,000 tons of plastic consumed was reused as raw material-an 8% increase year over year-with recycled content expected to keep rising and drive growth in post-consumer resin.

This IFC initiative -in partnership with Abiplast and implemented by BlackForest Solutions- will allow major plastic users, converters, and key value-chain actors to turn plastic circularity ambition into execution, by quantifying virgin and fossil based plastic footprints, prioritizing feasible reduction levers, and translating them into finance ready investment opportunities. The implementation of the initiative encompasses the following stages:

• Mapping regional industrial plastics demand and enabling conditions,
• Developing a company-level tool to quantify virgin plastic baselines and model reduction pathways,
• Piloting road maps with selected companies,
• Identifying credible circularity investments to inform IFC's business pipeline.

IFC has committed over $1.9 billion^[2] and mobilized nearly $500 million from investors to circular economy projects across emerging markets and the full product lifecycle-backing companies that minimize the use of natural resources and promote the regeneration of nature; maintain the value of products and materials for as long as possible; and design out waste generation.

In May 2025, IFC launched the new Harmonized Circular Economy Finance Guidelines at the World Circular Economy Forum in Brazil, to assist investors, financial institutions, and private companies in identifying and quantifying opportunities to channel financing towards projects that support a circular economy.

About BlackForest

BlackForest Solutions (BFS) GmbH is an advisory and implementation partner focused on waste and resource management, post-consumer plastics systems and international movement of waste materials across borders for disposal or recovery. BFS supports corporates, producer responsibility organizations, industry associations, and development institutions to translate sustainability and compliance objectives into measurable roadmaps. Our work spans system diagnostics, policy and scheme design, operational rollout support, data and KPI frameworks, and stakeholder engagement across the value chain. BFS delivers assignments across Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, working with development partners and private sector actors to build scalable, locally grounded solutions.

About Abiplast

The Brazilian Plastics Industry Association (ABIPLAST) has represented Brazil's plastics processing and recycling sector since 1967, working to enhance its competitiveness. The association promotes new technologies, processes, research, and products with a strong focus on sustainability, with the circular economy as a strategic priority. Currently, ABIPLAST represents more than 14.6 thousand plastics processing and recycling companies, which together employ 404.6 thousand professionals nationwide.

^{[1] Employment in Circular Economy - Leveraging circularity to create decent work}

^{[2] This figure ($1.9 billion) is an estimate based on application of the Harmonized Circular Economy Guidelines and latest available information as of September 2025.}