As pressure on world's natural resources increases rapidly, European Parliament showed overwhelming support today for measuring Europe's use of resources, in a step towards a resource efficient future, including full incorporation of resource efficiency into the Europe 2020 economic agenda. However, Europe will not make the most of the environmental, economic and social benefits of resource efficiency without clear targets to reduce, in absolute terms, Europe's consumption of resources, according to Friends of the Earth Europe.
European politicians laid foundations for a resource efficient Europe today, with wide political support shown for the need to measure Europe's resource use. This is a crucial first step towards reducing Europe's resource use, according to Friends of the Earth Europe, but the European Commission must follow suit in order for Europe to gain the benefits greater resource efficiency brings.
Brussels, September 14 - At least 500,000 new jobs would be created in Europe if countries recycled 70% of their waste finds a new study, 'More Jobs, Less Waste', launched by Friends of the Earth today. [1] This is the recycling rate already achieved by Flanders in Belgium.
President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso has called for the creation of 3 million new green jobs by 2020 in his 'State of the Union' [2] speech to the European Parliament; this study shows that a significant portion of this target could be achieved through increased recycling across Europe.
Brussels, 7 October - Europe throws away resources worth over 5 billion euros every year by landfilling or incinerating materials that could be recycled, Friends of the Earth Europe reported today [1]. At the same time, Europe is importing ever-increasing quantities of materials from the rest of the world [2].
Brussels, 15 September 2009 - Europe is using increasing quantities of the world's natural resources, according to a new report [1] launched by Friends of the Earth Europe at the 'World Resources Forum' in Davos, Switzerland today [2]. The report also shows that Europe is more dependant on imported resources than other global regions.
Brussels, 17 October 2008 - European Commission plans announced today to protect the world's forests have been slammed by Friends of the Earth Europe as "toothless" and unlikely to have any major impact on reducing deforestation. The "forest package" adopted today by the European Commission fails to include both measures to reduce deforestation and legislation to prevent the trade of illegal timber.
Brussels, 25 September 2008 - MEPs in the European Parliament today voted to make carmakers play a much greater role in tackling climate change and rejected car industry attempts to weaken proposed legislation on the fuel efficiency of new cars.
Brussels, 24 July 2008 - The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) yesterday issued its revised opinion on Bisphenol A and confirmed a five-fold increase in the authorised daily intake of this chemical [1], a move condemned by Friends of the Earth Europe.
Brussels, 17 July 2008 - New laws proposed by the European Commission to create greener products need serious strengthening if they are to help tackle climate change and biodiversity loss, says Friends of the Earth Europe. The environmental organisation today welcomed the belated publication of the Sustainable Consumption and Production action plan [1], but is calling on the European Parliament and national governments to improve the plans which are extremely weak, having been watered down by in-fighting within the Commission.
Brussels, 17 June 2008 - Environmental NGOs are deeply disappointed with today's European Parliament vote on the revised Waste Framework Directive. Parliament accepted a pre-arranged deal that sets inadequate European recycling targets and no target for waste prevention [1].
A number of MEPs made a last-ditch attempt to re-insert the Parliament's original stronger targets [2], but this was defeated. Member States are now expected to ratify this deal which will become law by the end of 2008.