The Latin American and Caribbean Economic System (SELA) has steadily strengthened its efforts to promote the circular economy in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) by creating opportunities for dialogue and cooperation aimed at sharing knowledge, experiences, and best practices. These initiatives help drive a gradual transition toward more circular, resilient, and sustainable value chains in the region.

This initiative began in October 2023 with the webinar Circular Economy: actions and best practices contributing to sustainable development, which laid the groundwork for a regional roadmap on the subject; it continued in September 2024 with the II Seminar, dedicated to the Global Plastics Treaty: progress and challenges, which explored regional contributions to the fifth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee[1]; and continued with the III Seminar, focused on measurement, monitoring and design of indicators for public policies on circular economy, addressing regulatory frameworks, the measurement of circular value chains, and the interoperability of national statistical systems.

This journey highlights a progressive evolution of the regional agenda, from the identification of best practices to the analysis of regulatory frameworks and indicators geared towards results-based public policies. On that basis, and within the framework of its Work Programme for 2026–2029, the Permanent Secretariat of SELA is organising the IV Virtual Seminar on the Circular Economy: circular packaging for agri-food systems, from bioeconomy to regulation, with the aim of deepening the analysis of the environmental, logistical and regulatory pressures faced by the region’s agri-food value chains. The event forms part of Project A: “Technical support for cooperation and sustainable development in Latin America and the Caribbean,” under Programme I: “Sustainable and resilient development,” and contributes to SDGs 2, 9, 12, 13 and 17 of the 2030 Agenda

[1] The fifth session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-5) marks a decisive stage in the mandate spearheaded by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to develop and finalise a legally binding international instrument governing the entire life cycle of plastics.

Agri-food systems in LAC are pillars of food security, employment and export growth, and their scope encompasses sectors such as packaging, distribution and waste management, which are highly exposed to environmental pressures and changing regulations (FAO and CIDES, 2021). The transition from a linear model of extracting, producing, consuming and discarding towards circular models is therefore a technical and institutional imperative, aimed at eliminating waste at the design stage, keeping products and materials in use, and regenerating natural systems (Latin America and the Caribbean Circular Economy Coalition, 2022)[1]. In this regard, the bioeconomy offers a way to diversify production, add value to agricultural and agro-industrial waste, and reduce dependence on fossil-based inputs (ECLAC, 2021).

Circular packaging represents a strategic entry point for linking bioeconomy, sustainable production and regulation, as it prioritises the reduction of unnecessary materials, eco-design, compostability[2] where appropriate, and waste recovery, without compromising its logistical and health-related functionality. In 2018, UNEP highlighted the need to accelerate the transition towards management models based on prevention, recovery and recycling (UNEP, 2018); almost a decade later, this acceleration has yet to materialise, given that less than 1% of the materials circulating in the regional economy are returned as secondary raw materials, compared with a global average of 7%.[3]

The commercial dimension lends a sense of urgency to this agenda. In 2023, global exports of plastic goods reached approximately US$1.13 trillion, accounting for around 5% of world trade in goods (UNCTAD, 2025), against a backdrop of regulatory changes in the main destination markets. Regulation (UE) 2025/40 on packaging and packaging waste, which will apply generally from August 2026, requires harmonised criteria for minimisation, labelling, reuse and recyclability, and complements Directive (UE) 2019/904 on single-use plastic products (European Parliament and Council of the European Union, 2019, 2025), while the EU-Mercosur Trade Agreement expands trade opportunities under sustainability commitments (European Commission, n.d.).

In order to comply with these regulatory requirements and prevent them from becoming non-tariff barriers, international technical standardisation serves as an essential bridge between regulation and industrial practice. Against this backdrop, regional agro-export companies find that ISO (International Organization for Standardization) standards provide the methodologies to objectively certify and verify their progress towards a circular economy.

The ISO 18600 series sets out the requirements for certifying the minimisation, reuse, recyclability and organic recycling of packaging, while the ISO 14000 family provides for environmental management of processes and life-cycle analysis; thus, their combination makes it possible to certify both the conformity of packaging and the environmental traceability of the agri-food chain (International Organisation for Standardisation, n.d.).

