Opinion of the European Committee of the Regions — An EU action plan for the Circular Economy
Date: 2016-10-12
Institutions: Commission for the Environment, Climate Change and Energy, European Committee of the Regions
Subjects: action programme, clean technology, consumer information, innovation, investment, prevention of pollution, storage of waste, waste, waste disposal, waste recycling








C_2017088EN.01008301.xml










21.3.2017   


EN


Official Journal of the European Union


C 88/83





Opinion of the European Committee of the Regions — An EU action plan for the Circular Economy
(2017/C 088/16)












Rapporteur:



Babette Winter (DE/PES), State Secretary for Europe and Culture in the Thuringia State Chancellery





Reference document:



Communication from the Commission on ‘Closing the loop — An EU action plan for the Circular Economy’
COM(2015) 614 final









POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS

THE EUROPEAN COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS

General comments









1.


welcomes the Commission’s efforts to establish — through a stronger, circular model which preserves the value of products, materials and resources within the life cycle — a sustainable, low-carbon, technologically-advanced, resource-saving and resource-efficient economy, generating lasting competitive advantages and jobs in Europe;












2.


emphasises that if they are to achieve the objectives set, the measures must be framed the same way in all the Member States, so as to enable employment opportunities — in line with the Green Employment Initiative and the New Skills Agenda for Europe (1) — in the new employment niches brought about by the circular economy (eco-sustainable construction, waste management, etc.) to be created and workers to be trained according to demand. With support and proper training, many unemployed people could re-enter work and new job options could be opened up for the rest;












3.


stresses that many problems which are triggered by production and consumption in the EU have an impact on other parts of the planet, particularly developing and emerging countries, and that positive consequences can be expected in those places, too, as a result of changing production and consumption. The CoR commits to fulfilling the EU’s resulting political, economic and social responsibilities and therefore recommends also against the backdrop of the UN agenda 2030 for sustainable development which entered into force on 1 January 2016, to focus on measures that ensure, at an international level, that the necessary measures to protect and conserve resources are also initiated outside the EU;












4.


stresses that, in order to achieve the ambitious goal of a closed circular economy, political will is needed at every level so that the necessary measures can be taken. Those measures include the environmentally-friendly design of goods and services, preventing waste, recycling, recovering and reusing materials and components, and reducing harmful substances and reprocessing difficult substances in order to promote repairability, recyclability, upgradability and durability. Lasting changes to the public perception of this subject and to consumer behaviour are also needed as is the creation of a stable market for products and materials based on secondary raw materials;












5.


supports the Council Conclusions on the EU action plan for the circular economy (2) in their call for timely and ambitious implementation of the European Commission Circular Economy action plan, and in that the transition to a circular economy requires long-term commitment and action in a wide range of policy areas in the EU and at all levels of government in Member States, including active engagement of all levels of government with all the economic and social actors involved as well as citizens;












6.


points out, in this regard, that waste management services are often performed as services of general economic interest within the meaning of Article 14 TFEU and that Protocol No 26 on services of general interest, among other things, provides local and regional authorities with a broad measure of discretion. This allows for the development and provision of optimal regional and local waste management solutions;












7.


points out that effective cooperation between actors and sectors is crucial to the large-scale establishment of the circular economy. Joint product development, transparency via IT and exchange of information, joint data collection systems, sectorial standards, and the harmonisation of incentives and mediation mechanisms could be implemented by putting in place platforms and clusters in the various sectors where businesses and policy-makers work together;












8.


takes the view that the circular economy strategy as a whole with a view to achieving a genuine paradigm shift must be based on striving for the best lifelong environmental solutions (‘cradle-to-cradle’), namely those which are independent of the current set of individual legal provisions, strategies and instruments, the further development, adaptation or extension of which must help to pursue the overall objective;












9.


is convinced that this can only succeed if, in addition to the short-term proposals put forward in the action plan, specific and realistic medium- and long-term goals are set, laying a firm foundation to enable all those involved to carry out the necessary planning and meet the infrastructure requirements;












10.


recommends, therefore, that in the light of the protracted policy development and implementation processes, the period up to 2050 (3) be considered, setting objectives and intermediate actions for the period up to 2030;












11.


takes the view that, as an important first step, a critical assessment must take place to determine where funding programmes, aid and regulatory measures are ineffective or even counterproductive, and which priority issues must be tackled within what time frame;












12.


