critical raw materials which includes rare earths, cobalt and niobium.


92: Waste prevention Examples of progress in waste prevention prioritization:


• In the EU, the Waste Framework Directive requires Member States to establish national waste prevention programmes. Several hundred waste prevention measures are included in the programmes (EEA 2015j). However, although many countries included measures to foster innovative business models, repair, reuse and ecodesign in their programmes, the majority of policy instruments focus mainly on information and awareness raising (EEA 2016; 2015j). The monitoring of national waste prevention programmes within EIONET, gathered by the European Topic Centre on Sustainable Consumption and Production in collaboration with EEA, is presented in an information hub on waste prevention


• Ending planned obsolescence, understood as one priority, is increasingly addressed in policy strategies. However, further progress is required throughout the region, including implementation of regulatory mechanisms. Legislation against obsolescence has been introduced in France: (1) the French Government Decree no. 2014- 1482 with producer’s obligations to reveal to consumers how long appliances are minimally intended to last; and (2) the French Law on Energy Transition, which entered into force on 19 August 2015, which defines planned obsolescence as a crime that will be prosecuted.


• Participatory initiatives that bring different actors together contribute to awareness-raising and strengthen the sense of common responsibility for waste prevention and sustainable use of resources: one example is the European Week for Waste Reduction (EWWR) The initiative encourages public authorities, private companies and civil society to get involved and to organise or join activities. In 2014, nearly 12 000 activities were registered, which reached an estimated 24 million direct participants and up to 170 million indirect participants.


• Social innovation encouraging new cultural practices with sustainable material flows (up-cycling, do-it-yourself,


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sharing), and citizens who understand sustainability competence (including waste-to-resource) as a guiding principle of personal creativity and self-confidence, in a wider sense of welfare-oriented living models, reflect shifts in conceptual understanding of society and citizenship, resulting in changed behavioural patterns. Fostering this process by enabling and rewarding policy frameworks requires further progress.


93: Civil society responses for a circular economy


Turning waste into a resource has also been taken up by civil society initiatives and citizens throughout the region. Hacker spaces and repair cafes are examples of a new social phenomenon, citizens inventing new social practices and networks to overcome resource-intensive, wasteful consumption practices through non-commercial arrangements. Such initiatives are often characterized by strong social engagement and personal motivation of a group to provide opportunities for shared access to know-how, practical competencies, and basic support to encourage product durability, re-usability and reparability. Increasing numbers of networks that receive considerable public attention through social media, mainly in urban areas in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Netherlands and the UK, are positive examples of experimentation in sustainable consumption practices (ETC/SCP and ETC/WGME 2014; UBA 2014). Local initiatives and micro-projects in neighbourhoods, such as schools, predominate, but some have become international networks – the repair cafe movement has grown in the past five years to have more than 750 repair cafés in more than 18 countries where people meet to learn repair skills and related practices.


Other people engage with areas of open-source technology, including software updates and improvement. In a reaction to product dysfunctionalities based on hard- and software restrictions and/or incompatibilities, especially of personal computers, mobile phones and other electronics, hacker spaces have developed as community-oriented physical places where people share their interest in tinkering with technology, meet and work on their projects, and learn from each other.


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