9 December 2015

Jean Lambert, Green MEP for London, calls for more ambition in the way London manages its food waste, recycles, reduces over-consumption and re-uses materials, as she chairs a conference on the Circular Economy today in Brussels.

Jean said “Governments and businesses need to wake up to the opportunities from doing things a different way, in London and further afield. There is huge potential for 1000s of new green jobs if we embrace modern efficiency models- and everyone wins. 

“Transforming all our European economies is urgent business and in future Greens want to see far more ambitious EU targets. We will continue to push for that in the European Parliament. I am determined that London must become cleaner, greener and have a workforce fit to face the future.”

The EU’s targets for waste, incineration and recycling help to drive changes in member states, by stimulating innovation and accelerating the drive for smarter design in major markets across the world. Recent estimates suggest that a circular economy, where the emphasis is on maximising resource efficiency and minimizing waste, could create between 2 and 3 million jobs across the EU under current legislation [1]

But those new jobs may now be under threat as a result of last week’s announcement by the European Commission that it will scrap the previous target to increase resource efficiency at EU level by 30 % by 2030 compared with 2014 levels.

[1] Waste & Resources Action Programme, 2015, Economic growth potential of more circular economies http://www.wrap.org.uk/content/economic-growth-potential-more-circular-Economies

[2] A comparison of the new Commission proposal with the original proposal of 2014 and the position voted by the EU Parliament in July 2015 can be found at:

http://www.greens-efa.eu/fileadmin/dam/Documents/Background_notes/2015-12-2_Circular_economy_01.pdf