Circular economy, Italy confirms leadership in Europe

Circular economy, Italy's supremacy is confirmed. The Report on the State of the Green Economy 2024, edited by the Sustainable Development Foundation and presented today on the first day of the Ecomondo trade fair in Rimini, frames Italy's performance, as it does every year, by bringing together the latest available data. And several are the litmus tests of the efficiency of the Italian model.

With regard to resource productivity, for example, one of the main indicators used to monitor circular economy policies, since it calculates the relationship between economic activity and the consumption of natural resources, in 2023 our country, for every kg of resource consumed, generated 3.6 euros of GDP (62% more than the EU average): a value that, looking at the historical series compiled by Ispra, has never been so high. All the other major European economies follow: Spain and France, with 3.1 euros of GDP per kg of resource consumed, are in second place behind Germany (3 euros per kg), and Poland far below the other main countries (0.9 euros per kg).

Another indicator is the circular material utilisation rate: in the EU in 2022, the last available year, it was 11.5%. In Italy, the value reached 18.7%, up compared to 2021 (18.4%) but down compared to the results of 2020, 2019, 2018 (20.6%, 19.5%, 18.8% respectively, as shown in Ispra's historical series). Italy after France (19.3%) but before Germany (13%), Poland (8.4%) and Spain (7.1%).

The Report also recalls Italy's supremacy in the recycling rate of urban and special waste, excluding mineral waste, taking into account only the continent's largest economies: in 2020, the latest available survey, it was 72 per cent in our country, with Germany 17 points behind and the EU average of 58 per cent.

A snapshot of the green forces active in our productive fabric, even beyond the circular economy, is presented today at the opening of the 13th edition of the States General of the Green Economy, promoted by the National Council of the same name (66 business organisations), with the Ministry of the Environment and the patronage of the European Commission and the Ministry of Enterprise and Made in Italy. The focus this year is on the Green Deal at the start of the 10th European legislature. This is where the data is needed to give a direction for action to the new Commission that will take office in December. The Action Plan for the Circular Economy, presented in March 2020, identified a number of lines of action that later resulted in legislative acts such as the regulations on ecodesign, the eco-design of smartphones and tablets, the management of battery waste, the supply of critical raw materials, packaging and its waste, not forgetting the directive that introduced the so-called right to repair. For the future, the Sustainable Development Foundation with its president Edo Ronchi (see analysis opposite) is looking forward to the new proposal, announced by Ursula von der Leyen, for a new law on the circular economy, which will help to create a market demand for secondary materials and a single market for waste, particularly in relation to critical raw materials.