The first Circular Economy Strategy came out in 2015, and was updated in 2020 at the start of president Ursula von der Leyen’s first administration.

For her second term, von der Leyen has chosen to ratchet things up a notch, and has tasked her new environment commissioner Jessika Roswall with producing a fully fledged Circular Economy Act to codify in law the EU’s approach to reducing its drain on global resources. With current consumption trends suggesting that by 2050 humanity will be draining the world’s resources at a rate that would take three planets to sustain, the case for action is clear.

But what does the Commission plan to cover in the forthcoming law? The two strategies to date have seen a raft of measures to increase circularity, not least targets for the recyclability and sorting of waste and extended producer responsibility in areas such as fast fashion.

We’ve had a couple of hints. In her mission letter to Roswall, von der Leyen said the Act should “create market demand for secondary materials and establish a single market for waste, notably in relation to critical raw materials”. In a speech last week, the Swedish commissioner pointed to “untapped potential” in waste streams and need to invest in reuse, recycling and new extraction technologies.

No surprise, then, that the business community is keenly watching the signals coming from the EU executive, and has started to set out its own vision of the path Europe should take. The debate will come to the European Parliament building in Brussels on 18 March, when Italian MEP Massimiliano Salini – a vice-chair of the European People’s Party – will host a discussion with colleagues and representatives from companies across Europe.

Lara Ponti, vice-president of the Italian trade association Confindustria – which represents over 150,000  manufacturing and service companies across Italy – will present a report looking at how Europe can marry the key objectives of sustainability and competitiveness in circular economy policy.

Also due to speak are Antonio Decaro, chair of the European Parliament’s environment committee, which will play a key role in negotiations on the new Circular Economy Act, and Aurel Ciobanu Dordea, Director for Circular Economy at the European Commission’s environment directorate will be offering insights into thinking within the EU executive. Completing the line-up are Confindustria President Emanuele Orsini and Italy’s Minister of Environment and Energy Security, Gilberto Pichetto Fratin.