A carbon impact tracker for Asia-Pacific, starting with plastic
APAC Drive to 25 is building a tracker that measures the emissions avoided by circular business across Asia-Pacific, in every sector and in companies of every kind. The plastics pilot is its first phase. It tests the method end to end on PET bottles, where the founding companies already share one loop, before the tracker opens to other materials and sectors.
Around half of the world's greenhouse gas emissions come from Asia-Pacific
About 45% of all emissions relate to making and using products. The campaign's aspiration is to address up to 25% of global emissions through circular practices in the region.
Source: APAC Drive to 25 campaign launch, ESBN Circular Economy Taskforce, 2026.
The index records circular activity the campaign surfaces and the evidence behind it. It makes no claim that the campaign caused those reductions, and it does not track progress toward the 25% aspiration.
The plastics pilot is the first phase of the tracker
- Now
Phase One, PET plastics
October 2026 to January 2027. Indorama Ventures and TOMRA test the method on one shared loop, from resin to bottles to collection and back.
- Proposed
Phase Two, more materials
Textiles, electronics, construction and agriculture, and member companies across the Taskforce.
- Aim
A regional register
Avoided emissions recorded on one common basis across ESCAP member economies, for companies in any sector.
This pilot builds the Index Progress pillar
APAC Drive to 25 runs on five pillars whose initials spell DRIVE. Index Progress is the register that records the circular activity the campaign surfaces and the strength of the evidence behind each case.
Case studies come in as emails, PDFs, news articles and links
No two use the same units, baselines or standard of proof, so turning them into figures the Taskforce can publish is slow manual work for the secretariat, and a polished press release can read as stronger evidence than it is. The pilot turns the Taskforce's Impact Protocol into working software for plastics. An AI agent reads each submission and drafts a structured record that cites the page each field came from. A reviewer then confirms or corrects the draft, the calculation engine works out what the evidence supports, and a case reaches the public register only after sign-off.
The register sits alongside the IFC Circular Economy Investment Tracker
The IFC tracker records investment going into circular activity, and the Drive to 25 register records what that activity produced. Each case can carry its IFC finance category in an optional field, so the two datasets can be read together.
Each case is placed in one of three evidence tiers
The register reports how many cases sit at each tier before it reports any emissions figure. A case can enter at Tier 1 and move up, or back down, as evidence is added or questioned.
A named organisation operating in an ESCAP member economy is carrying out a circular action.
Minimum evidence: One verifiable source describing the activity.
The action has at least one measured physical result, such as tonnes collected or recycled material produced.
Minimum evidence: Value, unit, period, location and source for each figure.
The outcome is converted into avoided emissions for a single reporting year, with low, central and high estimates.
Minimum evidence: Activity data, baseline, emission factor and version, position in the value chain, and a check by a second reviewer.
- Q
- The quantity the circular process produced. Collected tonnes are multiplied by a yield before they count, with 0.75 as the current placeholder for PET bottles to flake.
- EF ref
- Emissions from what would otherwise have happened in that market, described in one sentence.
- EF sol
- Emissions from the circular process itself, including its processing, transport and energy.
- D
- The share of new material the recycled material replaces: 1.0 when bottles become bottles, and 0.5 to 0.8 when PET goes into fibre or other lower-grade uses.
Factor library v0.1, in draft until Gate A. The PET factor draws on APR and Franklin Associates (2020) and on ALPLA. Where open burning is the evidenced alternative, PET receives an end-of-life credit of 2.29 t CO2 per tonne, applied to that share only.
How one take-back programme can report 26,400 or 9,945 t CO2e
Member companies can keep their own methods. Next to each member's figure, the register shows a figure recalculated on the Taskforce's common basis and lists every adjustment made to reach it. Scroll to apply the three adjustments in turn.
No adjustments applied yet.
Run in conjunction with APAC Drive to 25
The pilot starts with PET bottles because the pilot partners already work along the same loop, from resin to bottles, through collection and back to resin. Each company is credited for its own role, and a tonne that passes through several of them is counted once.
