This session will explore innovative, practical, community-driven approaches that seek to find inclusive solutions that address environmental challenges. Innovation can arise non conventionally, not only from the tech sector, but from within local communities, education, and even faith, or perhaps all three and every other sector. Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation’s recycling program, “Trash into Gold,” is one such example that merges the three, where local volunteers collect plastic bottle waste in their own communities to be reprocessed into household items to be used for charity and aid, all the while educating their community, small and large, in sustainable and green living and consumption. The event will explore the benefits and challenges of implementing this program, as well as the approaches and programs of Tzu Chi’s partners, the benefits of community-building, and how governments can partner with the private sector to implement similar programs to address challenges to waste management and energy consumption. Tzu Chi hopes to create an open dialogue between civil society and governments in order to address waste management challenges and to spur opportunities to form relationships between public and private sectors to find solutions to this global issue.