Impacts & Opportunities
On 11th December, the European Commission published The European Green Deal, essentially its multi-generational vision on sustainability, with a strategy for achieving zero emissions and zero pollution by 2050. President von der Leyen described the Green Deal to the European Parliament as Europe’s ‘… man on the moon moment.’ It is the window of opportunity to capitalise on public enthusiasm for the green agenda and the key deliverable of the newly-installed 2019-2024 Commission. Hugely ambitious in scope, it proposes to deliver a draft Climate Law within the first 100 days which will enshrine the 2050 climate neutrality objective with a plan for how to increase the 2030 climate target to a minimum of 50% and towards 55%.
In an Annex to the Communication, the Commission includes a timeline outlining the various legislative proposals for achieving its stated objectives. These will impact many industrial sectors – agriculture, food, energy, construction, chemicals, among others – and require significant investment to realise. The Commission will also publish an EU industrial strategy in March 2020 as well as a Circular Economy Plan focusing on resource intensive industries and different initiatives to stimulate lead markets for climate neutral and circular products in energy intensive industrial sectors. The Deal proposes a Green Financing Strategy by mid-2020 and a package of legislative proposals on how to achieve the 2030 emissions targets by 2021.