AUTHOR: Agata Meysner
On 27 June, IEEP hosted an online event ‘Climate and biodiversity crises: a new role for the Circular Economy in the next European Green Deal’ which gathered representatives of civil society, academia, think tanks and other stakeholders. The event was an opportunity to discuss the importance of circular economy as well as the role it plays in addressing the climate and biodiversity crises.
The European Union has been actively transitioning to a circular economy since the adoption of the first EU Circular Economy Action Plan in 2015, with a subsequent plan adopted in 2020. The global context, including the Covid-19 pandemic and geopolitical factors like the war in Ukraine, has underscored the vulnerabilities of the global economic system and heightened the commitment to circular economy principles. As discussions on the role and limitations of circular economy grow, its significance in the upcoming European Green Deal and the next European Commission is of utmost importance.
The event’s aims were twofold: 1) to create synergies between the existing knowledge and evidence on the role of circular economy in tackling the climate and biodiversity crises, and 2) to discuss the potential and limitations of circular economy in the next European Green Deal.
Tahmid Chowdhury, Programme Manager at the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) and Ke Wang, Program Director at the Platform for Accelerating the Circular Economy (PACE) were key speakers in the debate. Tahmid co-authored a report Green Circularity: Advancing the EU’s climate goals through a Circular Economy’ which highlights the critical role that building a circular European economy plays in meeting the EU’s climate goals, and puts forward recommendations for advancing the circular economy transition. Ke co-authored a report Circular economy as a climate strategy: current knowledge and calls-to-action’ which synthesises current knowledge on the potential role of the circular economy in climate change management, including mitigation and adaptation. This event built on IEEP’s work on circular economy and its connections with climate, biodiversity and pollution, in particular its recent report ‘European Circular Economy policy landscape overview’, co-authored by Emma Watkins and Agata Meysner, which provided an assessment of the development of EU circular economy policy between 2020 and 2022. The presentation on the report explored the synergies between EU circular economy policies and key strategies in the following policy areas: biodiversity, climate, zero pollution and resource security. For example, the analysis showed that the EU Biodiversity Strategy recognises the contribution of circular economy in the context of materials, products and services from forests, but overall shows limited contribution to the objectives of the Circular Economy Action Plan.
In the panel discussion, Ke and Tahmid shared key messages from their respective reports, and their work on circular economy and climate. Ke explained that based on PACE’s analysis there is good qualitative agreement on the key sectors for circularity strategies to deliver climate change mitigation benefits, namely the built environment, transport, clean energy and food systems. She highlighted that the consumption-side measures and design, not recycling, offer the greatest potential for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However, there is a lack of quantitative agreement, for example around the costs of the transition and the magnitude of the benefits. Finally, Ke also mentioned that there is a very limited understanding of the synergies between circular economy and climate change adaptation. At the same time, she highlighted the unexplored importance of the topic of extraction of raw materials, which despite gaining increasing attention in recent policy debates, still misses its wider systemic impacts on nature, biodiversity and other environmental challenges.
Tahmid shared that the purpose of their report was to deliver an accessible and digestible format for decision-makers to understand synergies between the circular economy and climate change. He highlighted that a key challenge is the siloed spaces of the stakeholders active on climate and circular economy, as well as the limited coherence between these policy areas. In that context, he also explained that CISL’s engagement with the Corporate Leaders Group, a cross-sectoral group of European businesses collaborating to accelerate economy-wide action for a climate neutral economy, offers great potential to strengthen progressive solutions and measures in the debate.
The event also created a space for interactive discussions between the participants, who shared insights on the key synergies between circular economy biodiversity, and climate, the limitations of circular economy and its role moving forward. Some participants highlighted the challenge of measuring circularity, in comparison with the clearer climate metrics, whilst others emphasized the lack of the social justice dimension in circular economy measures. The discussion also included the limitations of the notion of circular economy, which does not recognize the systemic perspective of moving beyond a growth economic model.
The event highlighted the importance of the 2024 European elections and the next European Commission, given the uncertainty of the next European Green Deal and the role of circular economy transition. In fact, as highlighted by IEEP’s European Green Deal Barometer, an annual survey to assess the progress of the European Green Deal’s implementation, 61% of respondents hold a cautious optimism regarding the resilience of the European Green Deal after the 2024 European elections. However, the implementation of the Deal may face challenges due to potential shifts in political dynamics leading up to the upcoming elections and in the future.
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European Circular Economy policy overview
Photo by Thomas Bormans on Unsplash
