Svetlana Dcosta

Svetlana Dcosta has a background in life sciences, sustainability and social entrepreneurship. She studied Life Sciences, Ecology and Sustainable Development at St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai, and later completed a Post-Graduate Diploma in Social Entrepreneurship at the NMIMS School of Business Management. She is also a full scholar of the Solid Waste Management and Landfill Mining program at the University of Texas Arlington and is currently pursuing a certificate course in Sustainable Packaging.

Her interests sit at the intersection of circular economy, sustainable packaging, responsible business, climate action, policy, and social impact. 

Svetlana has eight years of global experience working across sustainability, circular economy, renewable energy, waste management, policy, and partnerships with multiple stakeholders. Her work has taken her across India, Kenya, Ghana, Indonesia, Nepal, Myanmar, Cambodia, Switzerland, Spain, South Korea, USA, Canada, giving her a grounded understanding of sustainability challenges across both emerging and developed markets. She currently leads Compliance and Sustainability Intelligence at rePurpose Global, where her work focuses on sustainable packaging, plastic reduction, recyclability, extended producer responsibility, and circularity strategy for global brands. 

She has been deeply involved in international sustainability and policy spaces, including co-founding and leading the Innovation Alliance for a Global Plastics Treaty, representing 120+ innovators in the UN plastics treaty process. She has also represented organizations at UN Global Plastics Treaty negotiations, New York Climate Week, the World Economic Forum, and other global forums. Earlier in her career, she worked on zero-waste projects in India, renewable energy access across Asia-Pacific markets, and solar distribution partnerships for humanitarian relief. 

Svetlana was also selected as a global sustainability fellow by the Sustainability Laboratory New York & UNESCO, where she worked with18 global experts to design a sustainable development plan for the island of La Palma in the Canaries, Spain. 

Outside of work, Svetlana loves volunteering for community and climate action, finding new ways to live a low-waste lifestyle, spending time in nature, and learning how to forage and live more closely with the land. Her personal life reflects the same curiosity and commitment that shape her work: a desire to build more thoughtful, resilient, and regenerative ways of living.