The European Green Deal has been presented as an ambitious plan to transport the European Union to a bright, sustainable future for chemicals management. But is it really?
The European Green Deal, presented by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on December 11, 2019, is meant to be the “boarding pass” for the European Union’s transformative journey towards a sustainable future. It’s designed to set the EU on a long-term voyage towards “reconciling economics with the planet.” It has been introduced as an ambitious roadmap and even pronounced to be “Europe’s man on the moon moment.”
With quite a few grandiose references to its planetary or even universal scale of ambition, the Green Deal is not shy of beautiful promises and carefully rendered phrases. Among other things, it vows to deliver a more robust approach to managing chemicals, including an EU industrial strategy “to address the twin challenge of the green and the digital transformation,” a circular economy action plan (with a sustainable product policy), a Farm to Fork strategy, a zero-pollution ambition for a toxic-free environment (with a zero-pollution action plan), and a chemicals strategy for sustainability.
Feeling overwhelmed and confused yet? Don’t worry. This long list of pledges has had quite an effect on the members of the EU Parliament as well. While some saluted it and expressed their pride in being European citizens after its announcement, others branded it as a communist manifesto in green and a call for revolution.
Nevertheless, on January 15, the European Parliament voted in favor of the Green Deal. The adopted resolution calls for an ambitious, cross-sectoral non-toxic environment strategy. This new strategy also emerges in parts of the roadmap on mobilizing industry for a clean and circular economy, as well as preserving and restoring ecosystems and biodiversity — some pretty strong demands from the EU Parliament. Now let’s see if the Commission answers this call.
Will the Green Deal really deliver safer chemicals?
This seemingly inspiring promise of a better, toxic-free future for everyone has a prequel, which hasn’t been all too successful. In fact, EU environmental ministers had already called on the EU Commission to urgently deliver its non-toxic environment strategy no later than last October. And this wasn’t the first time the demand was on the table.
Looking back on this chemicals and toxics saga, you will find yourself in the year 2013, which may as well be a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. In its guiding document for EU environmental policy until 2020 (aka the 7th Environment Action Programme, or 7th EAP), the former EU Commission announced its commitment to develop a non-toxic environment strategy by 2018. Then, exactly one year ago, the Commission announced it would be delayed until late 2019, moving it onto the plate of its successor. And here we are again with yet another promise to change.
Remember the long list of Green Deal promises slowly moving up the screen in the beginning of this post? Well, the roadmap of the Green Deal makes it much easier to understand these promises from the new EU Commission. In particular, the roadmap features three key actions concerning chemicals:
(1) An industrial strategy for a clean and circular economy
This promises a circular economy action plan and focuses on resource-intensive sectors, including plastic. In short, reusing and recycling materials and products are at the heart of this part of the Green Deal. But its Achilles heel is the lack of commitment to detoxifying the circular economy. Toxic chemicals are still found in recycled plastic (even in children’s toys!) As a result, toxic recycling is harming our health, reducing trust in recycled products, and delaying the transition to a real toxic-free circular economy.
(2) A Farm to Fork strategy
This clearly states that it will provide “measures, including legislative, to significantly reduce the use and risk of chemical pesticides, as well as the use of fertilisers and antibiotics.” Unfortunately, it makes no reference to endocrine disruptors — hazardous chemicals that are linked to hormone-related diseases and found in pesticides and other agricultural compounds,
(3) A zero-pollution ambition for a toxic-free environment
This incorporates the commitment to a chemicals strategy for sustainability and a zero-pollution action plan for water, air, and soil. Once again, the Commission emphasizes (micro)plastic and chemicals as sources of pollution to be addressed. Yet it fails to expand on crucial points that it had already promised to deliver in the 7th EAP (e.g., combination effects of chemicals, safety concerns related to endocrine disruptors, development of non-toxic recycling processes, etc.)
Will this “ambition” replace the much anticipated and inexcusably late non-toxic environment strategy and the new Environment Action Programme (8th EAP) now that we’re in this new decade? Perhaps it will, if the actions listed in the final roadmap (which is currently still an “indicative timetable”) grasp all the significant topics. But for now, it’s not the strategy on chemicals we’re looking for.
As a native inhabitant of the planet Earth, I’m excited and hopeful to see that the biggest consumer market (and a constellation of 27 countries) is promising to take a global lead towards sustainable transformation, and that it’s setting the bar high. At the same time, I’m also scared and concerned that it will not deliver. The Commission promises to develop something “deeper, wider and more ambitious.” But last October, the Council of the EU already called upon the Commission to deliver a more “ambitious and focused” 8th EAP proposal. Then, EU environmental ministers pressed the Commission to have “stronger ambition” and to set “bold targets” — once again focusing on ambition, ambition, and ambition. Don’t find my lack of faith disturbing, but words without action don’t make much difference for public health or the state of the environment.
According to the Europe’s State of the Environment 2020 report by the European Environment Agency (EEA), the EU will already fail to reach major 2020 chemical policy objectives and struggle to meet the regulatory challenges of the next decade. These are the very objectives established by the 7th EAP, which set a goal for chemicals to be produced and used in ways that minimize significant adverse effects on human health and the environment. Well, it looks like that’s not going to happen. In fact, as projected by the report, human exposure to complex mixtures of chemicals will probably continue to increase. The same is expected for ecosystems. On top of that, banned or restricted chemicals “will still contribute to further accumulation of persistent chemicals in the environment.” I have a bad feeling about this.
Now you may tell me that the Green Deal will reshape the economy and turn the whole chemicals industry around. But do you know why the non-toxic environment strategy has never materialized? In large part because of the strong opposition from the chemical industry. As the director general of the main European chemical industry association (Cefic) blatantly stated, “We don’t need new legislation, we don’t need a non-toxic environment. Sorry, environment ministers, we don’t like the word and we don’t need it.”
Internal rifts didn’t help either. According to the EU Commission’s Directorate-General for internal market, industry, entrepreneurship and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the non-toxic environment strategy “would set an impossible goal for industry and hurt the EU’s competitiveness.” And all this was said as recently as last July. Has anything changed in six months?
Just a few days before the official presentation of the Green Deal, a leaked draft revealed that the Commision first considered a worrying “chemicals innovation strategy,” an attempt of the dark side of the chemical industry to lobby through a corporation-friendly “innovation principle” and kill the non-toxic environment strategy (and, ultimately, the precautionary principle). Fortunately, the “chemicals strategy for sustainability” won over the deceptive “innovation strategy,” bolstered by NGOs, politicians, and country officials. But this situation still exemplifies the attitude of the chemicals industry and the extent of its influence.
The European Commission now has a complicated task ahead. It must follow up on its ambitious goals laid out in the Green Deal and ensure that the promises will deliver substantial action (and a real toxic-free environment), all in spite of the intrigues of the chemicals industry.
To that end, action — not just ambition — is Europe’s only hope.
By Ekaterina Mikhaylova, Legal Intern, Geneva
Originally posted on February 27, 2020