Guillermina Yanguas highlights the environmental, economic and social benefits of recycling

The Director of Environmental Quality and Assessment and the Natural Environment, Guillermina Yanguas, today highlighted the “great environmental, economic, social and job creation implications of recycling” and insisted on the need to promote dissemination and awareness among citizens to give “maximum priority to policies in the field of circular economy and waste management”.
 
This was pointed out during the closing of the 10th emprendeverde meeting, “Entrepreneurship in green from communication, dissemination and training of trainers in recycling”, an initiative of the Emprendeverde Network of the Biodiversity Foundation of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and the Environment, which also had the participation of its director, Sonia Castañeda.
 
Yanguas recalled that “waste prevention, eco-design and reuse could mean net savings of 600,000 million euros for companies in the European Union”, a figure that represents 8% of their annual turnover and reduces total annual greenhouse gas emissions by between 2% and 4%.
 
In addition, the Director of Environmental Quality and Assessment and the Natural Environment stressed that the correct implementation of the new legislation on waste “can create more than 180,000 direct jobs in the European Union for
2030″, and that the waste sector has become “an important driver of employment”, since “27% of the total green employment in Spain is associated with this sector”.
 
This meeting is part of the “Eco-Recinnova Entrepreneurship Programme”, a cycle of activities to promote the creation and consolidation of companies or new lines of business in the field of Eco-design, Recycling and Eco-innovation. Developed in collaboration with ECOEMBES, the organisation that takes care of the environment through recycling and eco-design of packaging in Spain.
 
The “Emprendeverde Meetings” are aimed at the entrepreneurs of the Emprendeverde Network, which already has more than 7,000 members, the first platform specialized in green business aimed at entrepreneurs and investors in order to promote the creation and consolidation of companies or new lines of business in activities related to the environment and channel investment towards sustainable economic activities. The Red emprendeverde is an initiative co-financed by the European Social Fund.
 
More than 350 people have already participated in the previous “Emprendeverde Meetings”, which have dealt with topics as diverse as water, the circular economy or sustainable mobility.