Despite continuing to move in the right direction, the BAU projection perpetuates a rebound effect, whereby resource use efficiency gains would be outpaced by economic growth and related increases in consumption and production, resulting in no reduction in absolute impact (Ferguson 2015). Other calculations confirm that, fuelled by increasing reliance on imports and assuming no abatement measures, the overall material footprint of the EU would continue to grow (Schandl et al. 2015).


In the pan-European region, the marked difference in material footprint of consumption is likely to persist between EU Member States, at around 25 tonnes per person per year on average and close to levels in the United States of America (Wiedmann et al. 2015), and countries of non-EU Eastern Europe including the Caucasus. The latter have significant potential for improvement, but under a BAU projection are likely to make uneven progress in resource use efficiency and to experience some economic rebound while remaining well behind the EU average in resource efficiency (UNEP 2013).


Trends in waste disposal, waste for energy and recycling continue to improve for the next ten years up to 2025, under a range of scenarios for the EU and EEA countries, but beyond this there is a mixed picture (EEA 2015; Bartl 2014). Waste prevention could help to alleviate these trends, but waste management will need to change radically in order to phase out landfilling of recyclable or recoverable waste to meet the new EU 2030 circular economy waste targets.


Disposal of hazardous and toxic chemicals across the region remains a problem, although there are improvements foreseen over the next 5-10 years (EEA 2015). Beyond 2025 there is a mixed picture with a reduction in the overall chemical burden under the EU chemical policy, REACH (registration, evaluation, authorization and restriction of chemicals) (EU 2006). However, the regulation does not address the problem of simultaneous exposures to multiple chemicals.


Waste to energy plant in Lombardy, Italy Credit: Shutterstock/ marcobir


Alternative projection to meet the relevant goals The UNEP International Resource Panel (UNEP 2011) has suggested a target of 6–8 tonnes per person per year at the global level by 2050, in order to move towards a sustainability transformation of material and resource use. Today per person resource extraction in the EU is around 16 tonnes per person per year, about 20 tonnes in Western Europe, and 7.5 tonnes in Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia, compared to a global average of about 10 tonnes per person per year (Hak et al. 2013).


According to calculations of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), significant reductions relative to a baseline scenario in domestic material extraction (DE) and material footprint (MF) are possible in the EU while maintaining a high level of economic growth and employment. Figure 4.2.1 shows the scale of what is achievable for both of these leading indicators for 2030 and 2050, which essentially represent a reversal in baseline trends, with a possible turning point well before 2030. Lowering material consumption to 10.5 tonnes per person per year by 2030 and 10 tonnes per person per year by 2050 is ambitious and would be hard to achieve (Schandl et al. 2015; UNEP 2014).


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Chapter 4: Outlooks and Emerging Issues


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