Environment: Circular economy, Italy still first but losing ground
9/4/2020
The data of the 2nd National Report on the circular economy in Italy by ENEA and the CEN-Circular Economy Network were presented today.
Bioeconomy increasingly important; greater efforts are needed to protect natural capital, particularly soil, and combat the climate crisis.
Every inhabitant of the Earth uses more than 11,000 kilos of materials per year. A third quickly turns into waste and ends up mostly in landfills; only another third is still in use after just 12 months. Consumption of materials is growing at twice the rate of the world population. The solution to get out of what is called the extractivist economy - responsible for a large part of the climate and environment crisis, starting with the invasion of disposables – is now known and is called circular economy: materials and objects that can be recycled and reused many times over.
In fact, Italy ranks first among the five main European economies in terms of circularity index implementation, the value attributed according to the degree of efficient use of resources in five categories: production, consumption, waste management, second raw materials market, investments and employment. On the podium, well distanced , also Germany and France, with 11 and 12 points less.
But we are losing ground- threatened by the rapid growth of France and Poland which increased their circularity rate of respectively 7 and 2 points- risking to lose a record that is also an asset for our economy.
This is what emerges from the "National Report on the circular economy in Italy" 2020, created by ENEA and the CEN-Circular Economy Network, the network promoted by the Foundation for sustainable development and by 14 companies and business associations. The Report was presented today in streaming by CEN President Edo Ronchi and by the director of the ENEA Sustainability Department of Production and Territorial Systems Roberto Morabito.
"In the circular economy, Italy started off on the right foot and is still among the countries with the highest economic value generated per unit of material consumption," Edo Ronchi, president of the Circular Economy Network pointed out. “In terms of work, we are second only to Germany, with 517,000 employed against 659,000. Percentagewise, the people employed in our 'circular' sectors in our country are 2.06% of the total, a value higher than the EU 28 average which is 1.7%.
But today we are seeing signs of a slowdown, also prior the coronavirus crisis, while other countries have started to run: in Italy, those employed in the circular economy between 2008 and 2017 decreased by 1%. It’s paradoxical that, just now that Europe has launched the package of measures for the development of the circular economy, our country is unable to increase these numbers. "
Italy actually makes the best use of the scarce resources destined for technological advancement and has a good efficiency index (for every kilo of resource consumed, 3.5 euro of GDP are generated, compared to a European average of 2.24). But it is penalized by the scarcity of investments - which translates into a lack of eco-innovation (we are last for patents) - and by critical issues on the regulatory front: the National Strategy and the Action Plan for the circular economy are still missing, two instruments which could help the country draw an exit path from the economic and social damage caused by the ongoing coronavirus epidemic.
"The Report we present today confirms that Italy is at the top of the major European economies in many sectors of the circular economy", Roberto Morabito, Director of the ENEA Sustainability Department of Production and Territorial Systems, pointed out. "However, the temporal trend of the indicators unfortunately shows a worsening for our country.
We are dangerously slowing down and if we continue with this trend we run the risk of being soon surpassed by other countries, which in the meantime are accelerating. A systemic intervention is needed with the construction of infrastructures and plants, with greater investments in innovation and, above all, with effective governance tools, such as the National Agency for the Circular Economy ".
AN ENCOURAGING SIGNAL FROM THE BIOECONOMY
The bioeconomy is growing in value and overall weight: according to the CEN Report, in fact, in Europe it had a turnover of 2,300 billion euro with 18 million employed in the year 2015. In Italy all the activities related to the bioeconomy recorded a turnover of over 312 billions of euro and around 1.9 million people employed (177 times the Ilva employees).
The sectors that contribute the most to the economic (63%) and employment (73%) value of the bioeconomy are the food, beverage and tobacco industries and that of primary production (agriculture, forestry and fishing). These are sectors of significant weight and activities that play a fundamental role in the relationship with natural capital: moving them towards sustainability is crucial.
Also because human intervention - the Report points out - in the last fifty years has significantly transformed 75% of the surface of the emerged lands. 33% of the world's soils are degraded; throughout Europe on average an area of 348 square kilometers (greater than the surface of Malta) is waterproofed and cemented each year.
The bioeconomy is therefore a fundamental element in safeguarding natural resources. But - the CEN Report warned - only on condition to be regenerative, i.e. based on renewable biological resources and used for defending the resilience of ecosystems and not compromising natural capital with withdrawals and methods of use that affect their stocks.
From this point of view, soil protection, the basic element of the bioeconomy, is essential. The soil contains over 2 trillion tons of organic carbon:after oceans, it is the second sink for the absorption of greenhouse gases. But the continuous degradation of soil and vegetation today represents an important net source of greenhouse gas emissions globally. According to the IPCC, on average in the decade 2007-2016, activities related to agriculture, forestry and other land uses were responsible for the net emission of about 12 billion tons of CO2 each year, about a quarter of global greenhouse gases.
Adding to these the ones generated by the the food industry and the transport of food, the estimated emissions for the food sector rise to 37% of the total. The defense of soil, forests and marine resources is an essential point in the development of a regenerative and therefore sustainable bioeconomy, explains the Circular Economy Network.
"As for the connection between the bioeconomy and the circular economy, to date there is no defined and shared framework", Morabito pointed out. "If for the circular economy monitoring it is still necessary to work on the identification of new performance indicators and on the development of harmonized data collection and processing tools, for the circular bioeconomy we must start from the identification of the sectors to be considered. All this must be done immediately, to measure the performance of the bioeconomy in terms of circularity and ensure a direct connection with the circular economy ", Morabito concluded.
"The transition to the circular economy and regenerative bioeconomy is increasingly urgent and crucial also for the mitigation of the climate crisis. Today there are important regulatory instruments at European level but they must be promoted. I am thinking of the investment plan presented to the European Commission on 14 January: a first step which is not yet sufficient, "Edo Ronchi, president of Cen, said.
“In order to make the Green Deal operational, at least three times the resources allocated are needed: it must reach 3,000 billion euros. To achieve this, a very demanding package of interventions is needed: a reform of the regulations at the basis of the Stability Pact to encourage public investment; a new strategy for sustainable finance so as to encourage the mobilization of private capital; a revision of the state aid rules. Finally, the revision of taxation and the reform of the institutional mechanisms of the European Union are indispensable, "he concludes.
Attachments:
UNABRIDGED REPORT
SYNOPSIS OF THE REPORT