Documentation Country webinar 17.6.2020

Editorial note:

Note: Text below represent a summary of key points made – not a verbatim record of all arguments.

Timestamp refers to recording. Questions are generally listed in the sequence they were entered in the chat. Written comments to questions, etc. are listed

together with the original question. Substantial comments included, while editorial comments omitted.

Summary: With a point of departure in a first draft of the Bellagio declaration, three countries were invited to present national initiatives around CE monitoring. This was be followed by a discussion on roles of national reporting, gaps in monitoring, relevant monitoring principles and possible strategies to fill some of the gaps. Finland

In order to analyze the level of circularity of an economy, more data on secondary material use and internal material cycles is needed;

Social impacts are very important, but also very complicated to identify and measure;

Regional data is needed in regional decision-making and regional level data production is therefore very important;

Important to understand current market drive for overusing natural resources and nature. Therefore, binding legislation and target setting is needed for quantitative limits for the use of natural resources;

Quantitative minimum requirements on recycled material use in products;

Tax on natural resources use. Netherlands

It is not possible to steer CE transition with one target, but a single indicator is useful for communication and a ‘dot on the horizon’;

It is better to use a set of targets to steer towards a circular economy. Look at input, use and output of materials and their effects. Differentiated sets of targets for different product groups;

Monitoring framework CE should cover: o Effects and the transition process to get there o Effect monitoring for environmental and socio-economic effects o Footprint indicators as extension to domestic/EU effects o Monitoring transition process: what’s happening outside? o Circularity strategies and actions by companies and policy

Slovakia

Transdisciplinary and cross-sectoral approach to ensure balance between all areas of CE: production and consumption, waste management, secondary raw materials, competitiveness and innovation;

Integration of CE principles into a wide range of policies - they need to be linked to sectoral policy evaluations into one comprehensive system;

The set of CE indicators adopted by the EC is a good starting point, but not sufficient for CE assessment at national levels. It is necessary to develop national sets, use and share relevant indicators from other sectors; evaluation not only at the country level but also at the local level

The set of CE indicators should be composed of output indicators – (assessing the state of CE) and additional indicators serving for more detailed assessment of the situation and identifying necessary next steps

It is also necessary to think about appropriate forms and tools for presenting results to the public

In summary

Definitions: We need definitions. What is a circular job? What is circular economy. ISO is working on this and common definitions will have to form the basis for monitoring. We cannot monitor if we cannot define it.

Targets: Targets are seen as important by a range of speakers. Which level of disaggregation is needed for policy makers?

Webinar 2 – Monitoring Experience (Countries) The ‘how to monitor’ question

Aim: With a point of departure in a first draft of the Bellagio declaration, a select number of countries are invited to present national initiatives around CE monitoring. This will be followed by a discussion on roles of national reporting, gaps in monitoring, relevant monitoring principles and possible strategies to fill some of the gaps.

Wednesday 17 June 2020 – 10:00 – 13:00 (CEST)

Time Agenda item

09.55 – 10.00 Connection to WebEx open for participants

10.00 – 10.20

Welcome and overview of the agenda Peder Jensen, Expert on resource efficiency in a circular economy (EEA)

Overview of the Bellagio Process and introduction to the draft Bellagio Declaration Luca Demicheli, Head of International Affairs and Institutional Relations (ISPRA)

10.20 – 10.35

Vision for, and experience in circular economy monitoring in Finland Tuuli Myllymaa, Head of Unit for Waste and Circular Economy, Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE)

10.35 – 10.50

Discussion

10.50 – 11.05

National monitoring for a European framework and the role of targets seen from the Netherlands Aldert Hanemaaijer, Coordinator Program Circular Ecocomy, Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL)

11.05 – 11.20

Discussion

11.20 – 11.25

5-minute comfort break

11.25 – 11.40

Monitoring principles suited for all countries as seen from Slovakia Barbora Bondorová, Director of the Department of Environmental Policy, Ministry of Environment of the Slovak Republic