takes the view that research programmes, funding measures and voluntary instruments can only play a supporting role in fully tackling the challenges facing the EU, owing to their limited reach. An example of their low level of effectiveness is the EU environmental management system EMAS, which was set up 20 years ago and has been implemented by only around 4 000 businesses and non-commercial bodies with roughly 10 000 sites EU-wide. In contrast, around 30 million companies have forgone the instrument;












13.


recommends ambitious legislative provisions, which should be accompanied by supporting measures. Innovative approaches should also be pursued to that end, for example Top-Runner (4). As well as natural resources and the environment, this will primarily benefit consumers, who will enjoy lower costs in the long term, and the economy, which will have an advantage over competing economies with regard to innovation;












14.


notes that a number of local and regional authorities (LRAs) have already put in place various initiatives to promote resource efficiency and the circular economy. The initiatives in question are good examples for others to follow. The Commission should support existing platforms for sharing experiences;












15.


regrets that education and awareness-raising do not feature in the action plan and calls on the Commission to develop those aspects with the Member States, local and regional authorities and other partners, and to promote the development and exchange of knowledge and appropriate, tried and tested procedures in order to raise awareness; welcomes in this context the creation of specific specialisation modules in the relevant degree courses and appropriate training courses in close cooperation between businesses, research and the education sector;





Product design and production processes









16.


notes that the Commission relies on existing strategies; specific measures are lacking in a number of areas as are, for example, uniform criteria for the application and implementation of these strategies. Meanwhile, the legislative proposals which have been announced on extended product responsibility ought to flesh out how producers should internalise the total cost of products along the entire value chain;












17.


recommends that, in order for the overarching aims to be achieved and for consistency between all policy areas, procedures be incorporated into the monitoring of subsidy approvals to ensure that in future no funding is given to production sites or product developments which do not meet the ecodesign requirements;












18.


stresses that a thorough revision of the ecodesign provisions is necessary (5) and that the setting of product- and sector-specific ecodesign requirements should be examined;












19.


calls in this respect on the European Commission to present as soon as possible an ambitious Ecodesign Working Plan implementing Directive 2009/125/EC (Ecodesign Directive) which was supposed to cover the period 2015-2017;












20.


stresses that waste products and by-products from manufacturing can serve as secondary raw materials for other products and that there is still great potential in the sense of industrial symbiosis with a view to a genuine circular economy in this area, particularly with regard to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which are the economic backbone of many regions. In this respect, existing regulatory barriers for SMEs should be reduced as far as possible and kept to the minimum in new rules. For example, the measures mentioned in Article 5(2) and Article 6(2) of the Waste Framework Directive for setting criteria for declaring by-product and end-of-waste status should be put into effect;












21.


recommends that the Commission and the Member States also draw up binding economic regulations on sustainable sourcing and cooperation along value chains if self-imposed commitments are not being fulfilled within a reasonable period of time and to an adequate extent. They should be doing so in consultation with regional and local authorities;












22.


notes, irrespective of the low uptake of EMAS mentioned in Point 12, that, in principle, this instrument has great potential to identify and understand (inefficient and/or environmentally harmful) material flows in (production) processes, and therefore welcomes the fact that the Commission has considered improvements to this instrument to benefit businesses, in particular SMEs, in the action plan. Points out that EMAS is also the only management system that provides a really good way of reliably verifying such material flows thanks to its systemic transparency and scrutiny;












23.


therefore recommends integrating EMAS much more firmly into other legislation and related enforcement than has been the case to date, as a voluntary tool for the reliable verification of supporting documents and data;





Consumption









24.


stresses that consumer behaviour and social trends are more relevant to the problem of the ever-shorter usage cycles of products such as electronic devices and clothes than supposed and actual technical obsolescence;












25.


emphasises, with this — primarily social and ethical — context in mind, that the Commission, the Member States and, in particular, LRAs, as the closest political level to citizens, should implement measures on education, further education and qualifications to significantly improve awareness and understanding, both among the public and in the economy, of the connections between sustainable and unsustainable consumption, waste reduction, conservation of resources and the environment, producer responsibility, and product design and advertising. Recommends that such issues be incorporated more into educational programmes and information campaigns;












26.


recommends that the full spectrum of products’ environmental effects be made transparent through appropriate labelling, drawing on the experience with existing labels. At the same time, the label should be simple and easy to understand and the information on the label should be transparent and verifiable;












27.


