Covenant 2022 Partners News
Peter Koegler nominated as Platform Director of the 'RMC Covenant Circular Economy 2022'
Peter is a senior leader with core competencies in sustainable development, supply chain sustainability, carbon finance, energy, renewables, packaging, waste, food and agribusiness, policy, strategy development, and programme management. Peter has a global work experience in a multinational environment in the brewing and beverage industry, in renewable energy and carbon finance, emissions trading, packaging and waste, agriculture and development assistance. His new e-mail: Peter.Koegler@epe.be
Next meeting of the Operational Groups (OG) of the EIP on Raw Materials
The next meeting of the (OG) of the EIP on Raw Materials will take place on Thursday 12 February 2015 in Brussels. The first part of the meeting will consist of a plenary session with presentations focused on three main aspects: (1) Cooperation among regions as a tool to support research and innovation in raw material activities. (2) Funding instruments for raw material activities. (3) Presentation of the e-survey for gap analysis and mapping the state of play of the Strategic Implementation Plan (SIP) of the EIP.
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Summaries and Presentations of the Operational Groups (OG) meetings
Last November 10-11, the Operational Groups of the European Innovation Partnership (EIP) on Raw Materials met in Brussels. During these meetings, a Plenary Session and five Thematic Sessions were held each day. Leaders of the relevant Raw Materials commitments gave short presentations of their commitment during these sessions.
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EU Policy News
EC Circular Economy Proposals - not scrapped but bigger and better
Documents leaked earlier indicated that the European Commission was going to scrap the circular economy package. But the Commission has responded saying that the proposals are just to be revised because they were not ambitious enough, and they now plan to draw up a new, more ambitious package in 2015.
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European Commission work plan to deliver jobs, growth and investment
On 16 December the European Commission adopted its Work Programme for 2015 – setting out the actions the Commission intends to take over the next 12 months. The Work Programme sets out: 23 new initiatives proposed by the Juncker Commission; 80 existing proposals which the Commission proposes to withdraw or amend for political or technical reasons.
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New rules for a reduction in the consumption of plastic bags
At the Environmental Council meeting of 17 December, the Council reached a political agreement on the Proposal for a Directive on packaging and packaging waste to reduce the consumption of lightweight plastic carrier bags. The new EU law will require governments to choose either to introduce a charge on single-use lightweight plastic bags by the end of 2018 or to take measures to reduce the annual use of lightweight plastic bags by the end of 2025.
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EESC calls for a roadmap on the transition to a circular economy
At its last plenary session, the EESC reiterated its support for the policy package "Towards a circular economy: A zero waste programme for Europe" launched by the Barroso Commission last summer. The EESC urged the new Commission to move forward with this initiative, including the legislative proposals amending several waste directives, which would help to put an end to the current linear economic model.
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EU Council endorses Commission work programme 2015
The EU Council addressed the recent announcements of the Commission on its 2015 work programme. The Council stressed the importance of continuing work on the circular economy package and on the waste review in particular, building on the work done so far. Ministers also stressed that the transition towards a circular economy is key to boosting growth and jobs.
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EU Funded Study on Deep Sea Mining
DG Environment commissioned a report on the current state of the art on Deep Sea Mining. This report gives an overview on the current and latest state of knowledge of deep-sea mining and raw materials, with a focus on the potential from a geological perspective, the relevant technologies, the economic viability, environmental implications, the legal regime under which seabed mining operates, and an inventory of ongoing exploration and exploitation projects.
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EU Funding News
Call for Papers: State of the Art Sustainable Innovation & Design 2015
The conference will be held on 9th-10th November 2015 at the University for the Creative Arts Epsom, UK. The conference organizers welcome conceptual and research-based papers focused on the “state of the art” of sustainable innovation and design. Papers should cover sustainability, innovation, product, service or technology design, circular economy, and development and commercialisation. Email, fax or post 500 word abstracts describing your proposed paper by 1st April 2015.
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Water Innovation – 3rd Call for Action Groups
The European Innovation Partnership on Water (EIP Water) aims to boost water innovation development in Europe and beyond; at its core are 25 Action Groups (AGs) which operate as voluntary multi-stakeholder groups and form the central element of EIP Water's implementation phase. The deadline of the call is 31 January 2015.
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Horizon 2020 call for Ideas - Pilot / demonstration projects on systemic eco-innovation for a circular economy
The European Commission is seeking ideas for the 2016-17 Horizon 2020 work programme. In particular they are seeking ideas for potential large-scale pilot/demonstration projects on a number of topics including circular economy.
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Events
Sustainable raw materials management in Europe – Fostering stakeholder dialogue to deliver on the future
23-24/03/2015, Brussels. Forms of future stakeholder engagement will need to provide some of the solutions to the EU's material management. Participants will exchange keynote presentations, panel and interactive roundtable discussions and workshop formats on the challenges, needs and solutions in relation to sustainable primary raw materials extraction, secondary raw material management, product and eco-design.
