Brussels, 01/04/2011 (Agence Europe) - In a speech delivered on Thursday 31 March before the Belgian Federal Council for sustainable development, European Environment Commissioner Janez Potoènik said a resource-efficient Europe is essential for sustainable growth and a priority on the Commission agenda. Presenting the broad lines of the communication of 26 January (see EUROPE 10302) which sets out how resource efficiency can define the quality of desired growth, the commissioner also gave a taster of what the resource efficiency roadmap would be like. The roadmap is due by summer 2011 and the Commission is already working on it.
The roadmap is to establish a long-term vision aimed at 2050, with bridges for attaining this goal. The 2020 objectives must be identified as stepping stones for achieving long-term objectives. Good indicators and possible objectives for assessing progress must be finalised, as “you can only manage what you can measure”. Also, there must be the guarantee that policies at the EU, member state and international levels converge and strengthen each other rather than undermine each other.
In more practical terms, the commissioner said, it will be a question of implementing existing legislation which, in the field of waste management and recycling alone will allow progress to be made toward greater efficiency, not to mention the benefits to be gained for the climate and job creation. He said they would also need to steer the market towards resource efficiency and correct pricing through a range of market-based instruments, as one can no longer shy away from addressing market-based instruments such as taxation, or looking into more varied ways of estimating growth. This, he said, includes the renewed effort on GDP and beyond exercise. Some instruments that have already proven their worth must be scaled up. For example, the commissioner said, they must develop eco-design, certification schemes, eco-labels and environmental management auditing schemes (EMAS). Furthermore, the aim of resource efficiency should be an integral part of all relevant sector-specific policies, not only of environment policy.
“This is a difficult case to make when so many are focused on financial markets and public debt. But the EUROPE 2020 process should give us an opportunity to increase that awareness and it is my hope the Parliament will also lend us a helping hand”, Janez Potoènik asserted. (A.N./transl.jl)