ETC-WMGE

The "European Topic Centre Waste and Materials in a Green Economy (ETC WMGE) has started its work to advise the European Environment Agency (EEA) on issues of a transformation towards a sustainable resource management in Europe during the next five years. The interdisciplinary consortium of nine European partners will particularly focus on the development of a comprehensive knowledge base for supporting the EU and its member states during their long-term transformation processes to increase the efficiency of resource use. The consortium is coordinated by the Belgium research organisation VITO (visions on technology).

The research group 3 of the Wuppertal Institute is managing two central working aspects:

• In the area "Waste Prevention and Circular Economy" (WP WaPr), the research group will develop indicators and assessment approaches so that waste prevention can be established as the first priority of the waste hierarchy.
• Within the area "Resource Efficiency and Material Use" (WP RE), the Institute will continue its successful analyses of the socio-industrial metabolism and contribute to the identification and assessment of resource efficiency policies implemented in the 31 EEA member and corporating countries.

Within the realm of "Production and consumption systems" (WP PCS) the research group 4 is involved in the integral support for the EEA in the analysis of specific sectors of the consumption and production systems such as the food system and the advancement of SCP indicators and accounting frameworks.