It is now just over a year since the European Commission published its Circular Economy Action Plan, with the bold aim of abandoning the old make-use-dispose economy in favour of ‘closing the loop’ and keeping resources in circulation. To mark this milestone, the Commission has just published its first annual report, reviewing its progress in implementing the plan.
The UN climate talks in Marrakech (known as COP22) have been buzzing for the past week, but there seems to be a determination that the shock US election victory of Donald Trump should not derail the Paris climate agreement.
Walking past the huge US pavilion in the climate village it is difficult to imagine that, next year, the US will not be participating. Read more
The EU’s Circular Economy Action Plan committed to use the Ecodesign Directive to make the products we use more readily recyclable, repairable and reusable. The European Commission yesterday announced their new ecodesign priorities, but will they give us better products? Read more
Toasters have been in the news again this week, with more controversy, and more delays to the long awaited ecodesign working plan from the European Commission.
The plan will cover the next group of energy related products to be given an innovation boost through ecodesign policies, which drive up energy efficiency standards, rewards market leaders and takes inefficient products off the market. Ecodesign has been one of the EU’s most successful policies: it is already saving each European household €330 per year, and will deliver 40 per cent of the EU’s 2020 energy savings target. Read more
The government’s ‘great repeal bill’ will transpose all current EU law into domestic British law upon the UK’s exit from the EU. Theresa May has promised that the UK will “no longer [be] part of a political union with supranational institutions that can override national parliaments and courts.” The plan is to ‘cut and paste’ current EU rules into UK domestic law.
As the UK heads towards the EU’s exit door, there is an urgent need for a new economic model. A recession looks likely, and even the optimists concede that the next few years will be challenging for the UK economy. Read more
Here in Brussels, the circular economy is dominating conversations in the EU district. To someone living in the UK, this may come as a surprise: industrial policy has fallen out of favour in Britain. But the Circular Economy Action Plan is the subject of two or three events every day here. Brussels is a city which loves to talk, but there is more to it than that. Replacing the linear make-use-dispose model with a new approach based on reuse, repair, remanufacture and recycling is being heralded as the new economic driver for Europe.
So here are five things you should know: Read more
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