May 17 is World Recycling Day, an event established by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to raise awareness of the importance of reducing, reusing and recycling. This date also aims to convey to society the need to make a responsible use of raw materials for their transformation into consumer goods or to make a good management in the subsequent treatment of waste to collaborate with the protection of the planet.
Human activities, especially those linked to the linear economy, seriously threaten biodiversity conservation. Currently, more than 40,000 species are threatened according to the IUCN Red List (2022), and extrapolation from there suggests that one million species could be at risk of extinction(IPBES, 2019).
According to the report Global resource outlook 2024of the UN, resource extraction and processing is the driver of the triple environmental crisisemissions: it causes more than 55% of greenhouse gas emissions, which are the cause of the current climate crisis; it causes more than 90% of the total loss of biodiversity and accounts for 40% of pollution impacts. In 50 years we have tripled resource extraction and he warns that, if we continue at this rate, resource consumption will increase by more than 60% by 2060 compared to 2020 levels.
In order to halt and reverse biodiversity loss, the report ‘The Nature Imperative: How the circular economy tackles biodiversity loss(2021) points out the importance of transforming the way we produce, use and consume of products and foodstuffs, since otherwise conservation and restoration efforts alone would not be sufficient.
In this sense, the circular economy is presented as an essential alternative transformation model. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) through the report ‘Towards a circular economy that begins and ends in nature‘ (2022) defines the circular economy as an economic system in which the value of products, materials and other resources of the economy is maintained for the longest possible time.The use of the energy efficiency of the plant, promoting its efficient use in both production and consumption, reducing environmental impact of their use, minimizing waste and the release of hazardous substances at all stages of their life cycle, including through the application of the waste hierarchy.
The document ‘The Nature Imperative‘ points out that the circular economy creates opportunities for a new and better growth model, which not only helps to protect and restore biodiversity, but also provides other benefits for society as a wholesuch as helping to address climate change, improve air and water quality, and reduce the cost of access to goods and services.
BOOSTING THE CIRCULAR ECONOMY
For contribute to the transition to this new model and promote the circular economy in the private sector, the Ministry for Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge (MITECO) has launched, through the General Directorate for Environmental Quality and Evaluation and with the participation of the Biodiversity Foundation as a collaborating entity, a call for proposals within the framework of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR) financed by the European Union – Next Generation EU.
Through this call, 102 projects will be promoted with 165.5 million euros. The category with the most projects is the improvement of waste management (49 projects and 80.3M€ of aid), followed by the reduction of the consumption of virgin raw materials, with 43 projects and 80.6M€ of aid, which shows the growing role of prevention in the business sector. Nine digitalization projects (€4M) and one R&D eco-design project (€0.4M) have also been awarded.
This call, which is part of action line 2 of the PERTE aimed at projects to promote the circular economy in any sector, is complemented by the call for proposals for projects that contribute to improving the sustainability and circularity of the textile, fashion and apparel and footwear sectorThe deadline for submitting applications is June 10.
