Policy Director | Shaping the EU Circular Economy | Extended Producer Responsibility | Sustainability
🇪🇺 This week in EU circular economy policy… …has shown the fragile balance between competitiveness and sustainability ambition 👇 🟢 TotalEnergies and Siemens Energy urged the EU to abandon the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, arguing it would create excessive legal risks for global businesses. Weakening this law dilutes one of the few mechanisms connecting corporate accountability with circularity. Without strong supply-chain due diligence, companies face less pressure to trace materials, manage waste responsibly, or close product loops. 🟢 European carmakers renewed calls to delay the 2035 ban on new combustion engines, warning the shift to electric vehicles is moving too fast. The pace of this transition will shape how circular Europe’s mobility system becomes: too slow, and circular battery and reuse systems stall; too fast, and resource bottlenecks and waste risks multiply. 🟢 The European Commission’s 90% emissions reduction target for 2040 signals that material efficiency and reuse will become central to climate policy. Achieving such deep cuts requires reducing emissions embedded in products, making circularity a core industrial strategy rather than an environmental add-on. 🟢 The Commission also advanced its Common Charger initiative, requiring standardised USB-C ports across devices. This small but symbolic measure reduces electronic waste and shows how thoughtful design regulation can prevent waste at the source, embedding circularity in everyday products. My takeaway: Europe is moving toward a future where circularity underpins decisions across industries, energy systems, and product design.
And the pressure continues and will continue as we try to shift systems. There will be compromises.
Dr. Tom Voege an obsolescence fee? our linear systems produce products that are hard to repair, upgrade and/or recapture. Surely this would encourage the sort of innovation in design and downstream services required in an increasingly resource depleted planet?