11.40 – 11.55

Discussion

11.55 – 12.55

Moderated discussion around the role of countries when it comes to monitoring of circular economy Co-moderated by EEA/ISPRA

Planned Interventions: ISO TC 323 WG3 on measuring circularity, Roberto Morabito, Director of Dept. of Sustainability of ENEA Circular Economy in Manufacturing, Massimiliano Mazzanti, Prof. of Economic Policy, University of Ferrera Circular Economy Initiative Deutchland, Susanne Kadner, Director, CEID, German Academy of Science and

Engineering

The first part of the discussion will be between the speakers and a number of invited discussants. This will be followed by a part where all participants are invited to contribute.

12.55 – 13.00

Wrap up Peder Jensen, Expert on resource efficiency in a circular economy (EEA)

Welcome and overview of the agenda Peder Jensen, Expert on resource efficiency in a circular economy (EEA) Time stamp: 00:00:44 – 00:05:50 (meeting started at 10:00:00)

Welcome

Original plan was for a 3-day physical meeting. We have migrated to web meetings due to COVID-19.

First this scene setting webinar

Then technical seminars with different stakeholder groups

Followed by a drafting of a declaration

To be discussed at a physical meeting in Bellagio in October.

Introducing the agenda

Please ask question in the chat and we will try to cover as many as possible

Overview of the Bellagio Process and introduction to the draft Bellagio Declaration Luca Demicheli, Head of International Affairs and Institutional Relations (ISPRA) Time stamp: 00:05:50 – 00:18:35

Thanks to those following the process and in particular to those that were with us in the first webinar. I will briefly cover our process that under the new structure caused by Covid-19 is now a much more rewarding structure and a real process. We do not know if there will be e physical meeting in Bellagio in October or we need to stick with a virtual event. A decision will be taken in the coming weeks. 25 years ago, a group of experts developed the Bellagio principles on assessment of progress towards sustainable development. Today the challenge is to monitor the process towards circular economy. In Bellagio we will have both a technical part and a political part with 5 environment ministers. These are the ones that will shape environmental policy in EU in the coming semesters, together with he Commission, European parliament and top level experts.

The process of establishing a declaration must be inclusive – therefore the transparency of what we do here. It must establish where there are gaps. Presently there are so many activities at many levels and not always going in the same direction. So harmonization is important. It must be driven by user needs and in particular the seminar on 18 June will include a lot of private sector actors.

Declaration is work in progress. The draft is now being shared and we appreciate input from all experts. Key aspects are:

Monitor progress, but also adaptable as principles need to respect the subsidiarity principle. There are huge differences so that is a key concern.

Identify and fill gaps. As an example Estat pointed to the lack of information of green public procurement in our first webinar.

Verify that innovation is not hampered. As EPAs we work every day with industry. CE should promote investment in innovation and not just be a burden.

We need your suggestions and recommendations on this process to ensure it goes in the right direction

Vision for, and experience in circular economy monitoring in Finland Tuuli Myllymaa, Head of Unit for Waste and Circular Economy, Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE) Time stamp: 00:18:35 – 00:50:35

We all share the vision of having a more sustainable world in the future

We must find the right balance between wellbeing, economy and use of natural resources including environmental impacts. We aim to decouple the use of natural resources from the economic growth.

Projections show that material consumption will grow radically in the future and that half of greenhouse gas emissions come from material management. But this is a win-win because solutions to material over consumption contribute to solve the climate and biodiversity issues.

These data from Finland shows that DMC, economy and waste generation are correlated. Only with respect to greenhouse gas emissions have we made some progress, but still not enough.

This figure illustrates the growth in services having less of a material footprint. However, still not a big leap.

A key area of activity in SYKE is to work with regional data. This is key to local decision making.

We need to measure the input into the economy as well as the materials leaving the economy. But we also need to look at the processes within the economy.

This happens in a large scale collaboration between authorities. The green circle illustrate an environmental ceiling where we need to stay below.

