At last the question of ressource efficiency gets a prominent political attention…The new strategy for the European Union over the next decade, with the very sexy name « Europe 2020 », was launched last Wednesday by the European Commission (see here) and resource efficiency features high in this paper. One of the 7 ‘flagship initiative’ is entitled « Resource efficient Europe » with an extensive list of actions that will be undertaken by the Commission and the Member States. A positive development for sure, even though there’s no concret target against which success or failure will be measured and that’s a major weakness on the road to improved resource efficiency in Europe.
Where this strategy is really wrong is in its blind focus on « growth » which is still seen as the holy saviour of our times. Europe needs definitively more ambition and a better vision that just to look for growth. This strategy could have been a great opportunity to look for other criteria and ways of « development » because without structural change, the ‘rebound effect’ will soon wipe out the gains realised by increased resource efficiency as ‘growth’ is still the main goal on the other hand…
Re-Sources 