Commission plan positive step to kick start circular economy

Today, the European Commission has presented its new Action Plan on the Circular Economy. The Greens/EFA group welcomes the new strategy and considers it an upgrade of the Action Plan of 2015, in particular as it announces a multitude of legislative initiatives. 

Bas Eickhout MEP, Greens/EFA Vice-Chair of the Environment Committee, comments:

"We have long been calling for a much broader application of the 'eco-design' approach, which sets product requirements for energy efficiency, to kick start the circular economy. It is welcome that the Commission is now doing so with the announcement of a sustainable product policy framework that will regulate things like resource use, durability and reparability of products placed on the European market. This is not only good news for the climate and the environment, but also for job creation and consumers."

"The new Action Plan contains other key proposals for the transformation to a circular economy, such as a commitment to address key product value chains, to come forward with waste reduction targets and to revise waste shipment rules. However, several indispensable pieces of the puzzle are still missing; we lack clear targets for reducing resource consumption and disappointingly, the European Commission barely looks at the issue of pricing to stimulate the uptake of circular products over pristine items."

Petra De Sutter MEP, Greens/EFA Chair of the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee, comments:

"Consumers and citizens want their tablets to have a longer lifetime or their smartphones to be more easily repairable. So it’s a good thing that sustainable product policy is at the heart of this Circular Economy Action Plan. I hope the Commission will effectively materialise people’s ‘right to repair’ by setting binding design and reparability requirements, including the availability of spare parts.”