Social impacts are important for true sustainability

Social indicators have been a rather difficult issue to deal with. Which are actually related to circular economy? We look at education, employment (salaries), but also sense of equality and influence.

Understanding the material cycle is important Social impacts are difficult Regional decisions require regional data

Targets needed for material consumption including recycled material share and possibly supported by a material tax.

Q and A

Questions raised in the discussion

Peder Jensen: Please expand a bit on your work on social indicators. How do you define a good circular job? Reply: We see the social dimension as an integrated element in sustainability. People only accept choices if there is something good for them in it. They accept things out of a sense of fairness. The quality of job is mostly defined via looking at the salary potential in these jobs.

Michiel Zijp (RIVM): How do you perform the biodiversity depletion analysis and link it to the CE transition? John Gossage (NRW): Do we need a net zero target for biodiversity i.e. target an extinction rate equal to the rate of newly evolved species? Reply: The link is coming from natural resource use. When we extract resources, we take it from nature and reduce wild nature.

Karl Vrancken (VITO): Do you have an idea on the possible speed of change in DMC. It is still rising at the moment. Do you think it can reduce with several % over e.g. 10 years?

Reply: Development is not as fast as we would hope, but that is partly linked to the industrial structure of Finland. But we are working with voluntary measures and hope this will help.

John Gossage: Is DMC adequate since it ignores ghost acres beyond the territory? i.e. it ignores the net embedded ghg emissions and raw materials in net imports (sorry I am from the UK so I think in terms of net imports? Reply: We actually prefer to use RMC rather than DMC as it better captures all impacts.

Theo Geerken VITO : how do you assess the feasability of getting the regional data on a regular basis ? Reply: In reality you need to mandate if to get it to work. Comment from Michiel Zijp (RIVM): Totally agree with the importance of regional data and that regions need CE monitoring as well. I wonder if regions need the same type of indicators and thus data as national/international CE monitoring

Jean-louis Bergey: Do you think to monitor reuse ou remanufacturing for exemple ? Reply: Under the new waste regulation we are starting to look at how to do this. We look at flee markets, internet based companies and regular companies. We have great hope in robotic calls to stakeholders in this category as a way of collecting data. Comment from Bjørn Bauer: Very new report on Measuring reuse - Oeko and PlanMiljø did the investigations . https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/9878e12a-1bc4-11ea-8c1f-01aa75ed71a1

Barbara Bacigalupi, EC ENV: I agree education is an important enabler to the CE transition. How do you monitor this at national level? Reply: We are looking at the content of courses in education to see how much it covers the concepts of CE.

Marlene Kick: How do you measure/ include social impacts of material extraction outside your country? Social indicators exist to measure impacts within the country, but social indicators to measure effects where material extraction happens are still lacking in literature and existing national frameworks Reply: Our only hope is the RMC input-output modelling that may include some of this.

Peder Jensen: You recommend resource tax while also stating your are a mining country. How is the industry reaction to this suggestion? Reply: We look for EU wide initiatives to ensure a level playing field on this.

Further comments and questions from the chat: Petrus Kautto: Comment on social impacts and indicators: We have studied how CE social impacts have been discussed and assessed in different policy documents. To sum up, there are lot of promises but the current information on the changes and their impact is very limited. Results of our study will be available in Pitkänen, Kati; Karppinen, Tiina; Kautto, Petrus; Turunen, Sara; Judl, Jachym and Myllymaa, Tuuli: Sex, drugs and circular economy. What are the social impacts of CE and how to measure them? Accepted for publication in Handbook of the Circular Economy edited by Brandão, M., Lazarevic, D., Finnveden, G, forthcoming 2020, Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd. Serenella Sala: For social impact of supply chains there are approaches that are using the life cycle thiking, life the social life cycle assessment https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/publication/social-life-cycle-assessment-state-art-and-challenges-supporting-product-policies and there also studies specificalluy on e.g. raw materials that we import,e g,. https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/publication/mapping-role-raw-materials-sustainable-development-goals jean-louis Bergey: For raw material, do you follow DMC or RMC or the both ? theo geerken: Theo Geerken VITO : the transition to a low-carbon economy requires quite some material resources : what is your view on the need to have an assessment for a combined climate and CE transition ?

