Circular Economy Explained to the EU Ministries

Fabio Iraldo, one of the two coordinators of IEFE's Green Economy Observatory, gave a background presentation about circular economy at the informal meeting of the EU Ministries for the Environment, organized by the Italian Presidency of the EU in Milan on July 16. An economy can be defined circular when waste in the production process is minimized and re-enters the process as recycled raw materials.

The other two background presentations of the meeting were delivered by the outgoing European Commissioner for the Environment, Janez Potocnik, and by Eurostat's director general, Walter Radermacher.

The presentation, entitled Green Growth: A Role for Policies to Trigger the Circular Economy, pointed out that only a tiny fraction of raw materials is currently recycled (less than one third of the 60 most common metals have a end-of-life recycling rate higher than 25%, according to the presentation), mainly due to the inertia which shapes corporate behavior. Iraldo highlighted then some best practices by companies that could cut waste thanks to innovative thinking in design, production, distribution, consumption, collection and recycling.

"The lesson learned by the best practices", Iraldo said, "is that businesses develop circular solutions when there are incentives to do so and the role of public policies is the key to overcome the inertial factors and to unlock the potential for circularity".

From linear to circular economy