The European Union wants to work with India on issues of resource efficiency and circular economy, a European Commission official said on Friday.
Astrid Schomaker, Director, Global Sustainable Development, Directorate General for Environment, European Commission Brussels, said the EU is looking forward to engaging with India as it moves towards the presidency of the G-20 in 2022.
She was speaking at a webinar on 'Resource efficiency for greening of recovery and fostering sustainable economic growth in a resource constrained world'.
"We urge all international partners to look forward to putting in place more robust and green national recovery strategies. This will give our societies a sense of direction and purpose towards more sustainability and therefore it is good to see that India has announced a significant post-COVID economic stimulus package with inclusion of resource efficiency into strategies across various sectors," she said.
Schomaker further said COVID-19 has demonstrated the need for the world to come together to fight it but also rebuild their economies and EU stands ready to work with India to scale up our partnership by exchanging knowledge, expertise and creating more business opportunities.
"This is the context with which we are working towards the second phase of the resource efficiency initiative to follow up on the ongoing work," she said.
"The broader EU-India partnership on resource efficiency and circular economy is also more important than ever so let us give it the profile it deserves and ensure that it has the backing of the political leaders by formally adopting it at the next India-EU summit," she said.
RP Gupta, Secretary at the Environment Ministry, said the ministry is partnering with the EU on resource efficiency under the joint declaration of intent with EU-REI initiative.
"The Indian government has recognised the need for integrated resource efficiency. In this regard the ministry has formulated a draft policy for resource efficiency that aims to provide an overarching policy framework to enable efficient use of resources and upcycling of wastes across all sectors," he said.
Noting that the green economy is a development strategy that harmonises both economic development and ecological sustainability, Gupta said the actions aimed at driving the economy have to be so designed that they yield results in the short as well as medium and long terms.
"Resource efficiency provides opportunities that not only address resource constraint and environment concerns but also drive transformative benefits for business," he said.
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