Six Steps to a Circular Economy
1 The European "Green Deal" as a Joint Design Task In 2019, the European Commission announced the European Green Deal, a policy agenda that is expected to bring about profound economic and societal change. Thus, the overarching goal has been set for the European Union (EU) to achieve zero net greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and for Europe to become the first climate-neutral continent. At the same time, the EU is to be a dynamic and globally competitive economic area, in which growth is decoupled from resource use. The transition to a circular economy takes on a central role in this. In March 2020, the Commission presented the second European action plan for the circular economy ("New Circular Economy Action Plan (nCEAP)"), in which over 40 legislative proposals, measures and initiatives are announced for the next three years. The Commission's goal is nothing less than a comprehensive transformation of European industry into a climate-neutral and resource-conserving circular economy. Extensive new regulations on the design of products, the sequence of production processes and the structuring of valueadded cycles are to be expected. This applies, for example, to the announced legal framework for a sustainable product policy, the creation of a "right to repair" for products and the revision of central legal acts such as the EU Battery Regulation, the EU Packaging Directive, the EU End-of-Life Vehicles Directive and the EU Waste Shipment Regulation. It becomes clear that the coming years will be crucial to mobilise the legal framework and the necessary investments for the circular economy in the EU. The activities at EU level with regard to the creation of a so-called taxonomy for the classification of "green" investments, including the categorisation of certain economic activities as "sustainable" in the sense of the taxonomy, are just one of many signs therefore. The German industry is committed to the climate protection goals of the Paris Agreement and to promote a raw material-conserving circular economy in the framework of the "Green Deal". This will entail considerable changes in our economic structure. Massive effects on production processes, products and business models of companies and thus on the entire industrial value creation are to be expected. The manufacturing industry plays a much greater role in Germany than in many other EU member states. This basis for prosperity and employment must be preserved in order to be able to master the challenges of the future. Claim: Germany has a key responsibility for ensuring that the Green Deal unfolds the opportunity to move towards a sustainable economic model, while tackling the Deal’s challenges. It is therefore of great necessity that the German government accompanies in a prioritised way the implementation of the Green Deal. At the European level the German government should call for a regulatory framework that supports companies on their way to a climate-neutral circular economy. This requires a fundamental reorientation of raw materials policy with additional instruments for closing material and product cycles, planning and investment security for companies, a coherent, innovation-friendly and secure legal framework, and initiatives to ensure competitiveness. In addition, industry must face a setting which enables the calculation of competitive energy and raw material prices. This urgently requires a funding policy that supports the transformation towards the circular economy and also takes into account the interests of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
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