What happened
The Green Taxonomy Working Group, chaired by Turkey's Development and Investment Bank (TKYB), held its second workshop on 13 May 2026 at Marmara University. Hosted under the Sustainable Finance Platform (SKD) with sponsorship from SANKO Holding, the event brought together government, finance, industry and academic representatives to evaluate regulatory requirements and practical market conditions affecting circular economy adoption.
Participants conducted sector-based technical assessments across four working groups: circular production and resource use; product lifecycle and circular business models; and waste management and secondary raw materials. A panel discussion, moderated by Seçil Yıldız (TKYB Deputy General Manager for Sustainability and Impact), examined the roles of regulation, industry and finance in circular transformation.
Why it matters
The workshop identified circular economy as fundamental to improving resource efficiency, reducing waste and returning secondary materials to productive use. Recommendations address both policy and commercial barriers: regulatory frameworks must incorporate modularity, repairability and recyclability criteria into product standards; secondary material markets need quality standards and digital platforms for cross-sector input-output matching; and financing mechanisms must extend beyond conventional credit to support long-term circular investments.
Compliance costs, data collection difficulty and regulatory uncertainty emerged as primary obstacles. The group identified waste management, recycled material use, artificial intelligence, renewable energy and carbon capture as priority investment areas. Standardised metrics for product lifespan, reuse rates, recycled content and resource efficiency were flagged as critical infrastructure gaps. Banks require enhanced technical capacity to evaluate comparable company data.
Background
The circular transition encompasses the entire product lifecycle—from design through manufacturing, business models and financing—rather than waste management alone. Secondary material markets require strengthened traceability mechanisms and digital platforms enabling sector-to-sector matching based on waste declarations. Company capacity to produce reliable, comparable and verifiable data is a significant barrier to investment assessment and policy implementation.
What's next
The working group compiled its findings into a formal report and submitted it to Turkey's Ministry of Environment, Urbanisation and Climate Change for integration into policy development processes. The recommendations will inform regulatory harmonisation efforts across the Green Taxonomy, Turkish Sustainability Reporting Standards and related sustainability regulations.