Moderator: Harri Kalimo, Director of Research Centre, BSoG
Speakers:
Tim Forslund, Specialist, Nature and the economy, SITRA (The Finnish Innovation Fund)
Barbara Oberc, Senior Policy Officer, International Union for the Conservation of Nature
Anna Karamat, DG Environment, European Commission
Timo Lehesvirta, Leading Nature Expert, Metsä Group
The shift from a linear to a circular economy has been proposed as an important means of addressing the alarming rate of biodiversity loss that is taking place. Rethinking the way that our societies produce, consume and discard materials is seen as an important complement to the efforts to conserve and restore biodiversity on our planet. In a circular economy, resource and energy use are made as efficient as possible. A circular economy thus in principle allows to address the drivers of the environmental impacts causing biodiversity loss, in particular land use change, climate change, invasive species and pollution. A circular economy strategy may however also entail trade-offs between these impacts.
In this Policy Forum, we shall focus on the ways in which a Circular Economy can contribute to halting the loss on biodiversity and repairing our planet. In particular, we address recent EU policy initiatives that are – or could and should be -- supporting interlinkages between a circular economy and biodiversity. Such recent proposals on the EU’s agenda include, for example, the European Critical Raw Materials Act and Revision of the rules on Packaging and Packaging Waste and Sustainable Products Regulation.
Questions
- In which ways can a Circular Economy contribute to conserving and regenerating biodiversity?
- How to better assess and measure the upstream & downstream impacts of economic activities on biodiversity
- How to reduce the extraction and processing of biodiversity-relevant resources?
- How to eliminate waste and pollution as major threats to biodiversity?
- How to manage the trade-offs in the environmental imapcts of a circular economy?
- How can the EU policy initiatives on a circular economy better contribute to biodiversity? How could the recent initiatives [X and Y] achieve this?
- What are the main obstacles in better interconnecting biodiversity and circular economy policies, in general and in terms of the proposals discussed here?
This event will take place fully online
