Despite progress the EU still needs more efforts to further reduce emissions

A new report by the European Commission has called for more efforts on reducing both consumption and waste to achieve a more circular economy in the European Union (EU).

The report includes new indicators to monitor the EU’s production and consumption system, as well as progress toward meeting waste prevention targets.

The data compiled by the report authors show that while EU production has become more resource-efficient, the consumption of materials remains very high and needs to decrease in the future.





According to the report, EU greenhouse gas emissions from production activities decreased by around 25 percent during 2008-2021. However, the EU’s consumption footprint increased by 4 percent between 2010 and 2021. Despite some improvements in circularity, the EU economy was still mostly linear, with ‘secondary’ materials accounting for less than 12 percent of all materials used in the EU economy.

Most materials, together with the embedded energy and other resources used in their production, are too quickly discarded in the atmosphere, water, and land.

The revised monitoring framework highlights the need to speed up the transition towards a circular economy, which has been expanding in terms of investments, value-added, jobs, and innovation in the EU.