Members of the European Parliament’s Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) voted by a very large majority (66 votes in favour, 6 against and 7 abstentions) on Wednesday 27 January in favour of the EU’s Second Circular Economy Action Plan, while strengthening its scope for building a waste-free society and a sustainable, truly resource-efficient economy (see EUROPE 12644/6).
The own-initiative report by Jan Huitema (Renew Europe, Netherlands) as amended calls in particular for the setting of binding targets for the reduction of the use of primary raw materials and the consumption footprint for the entire life cycle of a product, and this for each product category placed on the EU market (see EUROPE 12644/6).
To this end, MEPs urge the Commission to introduce harmonised, comparable, and uniform circular economy indicators for materials and the consumption footprint by 2021.
They also request that the Commission propose binding product and/or sector-specific targets for recycled content while ensuring the performance and safety of the relevant products and confirming that they are designed to be recycled.
In the framework of the Sustainable Product Policy, they invite the Commission to present in 2021 an Ecodesign Directive extended to non-energy related products, setting horizontal sustainability principles and specific standards for the performance, durability, reusability, reparability, non-toxicity, upgradeability, recyclability, recycled content and resource efficiency of products.
“Europe is not a continent rich in resources, but we have the skills, know-how and capacity to innovate and develop the technologies needed to fill the gaps and build a waste-free society”, said Jan Huitema.
The European Parliament’s vote is scheduled for the February plenary session. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)