This week sees Europe celebrating the Commission’s annual Green Week for the eighth year running. Comprising 4000 participants, 158 speakers and 49 events, the week is going from strength to strength. It started off as a communications experiment with a view to discuss the EU’s environment agenda but by now it has become an integral part of the Union’s policy making process.
This year sees the Commission focusing on waste and sustainable production with the slogan, “Only one earth-don’t waste it”. Besides the continuing issues related to climate change, we are facing an equally worrying waste crisis. Even though we are producing waste at a much faster rate than we are recycling or re-using, there is a lack of awareness regarding the problem. As I have been campaigning recently for ambitious targets on waste reduction and recycling, I am glad that the organisers of Green Week 2008 have chosen to focus on this timely subject.
Green Week 2008 will also discuss biodiversity, climate change and the all-important challenge of reconciling economic growth with ‘going green’.
