[09/04/2013] News
EU Commissioner Potočnik to greenreport.it: «Crisis of resources such as financial and economic crisis, it's a real risk»
«Efficiency and recycling for change»: In Italy the full implementation of EU legislation on waste could create more than 60 thousand jobs
In the European Years of the Citizens, the EU puts itself to the test with the Citizens' Dialogue event, an important occasion which focuses also on a sustainable use of resources. Do you think that the European citizens give priority to this issue?
Frankly, no I don't. And I think one of the main reasons for this is that it is simply not high enough on the agenda of either politicians or media. Our planet's population is expected to rise to more than 9 billion by the middle of this century. We will share our planet with 3 billion extra middle class consumers by 2030. This is great for those 3 billion whose living standards will rise, and for the businesses that will thrive in providing for those demands. But new demands will put immense strain on many resources. We will need three times more resources - 140 billion tons annually - by 2050. The demand for food, feed and fibre is projected to increase by 70%. Yet already today 60% of our ecosystems underpinning these resources are degraded. Without important efficiency gains, by 2030, we will need 40% more water than we can access.
For me, it's clear that unless we do something about it very soon we will be faced with a resource crisis that will be just as serious and touch just as many people's lives as our current financial and economic crises.
According to the International Labour Organization, in the next twenty years, the shift to a "greener" economy could result in a net employment growth of 60 million people worldwide. In terms of employment, what prospects does the Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Europe offer?
It's been estimated that every percentage point of improvement in resource productivity would save up to € 23 billion a year for European businesses, and create up to 150 000 jobs. We know that employment in environmental technologies and service sectors in the EU has been growing by around 3 % annually over recent years. The global market for eco-industries is estimated to be worth at least a trillion Euros, and is forecast to almost double over the next 10 years. For example, the European renewables sector alone is expected to generate more than 400 000 new jobs by 2020.
There's no doubt that resource efficiency can help us get out of the current crisis. Improved water management, waste management and recycling have strong potential to create new jobs, in sectors where European firms have a global competitive advantage.
In Italy the full implementation of EU waste legislation could create more than 60 000 jobs. For Italy, and for Europe, labour costs and labour productivity are only part of the challenge of getting on the track to growth - we have to use and re-use our resources efficiently.
The Manifesto for a Resource Efficient Europe shows the intention to focus on a economy that aims at «inspiring sustainable lifestyles among consumers, informing and encouraging them by means of the latest intuitions of behavioural economics». Do you think that the combination of the intuitions of both ecological and behavioural economics will play an important role in developing a sustainable model?
Absolutely. For decades our economies assumed that resources are plentiful, and that climate change and environmental degradation were not an economic concern. But this is simply not the case. We live in a resource-constrained world and we need to set up the right market conditions to make sure that resources are allocated where they bring the most productive use.
The reality is that global competition for green growth and green jobs is getting fiercer. Europe needs to do more to drive our innovation and leadership forward if we are to avoid being left behind.
And this means that we need to change. It means that industry will have find ways of increasing resource productivity. Policy-makers will have to provide the framework conditions to make this possible, ensuring the predictability and confidence for investments in the right areas of the economy. It doesn't necessarily mean that we have to consume less. But we must consume smart. Environment protection cannot be done by policy-makers and the business world only; citizens too need to make the right purchasing decisions and exercise their rights under EU environmental legislation. It's often a question of awareness.
Communicating these ideas is vital. Many of the arguments for green growth are still not fully recognised, even by some governments, so more work is needed to highlight the real economic benefits of becoming more resource-efficient at national, EU and international level.
According to the Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Europe, by the end of 2013 the Commission and the Member States should agree with the interested parties on indicators and targets oriented to an efficient use of resources: nevertheless, now in Italy there isn't any uniform and standardized separate collection counting system on a national scale, although it was envisaged in a decree issued in 1997. In your opinion, how is it possible to fill this gap?
I can't comment on the individual Italian case, but I can fill in the gaps on what the Roadmap says.
My services are in the process of consulting stakeholders on the feasibility and desirability of resource efficiency targets, and in fact the European Resource Efficiency Platform will issue a policy recommendation on a way forward on this quite soon, in June. That will of course include the stakeholder comments from the consultation we did on this last year. The Commission is also finalising a study that models resource efficiency milestones, and one of the tasks is to look at the milestones as quantified objectives. The results will be presented this year.
We will then have to see what kind of follow-up this calls for. Some target setting may be taken up in other policy work - we will have a major review of waste targets in 2014, for example, and recycling targets may well be revised. Another possibility is for the targets proposed by stakeholders to remain purely "aspirational", i.e. for providing direction rather than being enforceable at MS level. We'll need to look at the options in detail before taking any decisions.
The efficient use of resources is closely related to the development of real economy. In Germany, the SPD's election program aims at "prohibiting speculation on raw materials and energy." Considering that Europe also promotes the Fessud project, what is the European view on such a concrete policy proposal?
I don't really want to comment on specific proposals of political parties in one Member State or another. I would just repeat what I said in answer to your first question: unless we do something about it very soon we will be faced with a resource crisis that will be just as serious and touch just as many people's lives as our current financial and economic crises...