The European Green Deal, set out in the Commission communication of 11 December 2019, and the new Circular Economy Action Plan for a cleaner and more competitive Europe, set out in the Commission communication of 11 March 2020, call for reinforced and accelerated Union and Member States’ action to ensure environmental and social sustainability of the textile and food sectors, as they represent leading resource-intensive sectors that cause significant negative environmental externalities. In those sectors, financing and technological gaps, amongst other things, impede progress towards the transition to a circular economy and decarbonisation. The food and textile sectors are respectively the first- and fourth-most resource-intensive sectors and they do not fully adhere to the fundamental Union waste management principles set out in the waste hierarchy, which requires the prioritisation of waste prevention followed by preparing for re-use, and recycling. Those challenges require systemic solutions based on a lifecycle approach, with a particular focus on food and textile products.
Text as published in the Official Journal, reproduced verbatim (including any typographical quirks of the source). For the authentic version, see EUR-Lex.