considers that the product environmental footprint (PEF) is a suitable approach to that end, but points out that considerable efforts are still needed to develop its methodology and also that the PEF can only effectively counteract the multitude of labels and the subsequent lack of transparency when it is universally binding. To that end, it must be easily manageable for producers without this compromising its informative value or verifiability and must also take into account their competitiveness and the principle of proportionality. The creation of a European mark to build up a clear and positive reputation, opening doors to the circular economy, would help in this regard. A strategy for the mark and how to communicate it is needed, together with a plan to put the strategy into practice including, for example, improvement programmes and Europe-wide advertising campaigns;












28.


calls on the Commission and the Member States, through a medium-term reform of tax systems, to tax the use of primary raw materials at a higher rate than the use of reusable secondary raw materials, substances and components, in order to significantly increase the incentive to reuse raw materials, substances and components which are already in economic circulation instead of using new primary raw materials. The VAT Directive may need to be revised so as not to prevent differentiation in VAT rates to this end. The Commission and the Member States, in cooperation with local and regional authorities, should do more to foster the use of secondary raw materials, secondary materials and components, including through the use of other appropriate economic tools;












29.


recognises that Green Public Procurement (GPP) can be an important driver of the circular economy, owing to its large share of the gross domestic product. The CoR stresses that LRAs make up a very large proportion of EU-wide procurement and therefore play a key role in GPP. This gives the green economy the stimulus it needs in order to grow and opens up great potential for jobs, thus improving the implementation of the Green Action Plan for SMEs and the Green Employment Initiative (6);












30.


notes that there is still no large-scale implementation of GPP, which has been promoted for many years, and therefore welcomes every Commission initiative which leads to a more efficient implementation of this procurement policy; highlights the fact that in public procurement it is important to look not only at the lowest price, but at the ‘most economically advantageous tender’. This means more emphasis on buying solutions which have a lower total life cost, demonstrate strong technological performance and are more sustainable overall; such practices should be included in the regulations governing the structural funds, as this is a way of enhancing the entry into the market of secondary raw materials;












31.


points out that, even if the EU Member States have implemented the new EU rules on public procurement (7), further opportunities for sustainable, competitive innovation-generating and transparent procurement exist, such as smarter rules and increasing use of electronic procedures; is of the view that businesses, particularly SMEs, should be made more aware of the new opportunities presented by the revised EU rules on public procurement;












32.


calls on the Commission and the Member States to put forward guidelines and proposals to step up GPP use. The handbook ‘Buying green! A handbook on green public procurement’, produced by the Commission, is a suitable first step to that end also calls for a list to be established for this handbook that includes secondary raw materials eligible for GPP, as well as products produced using these materials, to be updated regularly;












33.


calls with a view to future changes to the EU legal framework that entered into force in 2016 for the mandatory consideration of GPP in public procurement procedures if they are above the threshold for an EU-wide call for tender, and for projects which are financed with public funds. Green public procurement should be implemented as part of every EU funding programme so that the projects can serve as examples and incentives for the use of GPP;












34.


recommends in this respect, for the sake of consistency in EU legislation and in line with the previous recommendation, that the Directive on public procurement (2014/24/EU) be revised, so that sustainable, resource-efficient products and solutions are given preference as a matter of course in public procurement procedures, with mandatory justification if they are rejected; also recommends applying a form of monitoring that assesses and compares the costs of conventional, purely price-performance-profit-oriented procurement procedures with those of GPP across the entire value chain; recommends, furthermore, that systems for announcing procurement be developed to provide comparative data about different projects and their criteria if needed;





Waste disposal









35.


supports the Commission’s intention to work more closely together with the Member States so that EU waste legislation can be better implemented and stresses that LRAs have an important role to play in this area. The CoR therefore calls on the Commission to make sure that Member States closely involve LRAs in the necessary technical and fiscal measures and exchanges of good practices;












36.


reiterates its call for the Commission and the Member States to promote the introduction of high-quality recycling, particularly in areas which are still less developed, and calls for economic instruments, such as the ‘polluter pays’ principle or landfill charges, and waste generation payment systems to be implemented more swiftly (8);












37.


points out that, given the differences that exist between the EU’s regions and Member States in achievement of the targets laid down in current EU waste management legislation, it is very important to encourage cooperation and the dissemination of best practices in this area, so that the least performing Member States and regions can be helped to meet the ultimate goals; this applies especially to regions of low population density, island regions and the outermost regions, facing great population pressure and substantial distances to treatment facilities, given that in such areas, it is almost impossible to achieve the target of zero waste;












38.


