We launched “Beyond 34: Scaling Circularity for a Sustainable Economy” five years ago to understand the barriers and opportunities in recycling and recovery optimization in U.S. cities, and what role the private sector is playing to increase collection and materials reuse at regional and national levels. Today, we are excited to announce that we are not only bringing Beyond 34 to new regions, but also offering a crowdsourced Recycling and Recovery Resources Hub so more stakeholders across the nation can access critical resources to prepare their communities for a sustainable future.
Bringing Beyond 34 to new regions
Through the Beyond 34 model, we aim to engage regions in a process of mobilizing their waste management, private, public and NGO stakeholders committed to sustainability to identify the current state of their waste streams and implement corresponding solutions to increase waste diversion. This process was piloted in Orlando, refined in Cincinnati, and codified into easily navigable templates any city or region can use to replicate the approach toward similar outcomes. Now we are inviting nationwide adoption to collectively move our country toward a more circular economy. Download the program templates here to begin implementing Beyond 34 and join our network of active cities and regions, and please complete our intake survey to help us understand how you will use the model, as we will be selecting certain regions for additional support based on greatest need and potential impact.
Beyond 34 Recycling and Recovery Resources Hub
Through our Beyond 34 journey, we realized one of the biggest needs faced by communities was access to resources. That’s why we created the Beyond 34 Recycling and Recovery Resources Hub – an online crowdsourced shelf of resources that address specific challenge areas that national actors and specific communities may have, such as with collection of certain material categories or engagement with specific types of stakeholder or in a specific type of activity, as well as the leaders behind this work nationwide. We invite you to use the Hub as a one-stop-shop for all publicly available resources, and we encourage stakeholders of all types to submit additional resources in order to maintain the most robust and up-to-date collection possible.
Only together can we move beyond our stagnated national recycling average and waste diversion rates toward a fully circular system where waste is designed out and products and services stay in the loop. Through this expansion, we aim to make the key learnings from our work with local communities more widely available to other regions and create a national hub for digital resources to help address key barriers and opportunities in recycling and recovery, and positively impact collective action toward waste elimination to advance the circular economy.
Get Involved
To be considered for additional support based on greatest need and potential impact, please review our regional partner overview and complete this survey by April 30, 2021. The U.S. Chamber Foundation will make selections for additional support regions beginning in May 2021. For any questions, please reach out to beyond34@uschamber.com.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s Corporate Citizenship Center (CCC) oversees the Beyond 34 initiative as part of its Sustainability and Circular Economy portfolio.
