The circular economy can play a role in alleviating most of the pressure currently applied by the food, construction, energy, and textile sectors on biodiversity worldwide, according to a briefing by the European Environment Agency (EEA) published on Monday.
The paper highlighted that those economic sectors account for approximately 90% of the burdens on ecosystems.
It contains a reference to the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), pointing to five key anthropogenic drivers of biodiversity loss: habitat loss, overexploitation of natural resources, climate change, pollution, and invasive alien species.
For the EEA, “these drivers are the result of underlying anthropogenic activities”, including land use, land cover and land management change, material use, energy system, waste, and emissions.
The EEA also identified three areas where the circular economy can benefit biodiversity: reducing primary resource demand, preventing pollution, and biodiversity-friendly sourcing.
The last point “is where more attention is needed in the current discussion on the circular economy”, the agency wrote.
As the International Resource Panel estimated a doubling of material extraction by 2060, “the entire production and consumption system must be transformed if we are to reduce the alarming trend in biodiversity loss,” the EEA explained.
While its potential benefits on biodiversity are somewhat overlooked, the EEA noted that “growing efforts to reduce biodiversity loss, including recent initiatives such as the EU’s biodiversity strategy for 2030, the 2022 global agreement at the UN Biodiversity Conference, and the European Commission’s proposal for an EU nature restoration law, could benefit from further inclusion of circular economy actions”.
In the agricultural sector, now one of the most inflamed topics at the European Parliament’s level, the briefing suggests some alternative examples of production.
For instance, projects that recycle nutrients from agricultural waste into animal feed and fertilisers using insects increase the efficiency of resource and material use, this can reduce the land needed and can produce a more environmentally friendly fertiliser to regenerate soils.
Using seaweed to produce a biodiversity-friendly supply of food, animal feed, and fertiliser can also help regenerate local marine ecosystems by absorbing nutrients and CO2, and requires no synthetic inputs.
The EEA is calling on policymakers, business, and citizens to engage in circular economy practices.
“Policymakers need to adopt a systemic approach to integrating biodiversity and circular economy that considers multiple factors across the entire life cycle of goods and services,” the briefing insisted.
Companies should enhance the reusability, repairability and recyclability of their products, ensure that components do not leak into the environment, and carefully consider their sources.
Finally, the civil society plays a part in reducing consumption levels and demanding more biodiversity-friendly choices.
“The circular economy has quickly become a political priority, but we need to remember that it is not an end in itself — it is a means to an end,” the paper concluded. “Reducing biodiversity loss needs to be one of the overarching aims of the circular economy, and therefore we need to make it more biodiversity inclusive.”
By Emanuela Barbiroglio – emanuela@carbon-pulse.com