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European Sustainable Development Week
1-5/06/2015. The European Sustainable Development Week (ESDW) is a European-wide initiative supported by the European Sustainable Development Network to stimulate and make visible activities, projects and events that promote sustainable development.
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‘Realising the opportunities of a Circular Economy’: Resource Conference
3–5/03/2015, London. Resource is the first and only event to bring together every professional with a significant interest in developing the circular economy. Resource is a three day congress with an exhibition that brings together exponents of the circular economy. The show hosts the very best advice and thought leadership through two conferences, 24 workshops, networking and stand spaces for interaction with the companies who can help bring ideas to reality.
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4th European Water Conference
23-24/03/2015, Brussels. The main focus of the Conference will be the implementation of the Water Framework Directive and the Floods Directive. The timing of the Conference will coincide with the public consultations of the draft River Basin Management Plans and existing draft Flood Risk Management Plans.
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Public Hearing on Waste Directive
A public hearing in preparation for the legislative report on the Waste Directive will take place during the next environment committee on 22 January in the European Parliament.
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EU Sustainable Energy Week (EUSEW)
The dates are set for next year’s leading event on the promotion of a secure, clean and efficient energy for Europe. The EU Sustainable Energy Week will take place from 15 to 19 June 2015 in Brussels and across Europe. The European Commission invites participants to be part of EUSEW, organising an Energy Day, applying to the Sustainable Energy Europe Awards or attending one of the hundreds of events to take place during the entire month of June 2015.
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Other News
Breaking the resource curse
Conflict minerals are high on the political agenda in the EU. During the public hearing on the 4th of December, the legislative proposal on conflict minerals that is currently on the table was discussed. The proposal, based on a voluntary self-certification system for importers and ultimately aims to break the link between resource extraction and armed conflicts, is highly controversial: most industries are satisfied with the current (voluntary) proposal, whereas civil society organisations find the proposal unambitious and would rather like to see binding rules for importers.
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Finalists for Circular Economy Cities / Regions Awards 2015 Announced
The Circular Economy Awards, or The Circulars, is an annual event recognizing individuals and enterprises from commerce, civil society and academia that have made a notable contribution to driving circular economy principles.
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Waste Benchmarking in Finland - how much waste does my organisation produce?
The Petra Waste Management Benchmarking is a free service run by the Helsinki Region Environmental Services Authority. It provides support to business and public organisations by means of the Petra online tool, allowing them to track and compare their waste management performance. Comparison with other similar organisations lets them know whether they are producing more than average amounts of waste and allows them to find ways of reducing it.
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European Environmental Paper Network (EEPN) Launched
The European Environmental Paper Network (EEPN) focuses on raising awareness about environmental issues associated with paper. The Network addresses challenges such as unnecessary paper consumption and reliance on virgin fibre, and solutions including assured social responsibility, clean production and responsible fibre sourcing.
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Commissioner Vella hints at new circular economy direction
The replacement for the scrapped circular economy package may contain more non-legislative policies to help cut the administrative burden of implementing EU waste goals, environment commissioner Karmenu Vella suggested.
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EEA warns of poor waste prevention plans
A European Environment Agency review of member states’ waste prevention plans has indicated that there is “substantial room for improvement”, with most lacking effective measures.
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Thematic Paper "Regions in transition towards the circular economy”
This report has served as an input to feed the debate and provide background to the RIM Plus workshop “Advanced Manufacturing, Circular Economy and Practices across EU Regions” which took place in Brussels on 17 December 2014. It builds upon the analysis of RIM plus repository and regional innovation reports, in addition to other external reports and materials.
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Circular opportunities for the healthcare sector
In a circular future healthcare will be decentralized into smaller, specialized facilities. This comes with an increase in home care, driven by technological advancements in at-home treatment and communications technology.
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The foundations of a circular construction sector
The construction and demolition sector is one of the sectors that shapes our living environment by constructing the houses we live in, the offices we work in and our public spaces. In providing these services the sector consumes large amounts of materials and energy. A new report sketches a future vision in moving to the circular economy for the construction sector.
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New report from ACR+ available
ACR+ is pleased to announce the publication of its new report "The EU Capital Cities Waste Management Benchmark", measuring and rating the municipal waste management performances of 18 out of 28 EU capital cities. The report is available online, and is free of charges for all ACR+ members.
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European waste survey 2014
Within the framework of a European project on waste, several public authorities including the Brussels Environment Agency are interested in learning more about Europeans' opinions and behaviour towards waste prevention, recovery and recycling. To this end, they launched a call to take part in their survey.
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Regions for Recycling project (R4R) guidelines published
After three years of successful implementation, the R4R project has reached its objectives: defining a common methodology that allows true comparison between European cities and territories' waste performances, identifying and sharing selective collection and recycling good practices, and developing an efficient monitoring and benchmarking online tool that gathers all those instruments.
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