New economic strategies

Article published in ABC Newspaper, 8/06/2020

Last Tuesday, the Spanish Strategy for the Circular Economy was approved – together with the draft bill on waste – which, following the EU Action Plan for the Circular Economy, renewed at the beginning of March by the Commission, advances the development of one of the cornerstones of the European Green Pact.

This pact, presented last December, represents the EU’s major commitment to readjusting economic models to climate neutrality. This means, by sustainable growth patterns built on the decarbonization of economies and clean energies – the transition to electrification generated by renewable energies – and the gradual implementation of Agenda 2030 and the ODS.

All this is based on a process of permanent digitalisation that will facilitate and improve the transformation of mature economies with the capacity and need for global leadership, as is the case with European industry, and will open up new horizons for the EU.

The translation of all this into new economic strategies – and institutional ones, which are the ones that support its final viability – with which to create companies and, therefore, jobs.
What strategies? In the case of the circular economy and waste management, growth lines directly related to energy transition and sustainability, which are part of the destination of investments programmed in the European Green Pact.

These investments, which started in December with 100 billion euros when they were presented, are now extraordinarily boosted by the Commission President’s proposal for a Reconstruction Fund, which, if approved, could provide Spain with 141 billion euros, 77 billion of which would be non-refundable, precisely to develop investments in digitalisation and the Green Pact.

It is true that it is necessary to go further in improving the strategy of the circular economy and waste management – in fact, this last preliminary project is in the process of being made public – because the cycles – reduction, reuse and recycling – must really be complied with and energy recovery must be facilitated.

Let us think about the waste generated by cities and their energy use in an almost integral manner, with an enormous reduction in the pollution they produce – we could almost talk about elimination – and what they would contribute to, for example, the development of infrastructures and new sustainable construction lines.

They are sites of activity and employment that represent an almost integral change of model and that have extraordinary possibilities at regional and municipal levels. And it seems that, for once, bad circumstances – such as this COVID-19 pandemic – may open the door to opportunities to make a fresh start in the economic sphere with future activities for the vital, which is what we need, for example, in Córdoba.