LIFE

LIFE ENVIRONMENT |
LIFE and the circular economy
expert interview
Making the shift to a circular
economy: an MEP’s view
Finnish MEP Sirpa Pietkäinen fought hard for the Circular Economy Package adopted in
December 2015. In this interview, she discusses the importance of the EU’s transition to a
circular model and what should be done to achieve this.
Part of the European People’s Party group, Ms
Pietkäinen was a member of the European
Resource Efficiency Platform established by former
European Commissioner for Environment, Janez
Potočnik. The objective of the platform, which ran
from 2012 to 2014, was to provide high-level
guidance to the Commission, Member States and
private actors on the transition to a more resourceefficient
economy.
Ms Pietkäinen welcomes the Circular Economy
Package adopted by the Commission, in particular
its innovation and research aspects. Going forward,
she believes that even more can be done to support
the circular economy, for instance, the development
of indicators to measure impacts on ecosystem
services and resource use. “The information
already exists,” the MEP points out, “so it only remains
to decide how it will be used.” The compulsory
use of such indicators would ensure harmonised
reporting of this information and, therefore,
comparability. Ms Pietkäinen anticipates legislation
on ecological or resource accounting and indicators
will be needed at some point to achieve this.
Raising the ambition level further is also important,
the MEP believes, to make the shift to a circular
economy. Currently, humanity is consuming the resources
of 1.5 planets. “According to forecasts, in
30 years we will need the equivalent of four planets’
worth of resources to run the economy as it is.
This is not sustainable,” she says. Consequently, the
ambition should be to cut resource use now: “Figures
from the scientific community suggest that, to
be sustainable, we would need to use a tenth of the
resources we are now to produce the same wealth
and income growth without harming ecosystems. If
we do this, it will generate out-of-the-box thinking
which drives economic performance.”
Sirpa Pietkäinen
Better design
Ms Pietkäinen also believes the Ecodesign Directive
(2009/125/EC) should be amended to support
the circular economy by promoting the design of
products which can be upgraded, repaired, reused,
utilised for parts and then recycled: “We don’t only
want to increase recycling and lose quality materials.”
She expects this would have a major impact
on production, with manufacturers gradually
shifting to more circular production patterns. The
effect would likely be seen on manufacturers from
other regions as well, since they would not want to
lose access to the large European market, hence
the EU could drive up standards elsewhere.
The MEP says more can be done at Member State
level, encouraged by the EU, to help the transition
to a circular economy. For example, not all countries
have national circular economy strategies,
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