National monitoring for a European framework and the role of targets seen from the Netherlands Aldert Hanemaaijer, Coordinator Program Circular Economy, Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) Time stamp: 00:50:35 – 01:23:30

Good morning I will talk about our process towards targets for circular economy.

CE policy in NL is a government program working with many other ministries. Broad based activities in several domains.

Target to be fully circular in 2050, but not clear what it means. 50% abiotic material in 2030. Working out the details. Looking both at production in NL but also at consumption footprint.

One target is fine for communication but not for steering the economy. Different product groups need different targets.

Our general framework. Used in an international meeting in January. We look at all inputs, but eventually they come out. In the end it is really about impacts. Our monitoring must take these effects into account. Should also cover the social impacts.

If you start with what you have you end up with the indicators you already have. Start with what you need to know.

If you want to understand the transition you also need to look at the processes in society. Investments, results, etc.

Keep track of both processes and impacts. Can provide early warnings of changes.

Rather little data on regional level, product level and processes. Anything that is not waste data not well covered.

We need targets to shape the transition.

Thank you

Q and A

Questions raised in the discussion

Peder Jensen: How many headline indicators do we need. Today we use GDP to steer the economy.

Reply: One for communication, but to steer the economy you need more. Looking at inputs is not enough. Jean-Pierre Schweitzer (EEB): Thanks Aldert, I like the perspective of “what do we want to achieve with the CE”. Even if a single issue (in this case weight-based target) has a number of limitations, has having this target in the Netherlands raise the political and public profile of resource consumption (e.g. relative to climate change)? Has this increased the urgency for action? What about the JRC consumption footprint indicator has PBL looked into this (as it focuses on impacts)? thanks Reply: The government wide agreement brings its own dynamics. But also working with the entire community. Industry was not in agreement with targets. Understanding the role of stocks (materials in use) versus the need for additional materials was a difficult point to agree on. Industry made the point that longer lifetime may require ‘overspecification’ of products and thus increase material consumption in the short term. PBL also looked at footprint indicators. Barbara Bacigalupi, EC ENV: Is the forthcoming report on Transition dynamics looking also at material flows in industrial symbiosis? Reply: Progress of the transition towards CE. This includes the flow of resources through the Dutch society. This in light of the targets mentioned earlier. Marlene Kick: Why did you decide not to explicitly include the 3 dimensions of sustainability but environmental impacts and socio-economic impacts instead? Where would you include the "competitiveness and innovation" indicators from the CE monitoring framework, e.g. Patents helping CE?

Reply: We want to go to the core. CE is about the resources. It is only about a part of sustainability. But not sure we need targets for social aspects as these are impacts, but not core. How broad do we want to take the circular economy?

Peder Jensen: How do you define a circular job. Reply: Look at the environmental goods and services sector. But repair is a grey area. Also innovative companies can be difficult to classify.

Serenella Sala: How is PBL addressing the evolution of consumption patterns? Reply: We are at an early stage. In the future we will look at public perception of repaired products.

Further comments and questions from the chat: Serenella Sala: Just a clarification, the consumption footprint is not just presenting the environmental impacts (in 16 impact categories) but it is addressing the evolution of consumption intensities and this is fundamental to monitor environmental impact over time and to avoid that the increase in consumption are offsetting benefits of reaching certain CE targets

Monitoring principles suited for all countries as seen from Slovakia Barbora Bondorová, Director of the Department of Environmental Policy, Ministry of Environment of the Slovak Republic Time stamp: 01:24:40 – 01:56:30

Happy to join. We consider ourselves a country with potential, but not a front runner.

Overview of what I aim to cover.

CE is a priority for Slovakia. We are a growing manufacturing economy with growing material consumption. Recycling rates are low and pose a challenge.

