The European Parliament adopted by 479 votes to 66, with 63 abstentions, a resolution on a resource-efficient Europe in response to a Commission communication on the same subject.
The current economic, financial and environmental crisis shows that Europe urgently needs new sources of sustainable economic growth. The Eurobarometer of March 2011 shows that resource efficiency and sustainable production and consumption are key concerns of EU citizens.
1. Priority actions: Parliament calls on Commission and the Council to:
2. Agenda for future growth: Parliament endorses the Flagship Initiative on a Resource Efficient Europe and the Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Europe and its 2050 vision. It calls on the Commission to put forward swiftly all legislative and other initiatives that are necessary to achieve the milestones and to ensure that all EU policies are coherently aligned to them and to the overall EU vision for creating a low-carbon economy by 2050, by, inter alia, cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 80-95% compared to 1990 levels.
The resolution recalls that decoupling economic growth from resource consumption is essential for improving Europe’s competitiveness and reducing its resource dependency. It calls on the Commission to propose, by the end of 2012, a new Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP) policy framework, establishing a process for identifying the priority products or services which contribute the most to the key global consumption areas (water, land, materials and carbon).
Members also underline the urgent need to act now in order to support innovation and investment in new techniques and business models, including sectoral industrial strategies and sustainable business models such as a leasing society, and to create the incentives that will bring benefits for the economy.
3. Transforming the economy: Parliament recalls that a reduction in resource use is urgently needed in order to avoid upcoming problems such as resource scarcity and rising resource prices. It considers that for the transition to a resource-efficient economy to be realised, market prices need to fully reflect the degree of resource scarcity, as well as all costs entailed in the production process. Members urge the Commission to research the development of a hierarchy model with a view to ensuring the highest added value of resource use without compromising the environment.
The Commission and the Member States are invited to:
develop incentives that encourage companies and public bodies to measure, benchmark and continuously improve their water, land, material and carbon footprints,
Parliament calls on the Member States to make a shift towards environmental taxation, emphasising that this should allow for cuts in other taxes such as those on labour, increase competitiveness and create a level playing field, and pave the way for technological development. It calls on the Commission and the Member States to monitor and compare the effects of this instrument.
The resolution stresses the need to:
Members call on the Member States to ensure full implementation of the EU waste acquis, including minimum targets, through their national waste prevention and management strategies and plans. They reiterate that the existing targets regarding collection and separation need to be further elaborated and set for the highest and qualitatively best recovery of materials in each phase. The Commission is called upon to make proposals by 2014 with a view to gradually introducing a general ban on waste landfill at European level and for the phasing-out, by the end of this decade, of incineration of recyclable and compostable waste. They consider that a landfill tax – as has already been introduced by some Member States – could also help achieve the above ends.
Members also call on the Commission and the Member States to take more effective action to combat illegal shipments of waste, especially hazardous waste, to non-EU countries. In this context, they call for a ‘European external waste policy’ be established with a view to spreading the best European waste treatment standards beyond the confines of the EU.
The resolution highlights the importance of research, development and innovation for speeding up the transformation to a resource-efficient Europe. It invites the Commission to investigate how resource efficiency in the EU’s mining and processing industry can be boosted in order to increase competitiveness and sustainability, and urges Member States to consider the establishment of centres for innovation technologies to support the extraction, recycling and reuse of useful components from mining waste products and facilitate the subsequent use of mining waste products.
It urges the Commission to examine the effects of a tax on resources and virgin raw materials, and in particular any side-effects, such as non-sustainable substitution, tax avoidance or shifting economic activities to third countries.
4. Natural capital and ecosystem services: Parliament emphasises that biodiversity is essential to the existence of human life and the wellbeing of societies. It stresses the importance of water as a natural resource that is vital for both humankind and ecosystems.
Members take the view that Europe’s resources should be managed in a more strategic and environmentally sound manner. They believe that a greater effort should be made to manage existing resources in the EU, in particular minerals, metals and timber, as well as energy resources including fossil fuels. The resolution highlights the importance of sustainable agriculture, leading to diminishing imported land use and a reduction in Europe’s carbon footprint.
Parliament stresses the need to boost forestry protection in the EU and consolidate the associated risk prevention methods. It calls on the Commission, together with the timber industry, to examine the scope for specific measures aimed at the sustainable exploitation of forestry resources, in particular via pilot projects. It urges the Commission also to calculate and disclose the costs of the environmental damage arising as a consequence of the EU’s agriculture and fisheries policies.
5. Governance and monitoring: Parliament reiterates the importance of a set of coherent, measurable, clear and verifiable sectoral targets, including an overall target, in order to implement the vision and milestones of the Roadmap. Recognising the need for a solid scientific basis, the Commission is called upon to put forward on that basis a concrete proposal for such targets for the EU and the Member States, at the latest within a year of adoption of the relevant indicators, and to ensure that all EU policies are consistent with the targets set.
Members consider that the milestones included in the Roadmap should be considered as targets until more detailed ones are set. They call on the Member States to include corresponding targets in their own resource efficiency strategies.
6. International dimension: Parliament considers the efficient and sustainable use and allocation of resources to be a key element of EU industrial policy which should also inform the Union’s external relations now and in the future. It takes the view that a fair, open and non-discriminatory multilateral trading system and the protection of the environment should be mutually reinforcing.
The resolution reasserts that all current bilateral and regional European trade agreements need to include an ambitious chapter on sustainability. It asks the Commission to incorporate issues related to raw materials to a greater extent in current and future negotiations carried out by the EU on a bilateral or multilateral basis.
Members consider that the inclusion of tariff preferences for environmental products and services produced in a socially responsible way in the Generalised System of Preferences could generate added value in the area of the EU’s trade with developing countries.
Lastly, the resolution points out that the upcoming Rio +20 Earth Summit could be an important forum for discussing the issues of resource efficiency and sustainable development. Parliament urges the EU and its Member States to play a decisive and positive role at this conference in order to meet the challenges of establishing an inclusive and green economy on a global scale.