Integrating Informal Waste Workers into Quezon City’s Circular Economy System

Request for Proposal (RfP)
Integrating Informal Waste Workers into Quezon
City’s Circular Economy System
C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, Inc.
120 Park Avenue, 23rd Floor
New York, NY 10017
United States of America
23 July 2026

Contents
1. C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group Inc. 1
2. Summary, purpose and background of the project 1
3. Proposal guidelines 2
4. RfP and project timeline 4
5. Proposal evaluation criteria 6
6. Project budget 7
7. C40 policies 8
8. Submissions 8
1. C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group Inc.
C40 is a network of nearly 100 mayors of the world’s leading cities working to deliver the urgent action
needed right now to confront the climate crisis and create a future where everyone, everywhere, can thrive.
Mayors of C40 cities are committed to using a science-based and people-focused approach to limit global
heating in line with the Paris Agreement and build healthy, equitable and resilient communities. We work
alongside a broad coalition of representatives from labour, business, the youth climate movement and civil
society to support mayors to halve emissions by 2030 and help phase out fossil use while increasing urban
climate resilience and equity.
The current co-chairs of C40 are Mayor Sadiq Khan of London, United Kingdom, and Mayor Yvonne
Aki-Sawyerr of Freetown, Sierra Leone; three-term Mayor of New York City Michael R. Bloomberg serves as
President of the Board. C40’s work is made possible by our two strategic funders: Bloomberg
Philanthropies and Realdania.
To learn more about the work of C40 and our cities, please visit our website or follow us on X, Instagram,
Facebook and LinkedIn.
2. Summary, purpose and background of the project
C40 Cities is working with a group of cities to provide support in engaging informal workers to enhance
waste management, build resilience and improve livelihoods.
Many cities around the globe face significant challenges in managing solid waste. Informal waste
management workers make up roughly 80% of the 24 million waste workers worldwide. Impressively,
informal workers collect between 50% and 100% of a city’s waste, especially in the Global South. The lack
of recognition and integration of these workers into official waste management systems leads to
dangerous working conditions and inefficient collection and recycling practices.
Integrating informal waste workers improves both job opportunities for informal workers and waste
Request for Proposals: Integrating Informal Waste Workers into Quezon City’s Circular Economy System 1

collection outcomes by fostering collaboration between city officials, community leaders, and informal
workers.
C40 Cities is working with Quezon City to advance in the process of integrating informal waste workers in
the circular economy system, with the aim of advancing waste collection and improving the lives of
informal workers.
Project
Quezon City is seeking to provide improved employment, upskilling, and social benefits, by supporting
waste workers shift their involvement from more informal spaces, into public sector initiatives and existing
waste management systems, in alignment with the City’s definition of Good Green Jobs. To fully maximize
the potential of this sector, there is a need to account and map all informal waste workers and provide the
necessary guidelines, legislation and organizational basis for their integration, organization and
accreditation as cooperatives.
To support the proposed inclusion of informal workers into more formal waste and circular economy
systems, C40 Cities is seeking a consultant to provide technical assistance through the activities below.
Objectives
The key objectives of this consultancy are to:
● Undertake a baseline assessment and stakeholder mapping to identify waste workers, including
those engaged in existing programmes in the City, junk shops, and barangay-level initiatives.
● Through participatory workshops with various categories of informal waste workers, co-develop a
set of guidelines and/or recommendations to formalise informal waste workers into organised
groups and cooperatives for integration into Quezon City’s solid waste management and circular
economy programmes, aligned with the City’s Good Green Jobs definition.
○ The formalisation guidelines should identify the pathways, gaps, and solutions towards
formalization based on the actual situation per type or category of the informal waste
workers. The guidelines should include a gaps analysis and risk assessment accompassing all
actors/categories of informal waste workers
○ The guidelines should identify the roles and responsibilities of key stakeholders such as local
government, barangay, national government, religious groups, CSOs, among others that may
be identified in relation to the formalization efforts.
● Support capacity building of informal waste workers through the design of a training programme.
Deliver coaching and capacity development of city officials to be able to train informal waste
workers, thr