EU Circular Economy Consultation

To date, much has been written about the circular economy and last week, on May 28th 2015, the European Commission launched a 12-week public consultation into a revised proposal on its adoption and a waste management review.   In summary, the new 2015 proposal looks at:

• Going beyond waste management to look at truly ‘closing the loop’. i.e. exploring synergies between other polices relating to products, reuse and repair, sustainable consumption, waste policy, recycling levels, efficient use of raw materials, and secondary raw material markets etc.
• Becoming more country specific to improve implementation.
• Maintaining the value of materials and energy use in the supply chain to encourage competiveness and innovation yet still protecting humans and the environment. In doing so this will contribute towards industry growth and job creation.
• Policy: to create conditions for development of the circular economy by addressing barriers and enabling development of new markets and business models. That will in turn lead to an improved situation for consumers i.e. increased access to raw materials, pollution avoidance and reduced resource depletion.
• Creating an action plan that will:
           -Identify key measures in the supply chain with specific areas of intervention
           -Be research led and inspire innovation 

The consultation will close in August when a clearer timetable will be released but the Commission is set to host a stakeholders conference on the 25th of June that will feed into the consultation process. It remains to be seen how this will progress but this blog will provide an update as the proposal evolves.   Click here to read more The Green Perspective blog posts