EU looking east not west

Hugo Schally, European Commission head of unit for sustainable production, products and consumption, has suggested that the European Union needs to look first towards China as a partner when it comes to delivering better circular economy outcomes. He was speaking at a European Parliament meeting on reman, following reports from the World Economic Forum in Davos that the US economy had been declared ‘more circular’ than the European economy.

At the same meeting, European Remanufacturing Council head David Fitzsimons said: “No-one should underestimate the ambition of China or the enormous scale of opportunities to industrialise remanufacturing.”The importance of reman was given support by Stephane Arditi from the European Environment Bureau, who talked about the theme of a remanufactured product being as good as a new one.

He pointed out: “Surely, if a remanufactured product is performing as well as a new one, it is actually better than new? It doesn’t require more mining, it saves on processing, it has a smaller resources and energy footprint. Yes, we can say remanufactured products are better than new.”