Stay up to date on news from the ISWA World Congress: read our LIVE feed here.
Former European Environment Commissioner tells ISWA World Congress that recycling alone cannot deliver resource security and urges a wider approach to circularity.
Governments must set targets for material use and look beyond recycling rates to build more resilient circular economies, Janez Potočnik has told the ISWA World Congress.
Speaking in London today (9 November), the former European Commissioner for the Environment and Co-Chair of the International Resource Panel argued that reducing demand for materials should be central to efforts to strengthen resource security, tackle climate change and deliver a fair transition. His appearance formed part of the Congress taking place from 9–11 November.
He challenged the emphasis on securing new supplies of critical raw materials without first examining how economies could meet people’s needs using fewer resources.
“Many examples of circular economy practice are encouraging, but to make circular economy a norm, we need a system change,” he said.
Recycling cannot meet growing demand alone
Potočnik warned that the energy and digital transitions were moving economies towards greater dependence on metals and minerals. While this created opportunities for circularity, switching energy sources would not, by itself, make the economy less wasteful or more equitable.
He used batteries to illustrate the limits of relying on recycling when demand is growing rapidly: recycling the batteries available today would not be sufficient if substantially more were needed in future.
“So in growing economies, recycling is not the answer. It’s needed, and that’s really important,” he said, explaining that recycling was better able to meet demand where material requirements and supply were stable.
Many examples of circular economy practice are encouraging, but to make circular economy a norm, we need a system change
He called for more intensive use of products and a rethink of how systems such as mobility and housing meet human needs, alongside conventional circular economy measures. Reducing the materials needed to provide those services could limit future mining requirements, he argued.
“We don’t need cars, we need mobility. We don’t need light bulbs, we need light.”
A challenge to circularity targets
Potočnik questioned whether Europe’s circular material use rate provided the right headline measure for the transition, arguing that it placed too much emphasis on recycling rather than reducing overall consumption.
“So I think that circularity rate is simply not a good target. It’s a downstream target,” he said.
The European Environment Agency reports that recycled materials accounted for 12.2% of EU material use in 2024, compared with 10.7% in 2010. It says the EU is not on track to achieve its ambition of doubling the rate by 2030, or the 24% target set out in the Clean Industrial Deal.
Potočnik instead backed material footprint targets, focused on the materials associated with consumption, to give businesses and policymakers a clearer direction.
Stop stimulating extraction-based economic success and reward responsible innovative creative ways of meeting human needs
“It will provide all stakeholders with a clear message that the level of materials consumed in Europe is a problem,” he said.
He identified the forthcoming EU Circular Economy Act as an opportunity to change the framework. The European Commission says the initiative will seek to establish a single market for secondary raw materials, increase the supply of high-quality recycled materials and stimulate demand for them.
Resource security and a fair transition
For Europe, Potočnik argued, reducing material demand was not simply an environmental preference but a strategic response to dependence on imported resources and exposure to geopolitical disruption.
He distinguished between improving the efficiency of individual products and changing the systems in which they operate. Making a car more efficient, for example, was different from improving a mobility system so that fewer cars were needed.
However, he stressed that the transition must recognise unequal levels of consumption. High-income countries with substantial existing stocks of materials needed to reduce their footprints, while low-income countries still needed greater resource use to meet essential needs, incorporating circular approaches from the outset.
The International Resource Panel’s Global Resources Outlook 2024 found that high-income countries use six times more materials per person and generate ten times the climate impacts of low-income countries.
Better targets, incentives and governance
Potočnik outlined four priorities for change: national material-use targets, better measurement of circularity, economic incentives that reward responsible resource use, and stronger transparency and coordination.
He also highlighted work on a proposed global materials data hub to provide reliable information about material flows. He said partners including UNEP, the International Chamber of Commerce and Mining 2030 were examining user needs and options for governance, with an international materials agency among the possibilities.
The ICC has separately confirmed that it and its partners are exploring a Global Materials Data Hub to consolidate existing open-access information about material flows and their impacts.
Ultimately, Potočnik argued, circular economy policy needed to change what economic activity was rewarded for delivering.
“Stop stimulating extraction-based economic success and reward responsible innovative creative ways of meeting human needs,” he said.