What works in Belo Horizonte

Belo Horizonte's Centro de Recondicionamento de Computadores has operated since 2008 as a circular-economy digital-inclusion hub, training over 10,000 low-income youth aged 16–24 in digital and environmental skills while refurbishing and distributing over 50,000 reconditioned computers to public-school students, vulnerable families, and social organisations, and diverting an estimated 15,000 kg of electronic waste from landfill annually. By early 2026, the programme had issued over 26,000 training certificates and extended its reuse model to partner municipalities in Espírito Santo and Rio de Janeiro. Additionally, Minas Gerais's ICMS Ecológico fiscal-transfer mechanism operated in the same state since 1995, though its measurable impact on protected-area expansion (from 2.9% to 8.6% of state territory between 1995–2005) is statewide rather than Belo Horizonte-specific. The evidence comes from municipal self-reporting rather than independent evaluation, and both programmes' reach, while sustained, remain concentrated within Minas Gerais.