Pilot partners
- Resin and recyclingIndorama Ventures
- Bottles to marketBrand owners
- Collection and sortingTOMRA
Suppose a brand collects 5,000 t of bottles and a recycler turns 4,000 t of them into rPET. Both companies have a valid case, but adding their avoided emissions together would count the same 4,000 t twice.
The register gives linked cases a shared flow ID and a single figure for the whole chain, then describes each company by its role. Enablers such as investors and policymakers are recorded with outcomes and no tonnes.
Follow one case from submission to the public register
This working prototype follows a single synthetic case, Demo Recycler in the Philippines, through all sixteen steps: the contributor's submission, the Taskforce review and the published case page. The rules and emission factors come from the Taskforce build kit.
Submit a case
Section 1 of 5
How the software handles a submission
A language model reads each submission and drafts the record. Every calculation is done by fixed code using the versioned factor library, and Taskforce reviewers make each decision about eligibility, tiers and publication.
- Ingest
Forms, emails, PDFs and links are stored as one source record.
- Parse
The text is extracted, duplicates are flagged and links are checked.
- Extract
Organisations, claims, figures and units are drafted into a fixed schema, each with its location in the source.
- Assess
Gates, criteria and tier rules are applied, and each decision is logged against its rule ID.
- Quantify
Low, central and high avoided emissions are calculated from the recorded inputs only.
- Publish
Cases move through the review queue to the public register, with DRIVE reporting and a full audit history.
Safeguards built into the software
Reviewers keep control of tier assignment, method class, every adjustment, contact with organisations and each decision to publish.
- Observed facts, AI interpretations and calculated values are stored in separate fields, each with its source.
- The language model extracts and drafts text. It never calculates emissions.
- If the agent cannot find a value in a source, the field stays blank and is never estimated.
- Each record keeps the protocol version, factor versions and reviewer names it was assessed under.
- Member-reported and harmonised figures are both stored, and portfolio totals use harmonised figures only.
Built and hosted on
One shared measure of circular impact for Asia-Pacific
The mission is a single, open way to record the emissions avoided by circular business across Asia-Pacific, for companies in any sector and of any size, so that the Taskforce and its members can report on one common basis.
The plastics pilot is the first step. It proves the method end to end on one material, with companies that already share a loop, so that the same engine can then take on textiles, electronics, construction, agriculture and the wider Taskforce membership.
Limitless AI Consulting is building the tracker with the Taskforce and delivers Phase One at no cost. The software runs on Amazon Web Services, and Limitless is an AWS Partner.
- PET plastics pilotNow, October 2026 to January 2027Now, Oct 2026 to Jan 2027
- More materials and sectors
- A regional register
A reviewed register by 18 December
The work runs in three phases, and each closes at a gate signed off by the Taskforce chair. Building at scale starts only after Gate A fixes the rules, and nothing is published before Gate C.
- Align: protocol and methods7 Oct to 30 Oct
- Gate A, 30 OctProtocol v1.0, factors and data schema fixed
- Build and pilot2 Nov to 27 Nov
- Gate B, 27 NovThe pipeline passes the test set of known cases
- Populate and review30 Nov to 18 Dec
- Gate C, 18 DecThe chair signs off the register
- Publish5 Jan to 20 Jan 2027
Target by 18 December: 25 reviewed cases, with 15 at Tier 2 or above and 10 at Tier 3 after a second review.
What the pilot needs next
- Chair approval of Impact Protocol v1.0, factor library v1.0 and the data schemaTaskforce
- The case studies submitted so far, so the tool can be tested on real submissionsSecretariat
- Preferred emission factor sources for virgin and recycled PETSecretariat
- Recycler data to replace the 0.75 yield placeholder for PETMember companies
- Two or three member methods to register and harmonise firstChampions
- A reviewer from outside Indorama Ventures for Indorama Ventures casesTaskforce
Limitless AI Consulting delivers Phase One at no cost to the Drive to 25 team and the participating companies. A second phase would extend the tool to member companies and to textiles, electronics, construction and agriculture.
The index measures circular activity surfaced by the campaign and the depth of evidence behind it. It does not represent emissions reductions caused by the campaign or progress toward the 25% figure.