At People, Food and Land Foundation, we are working to transform broken systems into living ones – where organic materials flow through nature’s cycles, where communities are nourished by what they create, and where policy and practice serve regeneration, not extraction.

This is the promise of the circular bioeconomy.

PFL’s work in composting, nutrient cycling, and regenerative planning and policy helps to reimagine “waste” as the resources that are the foundation for climate solutions, soil health, clean water, and circular economies rooted in place.

The Circular Bioeconomy Program Holds Several Transformative Initiatives

• BRAN: Bioeconomy Resources & Action Network
  A statewide platform advancing nature-based solutions through by embedding regenerative roles in state and regional systems enhancing cross-sector coordination and regional strategy.

• Commons Planner
  A national-scale GIS mapping and soil data platform to guide compost application in order to have the greatest environmental and agricultural impact. 

• Compost Landscape Inventory
  A multi-pronged initiative that includes feedstock mapping, nutrient cycling, and support for the build out of decentralized composting and measures California’s capacity to regenerate healthy soils.

• Compost Policy & Planning Framework
  Practical frameworks and guidance for building out smarter permitting, soil-based infrastructure, and compost markets for community benefit.

• Healthy Soils Policy Map (Nerds for Earth)
  A 50-state legislation tracker advancing soil and compost policy, helping advocates and policymakers align for systemic change.

Together, these efforts turn historical “waste” into resources that form the foundation of thriving.

Through cross-sector collaboration, technical tools, and hands-on support, we help communities:

• Rebuild
  Soil health through compost and nutrient cycling

• Reclaim
  Organic resources for local economic benefit

• Align
  Permitting, policy, and planning with ecological reality

• Strengthen
  Circular infrastructure — from school gardens to regional compost hubs

• Inform
  National and state legislation through grounded research

Together, these projects help transform historical “waste” into resources that form a foundation for thriving.

A bioeconomy is an economic system based on renewable biological resources — like food scraps, manure, green waste, and forest residues — rather than fossil fuels or extractive industries.

A circular system is one that returns resources to the land — recycling nutrients, organic matter, and energy back into regenerative cycles.

The circular bioeconomy includes:

1. Human systems
   Ex. permitting, infrastructure, economic development

2. Ecological systems
   Ex. soil microbiomes, forest litter, agroecology, water retention

3. Cultural systems
   Ex. community-led composting, traditional stewardship, Indigenous practices

In nature, nothing is wasted. But in human systems, organic material is often treated as garbage. When we treat compostable biomass as a problem to be burned or buried, we break the cycle — increasing pollution and losing precious nutrients, moisture, and carbon in the process.

A circular bioeconomy is about healing the disconnections between people, land, and nourishment — and building a new economy rooted in relationship, biology, and place.

Pollution is an Element Out Of Place.

An apple core in a landfill becomes methane.
Forest residues in an open burn pile become smoke.
Manure without a nutrient plan becomes nitrate pollution.

In a healthy circular system, these are not problems.
They are resources misplaced — carbon, nitrogen, and water no longer flowing where they belong.

By putting carbon back into soil, we also invite water and nutrients to follow. Mycorrhizal fungi and microbial life build networks of exchange — reducing runoff, storing moisture, and feeding plants more efficiently than synthetic inputs ever could.

The opportunity, then, is to re-imagine and co-create systems that cycle these out-of-place elements back into relationship — where they provide solutions and support for the whole.

Rebuilding the circular bioeconomy is not just about compost or carbon.

It’s about how we design systems that heal soil, improve water quality, generate local value, and support ecological and community resilience — especially in places historically harmed by extraction.

Our work supports a holistic transition toward true circular bioeconomy systems that strengthens the entire web of life:

• Agroecological Systems
  Honor traditional knowledge and regenerate ecosystems and community so food systems and ecosystems thrive together

• Healthy Soils
  Retain water, store carbon, and grow nutritious food with improved water retention, biodiversity, and resilience

• Clean Air and Water
  For all communities through reduced burning, leaching, and runoff

• Climate Strategies
  Reduce emissions and restore carbon to land informed by science and planning

• Communities
  Empowered to steward their own resources scaled for local benefit

• Local and Regional Economies
  Grow with circular jobs, regional infrastructure, and regenerative enterprise centering care, restoration, and resilience

While much of our work focuses on rural communities, every part of the system is connected. Urban food scraps, forest residues, and farm nutrients all move through shared ecosystems. Built on principles of regeneration, reciprocity, and right relationship, the circular bioeconomy reconnects those flows nourishing both land and life.

• Agroecology
  A science and practice that integrates ecological principles into agricultural systems.
• Biochar
  Charcoal-like material produced from biomass that stores carbon and improves soil structure.
• Bioeconomy
  An economic system based on biological resources, like plants, compost, and waste streams, instead of fossil fuels.
• Carbon-Water-Nutrient Link
  Built on principles of regeneration, reciprocity, and right relationship.
  
• Circular Economy
  A system that keeps materials in use, cycling them back into productive flows.
• Compost Feedstock
  Any organic material (e.g., food scraps, green waste, manure) that can be composted.
• Distributed Infrastructure
  Smaller-scale systems located in multiple places, closer to where resources are generated and needed.
• Nutrient Cycling
  The natural movement of nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus through ecosystems including soil-plants-microbe systems.
• Organic Biomass
  Plant or animal material used for energy, soil amendments, or ecosystem restoration.
• Right to Soil
  The idea that communities generating organic resources should be able to use them to benefit their land and health.
• Theaters of Action
  Sectors like composting, planning, permitting, funding, and education where change must happen in parallel.