Event: EU “Circular Economy Act” – How to create well-functioning markets for secondary materials?

The European market for recycled material has huge potential. For remanufactured products alone, the market will grow from EUR 31 billion in 2022 to an estimated value of EUR 100 billion by 2030, creating up to 500.000 new jobs. Despite leading on circular economy initiatives, the EU’s further progress on the circular economy and related investments are hindered by lack of scale and a unified market for recycled content. Even though the European Commission’s “Clean Industrial Deal” recognises the strategic importance of circularity for maximising the EU’s limited resources, reducing dependencies, and enhancing resilience, the transition towards a circular economy is going slow.

To stimulate both the supply of quality recyclates and the demand for secondary raw materials, the European Commission wants to address this issue through a “Circular Economy Act” (CEA) and additional initiatives like the establishment of a “Critical Raw Materials Centre” and “Trans-Regional Circularity Hubs”. Effective measures and incentives, common standards and a reliable regulatory framework would accelerate the development of markets for recyclates and services like reuse systems, refurbishment and repair. The objective is to make 24% of materials circular by 2030, thereby reducing the use (and dependency) of primary materials and greenhouse gas emissions by 25% overall. 

On June 12th, the European Sustainable Business Federation – Ecopreneur.eu and one of its founding members, the German Sustainable Business Association – BNW, organise a parliamentary breakfast hosted by Gerben-Jan Gerbrandy MEP to facilitate the dialogue between business and policy makers on this crucial topic. Together, we cordially invite representatives from business and industry, EU institutions, civil society and EU member states to discuss about policy measures and mechanisms required to boost the use of recycled content, reuse and innovative waste management practices in a European circular economy: Which policy measures does the Commission propose to help to scale up reuse, remanufacturing and recycling? How will it ensure the free movement of waste for recycling? Will there be legally binding targets for recycled content in new products?   

On a discussion panel, Mr Gerbrandy will be joined by the Chair of the European Parliament’s internal market committee, Anna Cavazzini MEP (Greens), the Taskforce Leader for the CEA in DG Environment of the European Commission, Florian Flachenecker, and the Policy Director from our German associate BNW, Konstantin Litke. The discussion will be moderated by the Executive Director of Ecopreneur.eu, Arthur ten Wolde, and spurred by questions from  the audience.

The event will be free of charge and accessible both online and in-person.

When: Thursday, June 12, 2025, 8:15 – 9:30 CEST 

Where: Online and in-presence (European Parliament, Brussels) 

Who should attend: Businesses and industry, policy makers, civil society, representatives of EU Member States 

Recording

Meet the panellists

Gerben-Jan GERBRANDY is a member of the European Parliament (MEP) and the Committee on the Environment, Climate and Food Safety for the Liberals (RENEW). Between 2009 and 2019, he also served as MEP in the European Parliament, which led him to be elected as “Greenest Politician of the Year 2017” in the Netherlands. Before that, he served as political advisor to the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality. 

Florian FLACHENECKER is Taskforce Leader for the Circular Economy Act in the Directorate-General for Environment at the European Commission. Florian is also an Honorary Lecturer in environmental economics at University College London. Previously, he worked in the Recovery and Resilience Taskforce and the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission and as an Economist at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Florian holds a PhD in Economics from University College London, an MA in Economics from the College of Europe and a BSc in Economics from the University of Mannheim. 

Anna CAVAZZINI has been a Member of the European Parliament since the 2019 European elections, where she has been serving on the Committee on International Trade and as Chair of the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) since 2020. A member of the European Greens/EFA, she previously worked for the German foreign ministry, the United Nations, and development NGOs.

Konstantin LITKE is Head of Policy and Communications at the German Sustainable Business Association – BNW. He previously worked as a political and communications consultant and gained experience in the German Bundestag and at the German Association of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises. Konstantin studied political science and the history of international politics in Moscow, The Hague and Marburg. 

Arthur TEN WOLDE is Executive Director of Ecopreneur.eu. He participates in the Ecodesign Forum and the European Circular Economy Stakeholder Platform (ECESP) Coordination Group. He also is Head and Owner of Circular Future and trainer on “Circular Design” for CIRCONNECT. Previously, he worked for several organisations including the Dutch Industry Confederation VNO-NCW. A certified polymer technologist, Arthur has a PhD in experimental physics.