Letter to European Commission suggesting further priority measures to guide the Commission's resource efficiency flagship initiative

Bankwatch welcomes the European Commissions "A resource efficient Europe - flagship initiative of the Europe 2020 Strategy" as an effort to build a holistic approach to resource efficiency. This letter suggests further priority measures that should guide this initiative and proposes an integration of resource efficiency in different EU policies and actions.

Specifically, the initiative must ensure that long-term strategies in areas such as energy, climate change, and transport policy deliver on resource efficiency objectives. Higher resource efficiency means using fewer resources to achieve the same life span and quality given a fixed set of materials. With this initiative the Commission can set an agenda to reduce the demand for raw materials, their extraction and processing, while at the same time ensuring positive economic and social development.