We have embarked on 4 pillars of transition to green economy.

A key policy document is our 2030 strategy

Further details on the transition policy is available. To coordinate and raise awareness is one of the key levers.

Preparing a roadmap for CE in Slovakia.

Monitoring based on EC monitoring system

But we also look at indicators from other sets in order to get a better overview. Hyperlinks in slides (on meeting site)

CE action plan has earlier had a focus on waste, but it needs to go wider. Integration into all areas is needed.

The existing set of indicators need to be broadened. Local and regional indicators also important.

CE needs to be formally defined. Communication is essential.

Thank you

Q and A

Questions raised in the discussion

Peder Jensen: In the 90s we discussed integration of environmental considerations into sectoral policies. You also talk about policy integration. Is it building on the success of the 90s? Reply: In a sense yes. But we mainly look at industrial policy.

Theo Geerken: "indicators should follow targets": CE targets (except for waste related and resource productivity) are not so easy to define ... so we may better not wait for CE targets .... to develop indicators. What do you think about this chicken-egg problem targets first or indicators first. Reply: We start from what we have a try to learn going forward

Serenella Sala: regarding the link between CE and climate change based/inspired by OECD guidelines, could you elaborate a bit more on what is measured or assessed? Reply: The methodology follows OECD but work is only starting up.

Further comments and questions from the chat: Aldert Hanemaaijer: My opinion: start with existing indicators and build on that, but form a broader perspective: what do we want to konw? Stefania Minestrini: do you already use identified principles to integrate CE in your policies?

Moderated discussion around the role of countries when it comes to monitoring of circular economy Co-moderated by EEA/ISPRA

Planned Intervention: ISO TC 323 WG3 on measuring circularity, Roberto Morabito, Director of Dept. of Sustainability of ENEA Time stamp: 01:56:30 – 02:05:50

All seems to agree on the need for a transition. The transition must be monitored. So we need a harmonized monitoring scheme. Lots of work is going on.

Several initiatives going on.

This initiative is a national initiative. It is about different levels of monitoring Macro, meso and micro level. Exploiting existing indicators and developing new ones including new data sets.

Stakeholders have done a lot to support the process. Many indicators were useful at the different levels

They looked at the different indicators and how they could describe different parts of the value chain. Most indicators only work at input and output level.

ISO is meeting these days and discussing a set of indicators based on the underlying work. There will be work in ISO the next 3 years. Hopefully a standard on CE at different levels.

Planned Intervention: Circular Economy in Manufacturing, Massimiliano Mazzanti, Prof. of Economic Policy, University of Ferrera Time stamp: 02:05:50 – 02:12:33

Hello

Our concept is to look at the circular economy

And use the eco-innovation scorebaord

This is the inspiration for our work

We are doing a major survey on eco-innovation.

This is really a first view of data, but the general public will see this in the summer. We can disaggregate on regions and company sizes

We will be covering 4000 firms, so this is just a sample.

We also cover patents. Interesting to look at, but still a side issue.

Thanks

Planned Intervention: Circular Economy Initiative Deutchland, Susanne Kadner, Director, CEID, German Academy of Science and Engineering

Time stamp: 02:12:33 – 02:18:40

These are our partners

Initiative was set up two years ago supported by both government and civil society. We work at traction batteries for cars and packaging. How can we establish these value networks to manage products in a circular manner? Barriers? Etc. Wrong legislation or technological barriers? Circular business models: Barriers to implementation. To establish a CE roadmap for the government. Which indicators do we use if they are not yet available? Looking at impacts and recovery. Substitution on the specific value chains. Mostly a resource efficiency perspective. Product service life, etc. Small project to set up a macro level set of indicators to monitor CE.

