Europe's new long-term strategy for resource efficiency

The Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Europe is a strategic plan released by the European Commission in September of 2011 that outlines in very broad terms the medium (2020) and long term (2050) objectives that need to be achieved if the EU is to combat resource scarcity and significantly decrease environmental impact while becoming more competitive. It is divided into over 40 action points that the Commission needs to take and an additional 41 points the Commission and Member States will have to act on together. With over 80 points of action, the goal is to have an impact on every resource intensive sector. 

The Roadmap was met with overwhelming approval by the European Parliament which gave it thumbs up shortly before its summer recess in 2012. As it stands right now, the Roadmap is a statement of intent since the listed steering groups, methodologies, and detailed proposals will only start taking shape from 2013. Once things get moving, the plan intends to focus heavily on current policy inconsistencies such as market failures due to prices not reflecting the real costs of resources and harmful subsidies. In the medium term, the goal is for a 20 or 30 per cent cut in current greenhouse gas emission, 20 per cent of energy from renewables and 20 per cent increase in energy efficiency.

Instead of providing specific targets, the Roadmap is based around of set of milestones in each of the targeted sectors. Some of milestones listed by the Commission are:

• By 2020, the renovation and construction of buildings and infrastructure will be made to high resource efficiency levels. The Life-cycle approach will be widely applied; all new buildings will be nearly zero-energy and highly material efficient and policies for renovating the existing building stock will be in place so that it is cost-efficiently refurbished at a rate of 2 per cent per year.
• By 2020, citizens and public authorities have the right incentives to choose the most resource efficient products and services, through appropriate price signals and clear environmental information.
• By 2020, market and policy incentives that reward business investments in efficiency are in place.
• By 2020, waste is managed as a resource. Waste generated per capita is in absolute decline.
• By 2020, environmentally harmful subsidies will be phased out.
• By 2020, good environmental status of all the EU marine waters is achieved, and by 2015, fishing is within maximum sustainable yields.
• By 2020, a major shift from taxation of labour towards environmental taxation, including regular adjustments in real rates, which will lead to a substantial increase in the share of environmental taxes in public revenue, in line with the best practice of Member States.