Context: The Union Minister of Environment, Forest, and Climate Change launched the Resource Efficiency Circular Economy Industry Coalition (RECEIC). As part of this, 39 multinational corporations (MNCs) from various sectors came together to pledge to adopt resource efficiency and circular economy principles.
About RECEIC:
- The Coalition, conceptualised by India’s G20 Presidency, is envisaged to be industry driven and a self-sustaining initiative continuing to function even beyond India’s G20 Presidency.
- The mission is to facilitate and foster greater company-to-company collaboration, build advanced capabilities across sectors and value chains, bring learnings from diverse and global experiences of the coalition members, unlock on-ground private sector action to enhance resource efficiency, and accelerate the circular economy transition.
- The coalition is structured around the three guiding pillars of partnerships for impact, technology cooperation, and finance for scale.
- It also aims to contribute towards progress on key global goals and priorities set by the G20 and other international fora.
About Circular Economy
The circular economy is an economic model that aims to create a more sustainable and regenerative system by minimizing waste and resource consumption. It is a departure from the traditional linear economy, which follows a “take-make-dispose” pattern, leading to the depletion of natural resources and accumulation of waste.The focus is on keeping products, materials, and resources in use for as long as possible.
Benefits of Circular Economy
- Protection of the environment: By lowering emissions, consuming fewer natural resources, and producing less trash.
- Benefits for the local economy: By encouraging production models that rely on the reuse of nearby waste as raw material.
- Drives employment growth: It fosters the development of a new, more inventive, and competitive industrial model, resulting in higher economic growth and more employment.
- Promotes resource independence: Reusing local resources can reduce reliance on imported raw materials.
Government Initiative to Promote Circular Economy
- The Government has been actively formulating policies and promoting projects to drive the country towards a circular economy. It has already notified various rules, such as the Plastic Waste Management Rules, e-Waste Management Rules, Construction and Demolition Waste Management Rules and Metals Recycling Policy
- To promote the usage of fly ash and slag produced in the steel industry in other sectors by NITI Aayog. NITI organized an international conference on ‘Sustainable Growth through National Recycling’; prepared a strategy paper, along with the EU delegation to India, on ‘Resource Efficiency’, and four more on resource efficiency in the sectors of steel (with the Ministry of Steel), aluminium (with the Ministry of Mines), construction and demolition (with the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs) and e-waste (with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology).
