Biofuel and Circular Economy Interconnections: A Ray of Hope for Viksit Bharat and Net Zero

Agriculture and food waste is one of the most pressing sustainability challenges of our time, representing not only a loss of resources but also a missed opportunity to regenerate value. In order to realise India’s net zero vision through biofuel based circular economy and bioeconomy, these wastes are an opportunity and feedstock for the future.Across campuses, communities, and cities, discarded agricultural and food wastes often ends up in landfills where it decomposes and releases methane, a potent greenhouse gas. If India, has to realise it’s net zero vision through bioeconomy based circular economy through biofuels these wastes have to be tapped.

Manav Rachna Centre of Peace and Sustainability through the SORT project is showing such a pathway on a smaller scale.  By embedding circularity into campus life, SORT demonstrates how discarded food can be transformed into energy, nutrients, and community engagement, offering a replicable model for institutions and municipalities seeking to align their operations with global sustainability goals in order to attain India’s net zero vision.

The SORT project reframes food waste as a resource for circular economy rather than a burden. Instead of being transported to landfills, food waste is redirected into systems that generate renewable energy and nutrient-rich compost. It provides a direction on how a similar pathway can be explored for agricultural wastes for India’s net zero vision through biofuel feedstock based circular economy creation.

Within SORT, in oxygen-free conditions, microbes break down organic matter to produce biogas, a renewable energy source composed mainly of methane and carbon dioxide. The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA, 2018) highlights biogas as a critical renewable energy pathway that reduces reliance on fossil fuels and supports energy security. This biogas can be used for cooking, heating, or electricity generation, and when upgraded into renewable natural gas, it can be injected into municipal grids or compressed for use in vehicles.

Alongside energy, the process yields digeState, a nutrient-rich slurry that can be applied as fertilizer, closing the loop between food consumption and agricultural production. Complementing this, aerobic composting systems such as Aerobins decompose food waste into compost that enriches soils, supports urban farming, and enhances green cover. The Compost Council of Canada (2020) notes that aerobic composting is one of the most effective ways to recycle organic matter into soil nutrients. While composting does not produce biofuel, it plays a vital role in nutrient recovery, ensuring that circularity extends beyond energy to include ecological regeneration. Together, these pathways form a consolidated circular system where energy recovery complements nutrient recovery, creating a closed loop in which food waste is transformed into resources that flow back into society.

Circularity is about keeping resources in use for as long as possible, extracting maximum value, and regenerating them at the end of their life cycle. On campus, this principle is applied by ensuring that food waste does not end its journey in a landfill but instead enters a cycle where it is processed into outputs that directly benefit the community. Energy generated from food waste can power campus facilities, while compost enriches soils and supports green cover to attain India’s Net Zero Goal. This dual benefit illustrates how circular systems can be built within institutional boundaries. The Centre of Peace and Sustainability plays a pivotal role in embedding this practice. By situating SORT within the Centre, the project is not only a technical intervention but also a cultural one. It becomes part of the university’s identity, linking peace, sustainability, and innovation. Students, faculty, and staff are engaged in the process, learning that their daily actions-such as segregating food waste-contribute to a larger cycle of regeneration.

One of the most powerful aspects of SORT is its visibility. Dashboards and impact assessments make progress measurable and transparent. When students see that their cafeteria waste has been converted into energy or compost, sustainability becomes tangible. This visibility fosters a culture of responsibility and participation, turning the campus into a living laboratory where sustainability is not just taught in classrooms but practiced in everyday life.

Beyond the campus, SORT has the potential to inspire communities across India in multiple cultural contexts to imbibe waste feedstocks for biofuel led pathways for India’s Net Zero Goal. By demonstrating how food waste can be harnessed for circularity, the project provides a model that municipalities and institutions can replicate. The narrative shifts from waste

management as a logistical challenge to waste management as an opportunity for innovation, climate action, and community resilience. While SORT is rooted in the campus environment, its principles are scalable and are applicable to agricultural, city communities. Municipalities generate vast amounts of food waste daily, and the same processes used on campus can be adapted to city systems.

Biogas plants can integrate into municipal energy grids, while composting facilities can support urban farming and landscaping. Policies that mandate segregation at source can ensure a steady supply of feedstock for these systems. In this way, the campus model becomes a prototype for cities seeking to embed circularity into their infrastructure. The Centre of Peace and Sustainability’s leadership in this area positions Manav Rachna as a pioneer.

By linking campus-level innovation to municipal potential, the university demonstrates how institutions can serve as catalysts for systemic change to attain net zero through biofuel based circular bioeconomy pathways. SORT is not just about managing waste-it is about reimagining energy systems, nutrient cycles, and community engagement through the lens of circularity for India’s Net Zero Goal of 2070.

The SORT project also aligns closely with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). By converting food waste into energy, it supports SDG 7: Affordable and Clean Energy. By reducing landfill dependency and emissions, it advances SDG 13: Climate Action. By creating compost that enriches soils, it contributes to SDG 15: Life on Land. And by embedding circularity into campus operations, it supports.

SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production. This alignment underscores the global relevance of local initiatives, showing that campus projects can contribute meaningfully to international sustainability agendas and to India’s Net Zero Goal of 2070.

Ultimately, the SORT project is about more than technology. It is about cultivating a culture of circularity, bioeconomy and biofuel feedstock led pathways for net zero goals of India-where waste is seen as a resource, where sustainability is visible and participatory, and where institutions take responsibility for their ecological footprint so that India could attend it’s net zero goals of 2070 through biofuel based bioeconomic pathways.

Anandajit Goswami is an Professor & Director — Manav Rachna Centre of Peace & Sustainability

Dr Pragati Chauhan is an Associate Director —Manav Rachna Centre of Peace & Sustainability