Key Takeaways from EU Green Week

This blog was originally posted on 18th June, 2025. Further regulatory developments may have occurred after publication. To keep up-to-date with the latest compliance news, sign up to our newsletter.

AUTHORED BY MICHELLE WALSH, SENIOR REGULATORY COMPLIANCE SPECIALIST AND TEAM LEADER, COMPLIANCE & RISKS

I recently had the pleasure to attend the EU Green Week conference on “Circular Solutions for a Competitive EU,” held from 3 to 5 June 2025 in Brussels, Belgium.

It was an inspiring few days organized by the EU Commission’s Directorate-General for Environment where various stakeholders shared their views on the difficulties we are facing transitioning from a linear model to a truly circular one particularly given Europe’s limited natural resources.

Key trends I noted from the conference included the necessity for structured information sharing, green procurement to be used as a tool for circularity, a strong call for proper collaboration, the lack of competitiveness with products originating from outside the EU, and major concerns over the price of virgin raw materials that can be cheaper than recycled materials.

New Circular Economy Act

Hot on the agenda was the new Circular Economy Act (CE) which is expected to be adopted by the EU Commission by the end of 2026. The EU Commission announced there will be a public stakeholder consultation on the new Circular Economy Act to be launched very soon.

What are the Goals of the New Circular Economy Act?

The key aims of this new CE will be to:

Boost demand for secondary raw materials
Increase the role of green public procurement
Drastically increase recycling of critical raw materials
Accelerate Europe’s Bio-economy
Move towards Circular Batteries Systems and Circular Eco-design Systems

How can Europe Shift from a Linear to a Circular Model?

There were a number of interesting panel discussions on how Europe can shift from a linear to a circular model. Ideas discussed included a clear need for:

Positive financial mechanisms other than Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)
Educational training of managers and engineers to be able to calculate real circular economy impacts for their business
Harmonization of Member State implementation of EPR to remove fragmentation
Incorporating social partnerships and awareness programs for all parties
The Circular Economy Act could provide resource productivity targets to match climate change target
Member States could move from taxing labor to taxing materials

Other hot topics under discussion included:

New Bio-economy Strategy to be adopted by the end 2025. A public consultation is still open until 23 June 2025 for stakeholders who wish to comment
The EU Joint Research Commission will publish a new report very shortly on the biomass mandate (driven by EU Renewable Energy Directive REDII) discussing competition for biomass, biomass governance and policy coherence
Implementation of the Revised Industrial Emissions Directive, although welcomed by industry, is proving challenging due to the over technical nature of this piece of legislation
The European Industrial Emissions Portal can be used as a tool to provide information on industrial pollution and emissions from large industrial facilities in the EU
The EU has adopted a new EU Water Resilience Strategy

The trend towards a more circular economy, including the right-to-repair, is not isolated to the EU. In April 2025 I presented a webinar ‘Prepare to Repair: 2025 Right-to-Repair Requirements in the EU, US and Beyond with my colleagues Kelly Bugiera and Samantha Anguiano, where we discussed the key right-to-repair obligations in the EU, US, and more.

Reflection and Conclusion

Despite two Circular Economy Action Plans and the EU Green Deal, Europe is not truly circular and we have a lot of roadblocks which the new EU Circular Economy Act will need to tackle.

A significant challenge is the clear lack of competitiveness faced by EU products. This stems from the sheer volume of unchecked imports bypassing stringent product compliance requirements.

What was inspiring was to see that there are a lot of really good initiatives, tools and sustainability projects out there which are at the forefront of Circular Economy that we can learn from. Just to name a few:

Circular Economy Stakeholder Platform (information sharing platform for stakeholders of Circular Economy)
Germany Ecodesign Kit (Federal Environment Agency)– provides ecodesign information on how to make products recyclable
Circular Cities and Regions Initiative (CCRI) supports Circular Economy in building sector for cities
Kamp C – Example Model for circular procurement of buildings in Antwerp, Belgium
Cities4Forests by World Resources Institute is an alliance of cities acting to conserve, restore and sustainably manage forests and nature to support human well-being
Closer Project on critical raw materials to create a European closed loop for semiconductors
Repair Map developed by Repair Together shows a map of where to find repairers in Belgium

Discover more about how our Circular Economy Solutions can help you stay on top of your circularity obligations!

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