The rules have changed. In the last ninety days, India’s circular economy shifted from policy discussion to legal obligation- across six waste streams, every major ULB, and every CBAM-covered exporter. The mandates are live. The infrastructure to meet them is not.
GREENS 2026 is built around this gap.
The six developments below define the agenda, the urgency, and the stakes:
Mandatory SWM, C&D, and plastic rules are now enforceable, exposing specific compliance gaps in segregation, processing capacity, and reporting systems.
Supreme Court directives have made SWM compliance legally binding on ULBs, with direct accountability and potential penalties for non-compliance.
CBAM enforcement requires Indian exporters to establish verified emissions reporting (MRV) systems and prepare for certificate costs starting 2027.
The 40% recycled content mandate for PET is live, but inadequate rPET collection and processing infrastructure creates a measurable supply shortfall.
NITI Aayog reports have already identified systemic gaps in ELVs, tyre recycling, and battery waste, shifting focus to execution-ready solutions.
The upcoming carbon market risks double-counting and misaligned incentives with waste-sector credits unless additionality rules are clarified before trading begins.
| 0 – 5 min | Moderator framing. One question on the table: what decision or problem are we solving in this room, right now? |
| 5 – 35 min | Panel discussion. The moderator drives with targeted prompts — not open-ended questions. Panellists are expected to engage with each other, not just address the audience. |
| 35 – 45 min | Audience Q&A. Questions pre-collected before the session combined with live questions from the floor. The moderator curates. |
| 45 – 50 min | The close. Three takeaways and one concrete commitment from each stakeholder group represented on the panel. |
India's Waste-to-Resource Reset in 2026: The Decisions That Define the Next Decade
Six major waste and recycling regulations took effect on or before April 1, 2026. The Supreme Court issued pan-India directives on solid waste compliance in February. CBAM's definitive phase has begun. India's food-grade rPET mandate is live.
The GREENS Opening Plenary does not recap the new developments in the Waste Management and Recycling Sector. It starts from them — and asks the one question the Summit must answer over the next two days: given that the regulatory architecture is now in place, what is actually preventing India from delivering on it?
This includes examining current implementation gaps in Solid Waste Management — where the SWM Rules 2026 are already in force, while monitoring and reporting systems are still evolving, and non-compliance now carries legal implications. This plenary will also be outlining how informal workers can be formally integrated through EPR-linked contracting, ULB-level registration systems, and traceable inclusion within compliance and reporting frameworks.
This is the session that sets the terms for every sector conversation that follows. Senior government representatives, regulatory body officials, and industry leaders open the GREENS Summit by naming the structural gaps — and committing to address them.
The GREENS Summit covers 11 sectors of India’s circular economy and waste management landscape.
The GREENS Summit is designed for senior professionals who are directly involved in circular economy and waste management decision-making in India — not observers of it, not researchers writing about it from the outside, but the people who have to make it work in 2026.
Ask yourself this: in the next 12 months, does your organisation need to comply with, invest in, build for, regulate, or profit from India’s circular economy?
If the answer is yes — and for most serious players in Indian industry, it is — then the question is not whether GREENS is relevant to you. It is whether you want to be in the room where 2026’s circular economy decisions get made, or whether you would rather read about them afterwards.
The GREENS Summit has approximately 300 delegate places. They are allocated by application, on a rolling basis, by sector — to ensure the room reflects the full circular economy ecosystem and not just one part of it.
Apply early.
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Programme & Speaker Updates
The GREENS 2026 programme and speaker list are updated continuously. Visit greensexpo.com or follow GREENS on LinkedIn for the latest confirmations.