At the multilateral level, the negotiation of the Global Treaty on Plastic Pollution, mandated by Resolution 5/14 of the United Nations Environment Assembly, positions the circular economy and eco-design as a structural upstream strategy (United Nations Environment Assembly, 2022). Without an agreement of this magnitude, plastic waste is projected to double by 2040, with remediation costs that are unsustainable for the region’s economies (Gascón et al., 2026) and direct effects on the blue economy, given that a large proportion of single-use plastic products ends up as microplastics in river basins and coastal areas, in a region where fish catches have fallen by 34% over the last three decades (ECLAC, 2024).

In this context, the Matrix on government action to promote a circular economy, developed by UNCTAD as part of the Sustainable Manufacturing and Environmental Pollution (SMEP) programme, in collaboration with SELA, constitutes a key technical tool for monitoring and evaluating the actions taken by governments in the region with regard to their roles in relation to production, products and processes. (Pacini, Ludovic and Vivas 2025).

Regulatory compliance alone does not guarantee productive transformation; bridging this gap requires coordinated decisions between governments, the private sector and cooperation agencies, so that early alignment with international requirements translates into the differentiation of exportable goods and the development of emerging value chains in packaging design, recycling and biomaterials. In short, the challenge lies in moving from a fragmented response to external regulatory pressure towards a regional agenda of its own for innovation in circular packaging.

[1] The Latin America and the Caribbean Circular Economy Coalition is a regional platform launched in February 2021 during the XXI Forum of Environment Ministers. Its purpose is to serve as a regional platform for coordinating efforts, sharing best practices, and harmonising public policies that facilitate the transition of countries in the region towards a sustainable, low-emission and truly circular economic model.

[2] The ability of an organic material to break down completely through biological action in a controlled environment and within a specified time.

[3] The III Seminar on Seminar on Circular Economy forms part of the technical agenda of the Latin American and Caribbean Economic System (SELA) and UNCTAD to promote sustainable production in the region. Through this forum and the Sustainable Manufacturing and Environmental Pollution Programme (SMEP), SELA develops assessments and monitoring tools that enable Member States to evaluate gaps in circularity and strengthen their materials management policies.

This event aims to promote technical dialogue, the exchange of experiences and the strengthening of institutional capacities among SELA Member States in order to advance the bioeconomy and the circular economy in LAC agri-food systems, with an emphasis on the development of circular packaging as a means of enhancing sustainable production, climate resilience and regional competitiveness.

1. To strengthen technical understanding of the bioeconomy as applied to agri-food systems, highlighting its contribution to sustainable production, the valorisation of waste and regional competitiveness.

2. To consider the role of circular packaging as a strategic tool for agri-food sustainability, considering criteria such as eco-design, biodegradability, compostability, reusability, recyclability and the reduction of food waste.

3. To promote regional cooperation for the adoption of bioeconomic and circular solutions in the agri-food sectors of SELA Member States.

4. To analyse the international regulatory frameworks applicable to packaging and packaging waste, with a view to identifying opportunities, challenges and compliance requirements to strengthen the integration of agri-food products into markets governed by circular economy principles.

Date: 27 October 2026

Target audience: Officials from ministries and deputy ministries, and national directors responsible for the circular economy, bioeconomy, agriculture, the environment, industry and foreign trade in SELA Member States; executives from the agro-export industry and the packaging sector; leaders of family farms and agri-food cooperatives; and specialists from international organisations, among others, with an interest in the sector. 

Format: online via the Zoom platform, with a broadcast on SELA’s official YouTube channel. 

Registration form: https://tinyurl.com/sistemasagroalimentarios

Language: Spanish, with simultaneous interpretation into English.

Gustavo Herrera, Social Development Coordinator
Email: gherrera@sela.org

Luis Emilio Martínez Mago, Social Development Analyst
Email:  lmartinezm@sela.org