Thanks

Q and A

Time stamp: 02:18:40 – 02:45:20

Questions raised in the discussion

Barbara Bacigalupi, EC ENV: To Roberto Morabito: Can you tell more about the WG on indicators for monitoring industrial symbiosis? it would be good to build on IT experience and in the future possibly to scale up indicators for the EU monitoring framework. The role of ISO Reply: Harmonization is a key issue. Development of targets and indicators must be connected. The ISO structure could facilitate this. But meetings is on-going so difficult to predict outcomes. Barbara Bacigalupi, EC ENV: Thanks, I am happy to receive the report from the WG.

Role of industry: Massimiliano Mazzanti: We have only looked at manufacturing. We are missing services. We hope to be able to do timeseries

Peder Jensen: How will Germany bring CE monitoring into the German presidency. Can Susanne Kadner (not representing the government) shed any light on this? Reply: There are initiatives as part of conferences in the presidency. Progress need to measurable. We will discuss it in conferences, but no further information is available.

Karl Vrancken (VITO): The meso level (i.e. societal functions) needs indicators, in Flanders (belgium) work is being done on transport. Are there examples in other countries? https://ce-center.vlaanderen-circulair.be/en/publications/publication/10-circular-economy-indicators-for-person-mobility-and-transport John Gossage: In a sense Wales is a meso level within the UK. Susanne Kadner: In that respect it may be useful to adjust the "meso" level to the city level for making this easier to communicate to citizens Aldert Hanemaaijer: meso level is crucial to communicate CE to citizens and bring it back to product groups with high material use and effects Massimiliano Mazzanti: yes, circular cities are crucial. Socio economic systems develop through chocks. We should avoid CE creating increased inequalities. Karl Vrancken (VITO): Thanks for the responses, a clearer identification of how we see the meso level (in Dutch bu understandable): https://twitter.com/CirculFlanders/status/1269932092764368896/photo/1

Luca Demicheli: How do we transform all of the discussion today to useful information for policy makers? A declaration needs to be endorsed by policymakers, not just practitioners.

Further comments and questions from the chat: Massimillano Mazzanti: we should invest on input output tables and CE. An Vercalsteren (VITO): Quite some studies have been done that assess the usefulness of input-output tables for some CE related indicators. E.g. work of VITO for Flanders and for Europe as well (as part of the ETC-WMGE). I can send links if relevant. Serenella Sala: I think what we need is a combination of input -output and much mor refined approaches at product level that may grasp specific product specificity affecting e.g. recyclability, durability etc. pierpaolo albertario: Are there now integrated public private management systems that integrate economic and financial variables? John Gossage: The long tail. Just transition would be linked to reducing inequity in the sense that the WHO distinguished between health inequality and health inequity Marlene Kick: Hi Fabio, yes there are considerations to link bioeconomy and circular economy - there is a research project going on on behalf of the German Ministry of Environment: https://wupperinst.org/en/p/wi/p/s/pd/481/ (just started) Jens Günther: To Fabio: Just a few days ago there is a monitoring framework and report published for the German Bioeconomy (see symobio.de) Barbara Bacigalupi, EC ENV: the principles on CE monitoring could also address the contribution of CE to SDGs, beyond SDG 12, i.e. SDG 8, SDG 11n SDG 7, SDG 9,.. Jens Günther: To Fabio and Marlene We here at the German EPA are recently started working on the issue to bring together CE monitoring and monitoring on bioeconomy in terms of developing an indicator framework on the use of natural resources Susanne Kadner: Regarding the link on bioeconomy with CE in Germany: the government is currently setting up its new resource efficiency programme. Susanne Kadner: In that respect, bioeconomy with its view on using material in cascades is being discussed Jens Günther: to Susanne: It is just published today

Next steps, general feedback, questions and answers Moderated by Peder Jensen, Expert on resource efficiency in a circular economy (EEA)

Time stamp: 02:45:20 – 02:49:53 Thanks to all speakers.

We need definitions. What is circular jobs? What is circular economy. ISO is working on this and common definitions must form a basis. We cannot monitor if we cannot define it.

Targets are seen as important by a range of speakers. Which level of disaggregation is needed for policy makers? This will go into our discussion in the writing group and feed the discussions in October.