In Estonia, an equals sign has been placed between the circular economy and waste management. Say “circular economy” — and you are thinking about how to make useful use of waste. Say “let’s transition to the circular economy” — and you mean: we sort waste and become resource-efficient. Say “we’re investing €111 million in the circular economy” — and you mean: we support local municipalities in organising waste management and provide the public with a great many green training courses.
A great deal is genuinely being done in Estonia to transition to the circular economy, yet at a recent circular economy conference, hands were thrown up in despair — other countries have results, but we do not. Why?
We must begin by understanding what the circular economy actually is and what it actually is not. The circular economy is an economic model whose goal is to reduce the use of primary resources. The circular economy is not environmental management, whose focus is waste handling. Understanding this distinction sometimes causes confusion even among companies engaged in waste transport and treatment. This is entirely understandable, because circular economy legislative initiatives come from areas not connected to the EU Waste Framework Directive or Estonia’s Waste Act — such as the digital product passport requirement arising from the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) framework, and the requirement to declare the full lifecycle of construction products arising from the Construction Products Regulation.
In Estonia’s future outlook, it is important that the Climate Act create the opportunity to begin applying international circular economy standards. All parties would benefit — not only businesses, but also waste operators and local municipalities. The state, too, would be able to account for resource use on the same basis as other member states when reporting on the attainment of climate neutrality targets.
For the drafters of the Climate Act, I offer a control question and a key metric. When the answer to the question of whether the energetic recovery of waste constitutes the circular economy is no longer met with a categorical “no”, we will have made progress. When a real estate developer’s question about how many kilograms of which recovered materials they will receive back from the construction waste they have transferred no longer sends a waste operator into a rage, we will have made progress.