emphasises that consumers need to be much more involved in all waste disposal measures. To this end, local and regional authorities responsible for solid urban waste should provide transparent information on treatment processes and the monitoring of recycling for all materials, in order to involve consumers more closely in eliminating or recycling such materials;












39.


stresses that a level playing field in the implementation of regulations on waste disposal is an important factor for the competitiveness of SMEs in the European internal market;












40.


welcomes the Commission’s plans to deal with the role of energy recovery from waste in energy and climate policy. The CoR stresses that the EU waste hierarchy to minimise the amount of waste and lifecycle thinking must be the basis for these plans and that the circular economy model, with high reuse and recycling quotas, must not be circumvented in favour of energy generation (9);












41.


also points out that treatment in high-efficiency thermal facilities (waste-to-energy) is useful for waste that cannot be avoided or recycled, particularly where this results in energy being used simultaneously. At the same time, oversized infrastructures for disposing of or incinerating waste must be avoided;












42.


strongly supports the European Commission’s intention to step up enforcement of the revised Waste Shipment Regulation, thereby counteracting the illegal export of post-consumer waste and the shipment of waste to sub-standard treatment plants within or outside the EU. The European Commission should closely involve the competent local and regional authorities in its activities and promote the development of an Electronic Data Interchange for Waste shipments and develop guidance on adequate inspection planning, the requirement for which has been introduced by the latest revision of the Directive;





Strengthening the secondary raw materials market









43.


takes the general view that quality standards must, when necessary, be established by the industries which use the raw materials, since only the manufacturers of products know what qualities the raw materials and substances they need for production must have. However, the Committee emphasises in this connection that the quality of the products, not their origin, must be the determining factor;












44.


takes the view, however, that the Commission is responsible for examining and removing the current legal barriers which prevent the use of secondary raw materials or make it more difficult, as long as this does not conflict with safety-related aspects (e.g. pollutants, animal diseases, hygiene);












45.


welcomes the Commission’s aim to outline the points of intersection between chemical, product and waste legislation and takes the view that this should take place as swiftly as possible. The CoR stresses, in this regard, that replacing dangerous and toxic substances with safe alternatives which are available or still being developed, and the traceability of dangerous chemicals in the value chain and in material cycles, are essential for the circular economy to function smoothly;





Priority areas









46.


welcomes the Commission’s focus on plastics, refers to its opinion on the Green Paper on a European strategy on plastic waste in the environment (10) and stresses that rules must be set with regard to the use of plastics in certain sectors in order to facilitate the recycling of plastic or curb its use in certain sectors. Plastics containing substances harmful to the environment and health should not be reused/recovered if the pollutants cannot be extracted through a treatment process and removed from the materials cycle. Plastics containing harmful substances should be withdrawn from circulation, for example by incineration. It is important for the Commission to take account of this when drawing up rules and target levels. It should also act to ensure that primary production is free from substances harmful to the environment and health as soon as possible;












47.


points out that many new combined materials can have positive environmental effects (as insulation, saving weight etc.), but on the other hand can pose new challenges during their life-cycle with regard to re-use, recycling or disposal;












48.


criticises the fact that the important subjects of littering and plastic leaching are not addressed in more detail in the action plan and therefore calls on the Commission to give these issues greater consideration in the strategy on plastics in the circular economy, announced for 2017, and to set clear targets for finding solutions;












49.


urges the Commission and Member States to promote market-driven initiatives to boost the use of recycled materials by creating fiscal and economic incentives for businesses to adopt circular economy-based business models and for consumers to buy products and services that support the circular economy;












50.


considers reducing food waste to be not only an economically and environmentally, but also an ethically important aspect of the circular economy and refers to its opinions in relation to the legislative package and its own-initiative opinion on food waste (11);












51.


takes the view that measures to prevent food waste along the value chain are not solely the concern of the Member States, LRAs and businesses, but that the European Commission and other EU institutions play a decisive role, as this subject is linked to other policy areas (e.g. hygiene regulations/consumer protection, trade standards, agricultural subsidies);












52.


takes the view that a comprehensive assessment of the construction industry is essential because of the scale of this sector’s waste and its increasingly complex composition. Ecodesign for building products in particular must take the whole life-cycle into account, and therefore must be used more for this category of products; although the interest in enhancing efficiency in the use of resources in the EU construction sector is unarguable, the differing national approaches, both public and private, increase the complexity of the working environment for all stakeholders. The lack of common objectives, indicators and data, together with the lack of mutual recognition of the different approaches could rapidly wipe out the progress achieved so far, and generate distortions on the internal market in the areas of planning, design, construction and manufacturing;












