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Eu Cir­cu­lar Eco­nomy Pack­age: Clos­ing the loop

16.12.2015
At the begin­ning of Decem­ber the European Com­mis­sion adop­ted an ambi­tious new Cir­cu­lar Eco­nomy Pack­age to help European busi­nesses and con­sumers to make the trans­ition to a stronger and more cir­cu­lar eco­nomy where resources are used in a more sus­tain­able way. The pro­posed actions will con­trib­ute to ​“clos­ing the loop” of product life­cycles through great­er recyc­ling and re-use, and bring bene­fits for both the envir­on­ment and the eco­nomy. The plans will extract the max­im­um value and use from all raw mater­i­als, products and waste, fos­ter­ing energy sav­ings and redu­cing Green House Gas emis­sions. The pro­pos­als cov­er the full life­cycle: from pro­duc­tion and con­sump­tion to waste man­age­ment and the mar­ket for sec­ond­ary raw mater­i­als. This trans­ition will be sup­por­ted fin­an­cially by ESIF fund­ing, €650 mil­lion from Hori­zon 2020 (the EU fund­ing pro­gramme for research and innov­a­tion), €5.5 bil­lion from struc­tur­al funds for waste man­age­ment, and invest­ments in the cir­cu­lar eco­nomy at nation­al level. The Pack­age has broken down silos in the Com­mis­sion and con­trib­utes to broad polit­ic­al pri­or­it­ies by tack­ling cli­mate change and the envir­on­ment while boost­ing job cre­ation, eco­nom­ic growth, invest­ment and social fair­ness. It has been pre­pared by a core pro­ject team co-chaired by First Vice-Pres­id­ent Frans Tim­mer­mans and Vice-Pres­id­ent Jyrki Katain­en with the close involve­ment of Com­mis­sion­ers Kar­menu Vella and Elżbi­eta Bieńkowska. Many oth­er Com­mis­sion­ers were also involved in its pre­par­a­tion and helped identi­fy the most effect­ive tools cov­er­ing a wide range of policy areas.

An EU Action Plan for the Cir­cu­lar Economy

The Cir­cu­lar Eco­nomy Pack­age gives a clear sig­nal to eco­nom­ic oper­at­ors that the EU is using all the tools avail­able to trans­form its eco­nomy, open­ing the way to new busi­ness oppor­tun­it­ies and boost­ing com­pet­it­ive­ness. The broad meas­ures for chan­ging the full product life­cycle go bey­ond a nar­row focus on the end-of-life stage and under­line the Com­mis­sion’s clear ambi­tion to trans­form the EU eco­nomy and deliv­er res­ults. Innov­at­ive and more effi­cient ways of pro­du­cing and con­sum­ing should increas­ingly emerge as a res­ult of the incent­ives we are put­ting in place. The cir­cu­lar eco­nomy has the poten­tial to cre­ate many jobs in Europe, while pre­serving pre­cious and increas­ingly scarce resources, redu­cing envir­on­ment­al impacts of resource use and inject­ing new value into waste products. Sec­tor­al meas­ures are also set out, as well as qual­ity stand­ards for sec­ond­ary raw mater­i­als. Key actions adop­ted on 2nd Decem­ber or to be car­ried out under the cur­rent Com­mis­sion’s man­date include: 
  • Fund­ing of over €650 mil­lion under Hori­zon 2020 and €5.5 bil­lion under the struc­tur­al funds;
  • Actions to reduce food waste includ­ing a com­mon meas­ure­ment meth­od­o­logy, improved date mark­ing, and tools to meet the glob­al Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goal to halve food waste by 2030;
  • Devel­op­ment of qual­ity stand­ards for sec­ond­ary raw mater­i­als to increase the con­fid­ence of oper­at­ors in the single market;
  • Meas­ures in the Eco­design work­ing plan for 2015 – 2017 to pro­mote repar­ab­il­ity, dur­ab­il­ity and recyc­lab­il­ity of products, in addi­tion to energy efficiency;
  • A revised Reg­u­la­tion on fer­til­isers, to facil­it­ate the recog­ni­tion of organ­ic and waste-based fer­til­isers in the single mar­ket and sup­port the role of bio-nutrients;
  • A strategy on plastics in the cir­cu­lar eco­nomy, address­ing issues of recyc­lab­il­ity, bio­de­grad­ab­il­ity, the pres­ence of haz­ard­ous sub­stances in plastics, and the Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals tar­get for sig­ni­fic­antly redu­cing mar­ine litter;
  • A series of actions on water reuse includ­ing a legis­lat­ive pro­pos­al on min­im­um require­ments for the reuse of wastewater.
The Com­mu­nic­a­tion adop­ted on 2nd Decem­ber includes a clear timeline for the actions pro­posed and a plan for a simple and effect­ive mon­it­or­ing frame­work for the cir­cu­lar eco­nomy.

Revised Legis­lat­ive Pro­pos­als on Waste

The revised legis­lat­ive pro­pos­al on waste sets clear tar­gets for reduc­tion of waste and estab­lishes an ambi­tious and cred­ible long-term path for waste man­age­ment and recyc­ling. To ensure effect­ive imple­ment­a­tion, the waste reduc­tion tar­gets in the new pro­pos­al are accom­pan­ied by con­crete meas­ures to address obstacles on the ground and the dif­fer­ent situ­ations across Mem­ber States. Key ele­ments of the revised waste pro­pos­al include:
  • A com­mon EU tar­get for recyc­ling 65% of muni­cip­al waste by 2030;
  • A com­mon EU tar­get for recyc­ling 75% of pack­aging waste by 2030;
  • A bind­ing land­fill tar­get to reduce land­fill to max­im­um of 10% of all waste by 2030;
  • A ban on land­filling of sep­ar­ately col­lec­ted waste;
  • Pro­mo­tion of eco­nom­ic instru­ments to dis­cour­age landfilling ;
  • Sim­pli­fied and improved defin­i­tions and har­mon­ised cal­cu­la­tion meth­ods for recyc­ling rates through­out the EU;
  • Con­crete meas­ures to pro­mote re-use and stim­u­late indus­tri­al sym­bi­os­is –turn­ing one industry’s by-product into anoth­er industry’s raw material;
  • Eco­nom­ic incent­ives for pro­du­cers to put green­er products on the mar­ket and sup­port recov­ery and recyc­ling schemes (e.g. for pack­aging, bat­ter­ies, elec­tric and elec­tron­ic equip­ment, vehicles).

For more information

Source: European Commission
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