"An efficient Europe resources" is one of the seven flagship initiatives as part of the Europe 2020 strategy that aims to create a smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. Currently the main strategy for Europe to generate growth and employment, with the support of the European Parliament and the European Council.
This flagship initiative aims to create a political framework to support the change to an efficient economy in the use of resources and low carbon to help us:
- Improve economic performance while using resources is reduced;
- Identify and create new opportunities for economic growth and promote innovation and competitiveness of the EU;
- Ensure security of supply of essential resources;
- Combating climate change and limit the environmental impacts of resource use.
This flagship initiative provides a framework for long-term measures and consistently, other medium term among which is already identified a strategy to turn the EU into a "circular economy" based on a recycling society to reduce the production of waste and use them as resources.
circular economy is an economic concept that is included in the framework of sustainable development and whose objective is the production of goods and services while reducing consumption and waste of raw materials, water and energy sources. It is implementing a new economy-not move linearly, based on the principle of "closing the life cycle" of products, services, waste, materials, water and energy.
Aspects of Circular Economy
Circular Economy is the intersection of the environmental and economic aspects.
The linear system of our economy (mining, manufacturing, use and disposal) has reached its limits. We begin to glimpse, in effect, depletion of a number of natural resources and fossil fuels. Therefore, the circular economy proposes a new model of society that uses and optimizes the stocks and flows of materials, energy and waste and their goal is the efficient use of resources.
circular economy is creating jobs. The field of waste management in Spain represents thousands of jobs.
In a context of scarcity and fluctuating costs of raw materials, circular economy contributes to security of supply and the reindustrialization of the country.
A waste of resources to become other. The product must be designed to be deconstructed. circular economy manages to turn our waste into raw materials, paradigm of a future system. Finally, this system is a generator of local employment and not relocatable system.
Operation of Circular Economy
The circular economy rests on several principles:
- The eco-conception: consider the environmental impacts throughout the life cycle of a product and integrates since its inception.
- Industrial and territorial ecology: establishment of a mode of industrial organization in the same territory characterized by optimized management of stocks and flows of materials, energy and services.
- The economy of the "functionality": privilege the use against the possession, sale of a service against a well.
- The second use: reintroducing into the economic circuit products that no longer correspond to the initial needs of consumers.
- Reuse: reuse certain waste or parts thereof, that can still work for the development of new products.
- Repair: find a second life to products damaged.
- Recycling: building materials found in the waste.
- Valuing: harnessing energy waste can not be recycled.
Actors Circular Economy
Circular economy targets both public actors in charge of sustainable development and territory, and businesses seeking economic, social and environmental results, and society must question themselves about their real needs.
Benefits of Circular Economy
The development of circular economy should help reduce the use of resources, reduce waste production and to limit energy consumption. You should also participate in productive reorientation of countries. Indeed, in addition to the environmental benefits, this emerging activity is to create wealth and employment (including those in the field of social economy) throughout the territory and its development should be allowed to gain a competitive advantage in the context of globalization.
Recently, the European Commissioner for Environment, Janez Potocnik, during the 3rd International Forum on Economy - Resource Efficiency, noted that "it is necessary to transform Europe into a resource efficient economy, if only efficiency is not sufficient. Also make sure that once we have used our products, our food and our properties, we selected these materials and use them again and again. Each year in Europe, an average of 16 tons of materials per person to move our economy are used. And then, around 6 tonnes per person becomes waste. Moreover, almost half of the waste ends up in landfills.
The integral part of the EU approach to resource efficiency should distance itself from the linear economy, where the earth materials are extracted to manufacture the products, use them and then eliminarlos- towards a circular economy, where waste and products, the end of life of the products used, come back into the production cycle as secondary raw materials. In short, the use of waste as the main source of reliable raw material is essential for the European Union.
There is a strong economic and corporate motivation in favor of circular economy and resource efficiency. In fact, the European Commission, as a body, has adopted resource efficiency as a central pillar of its structural economic strategy Europe 2020 '.
The relationship of good waste management to the circular economy will be a central theme of the Commission in 2014. Because the waste is only one stage in the life cycle of products, the Commission will include proposals on waste in a much wider package on resource efficiency and circular economy.
Source: http://economiacircular.org