53.


is of the view that when applying the principles of the circular economy to the real estate and construction sectors, projects must be designed in layers, specific materials and components must be selected, and as early as the construction stage, building must be geared towards dismantling and adaptability. Industry will therefore need to be involved with waste redefined as a valuable resource, and buildings must become ‘material banks’ for future generations. To this end, material structures and components must be designed that can be broken down or dismantled, in part or totally, in such a way that the constituent components can be reused, the materials can be recovered and the entire building can be rebuilt elsewhere;












54.


stresses the regional relevance of the circular economy of building waste: due to its amount and weight, transporting it long distances makes no economic sense, meaning that it generally remains in the region where it was produced;












55.


sees the building industry as an important field of action for all levels of public administration: given that public administrations not only own public buildings, but are also responsible for creating and maintaining infrastructure, they should be pioneers in giving broad market access to innovative, environmentally-friendly processes and products, such as secondary aggregates derived from building and demolition waste in road building and other forms of construction (12);












56.


stresses that LRAs play a particularly important role in the authorisation of building and demolition processes and that they should receive support with integrating the circular economy in this sector through EU guidelines;












57.


reiterates that the development of indicators to assess the environmental performance of buildings in terms of their life-cycle is important to LRAs in the EU and is a prerequisite for developing general environmental protection targets and standards in the building sector. LRAs should be involved in developing these indicators (13);












58.


notes that the topics of pharmaceuticals and nanomaterials as waste or discharges into the environment are not in the action plan and must be addressed swiftly as further priorities by means of corresponding strategies;





Innovation, investment and other horizontal measures









59.


welcomes the fact that in the action plan the Commission commits itself to supporting the Member States and LRAs to strengthen their circular economy measures by means of targeted measures, and also makes funding available to them for the development of circular economy projects from various EU funding instruments, such as the European Structural and Investment Funds, EFSI, LIFE, Horizon 2020 and COSME; underlines the need to improve synergies between various Funds and programmes and simplify their use. Calls for a one-stop shop approach;












60.


notes, in this regard, that these funding instruments are often not geared towards the requirements of regions and LRAs, and therefore calls for them to also be directed towards regions’ and LRAs’ requirements and financial and administrative capacities; measures and instruments need to be tailored to the different local situations in Europe’s regions, and in particular the density of the population and its territorial distribution should be taken into account;












61.


notes that the European Structural and Investment Funds’ operational programmes were already fixed before the action plan and that the investment measures necessary for the circular economy could not therefore be planned in such a way that they also make possible smaller projects to reduce waste; to set up networks for reuse, repair, and the shared economy; to test new processes to sort and treat waste; to build the capacities of SMEs; and to raise public awareness;












62.


calls on the Commission, therefore, to give this more consideration in the next funding period and more generally to make the circular economy as high a priority in the coming structural and investment funds funding period as has hitherto been the case for climate change.












63.


calls on the European Commission to promote ‘disruptive technologies’, which could massively alter or supplant whole market segments, more effectively as part of the circular economy, in order to guarantee better use of knowledge;





Monitoring and governance









64.


invites the European Commission to provide regular progress reports on the state of implementation of the Action Plan to the Committee of the Regions, to regularly discuss with the Committee of the Regions the progress achieved and to explore the possibility of Outlook Opinion requests to the Committee of the Regions to enable it to contribute already to the policy preparation phase.





Brussels, 12 October 2016.


The President of the European Committee of the Regions

Markku MARKKULA




(1)  COM(2014) 446 final, COM(2016) 381 final.

(2)  Conclusions of the Environment Council of 20 June 2016, http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/meetings/env/2016/06/st10444_en16_pdf/

(3)  European Parliament resolution of 9 July 2015 on ‘Resource efficiency: moving towards a circular economy’ (2014/2208(INI)).

(4)  CDR 140/2011.

(5)  CDR 4083/2014, European Parliament Resolution 2014/2208(INI).

(6)  COM(2014) 440 final, COM(2014) 446 final

(7)  Directives 2014/23/EU, 2014/24/EU, 2014/25/EU.

(8)  CDR 4083/2014.

(9)  CDR 3751-2013.

(10)  CDR 3751-2013.

(11)  CDR 6646/2015.

(12)  See: Commission Staff Working Document ‘EU GPP Criteria for Office Building Design, Construction and Management’ of 20 May 2016, SWD(2016) 180 final.

(13)  CDR 4084/2014.