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Report of the 7th EU-India Environment Forum New Delhi, 25 February 2015

Part of the audience at the 7th EU-India Environment Forum The 7th European Union-India Environment Forum took place in New Delhi on 25th February 2015 on the theme The role played by resource efficiency and the circular economy in meeting environmental challenges, with a focus on waste management (the programme is annexed). The Forum is jointly organised by the Indian Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Climate Change and by the Environment Directorate-General of the European Commission. It is dedicated to environmental issues of common interest to India and the EU, with the participation of relevant stakeholders, including central and state authorities, business and NGOs. This year's Forum was opened by the Head of the European Union Delegation to India, Ambassador João Cravinho, Additional Secretary Susheel Kumar (Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Climate Change, New Delhi) and Timo Mäkelä, Director for Global and Regional Challenges (Environment Directorate-General, European Commission, Brussels).

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Keynote addresses (from left to right: EU Ambassador Cravinho, Additional Secretary Kumar (MoEFCC), Director Timo Mäkelä (DG ENV))

Ambassador Cravinho underlined that the new Indian Government and the new Commission offered an opportunity for giving momentum to resource efficiency and better waste management in India. Both sides agreed on the need to decouple economic growth from waste and pollution.

The current economic forecast sees India as the fastest growing country in the world in the coming ten years. Whereas formerly countries tended to focus on growth first, now there was a clear understanding that environmental and social impacts should also be considered. Otherwise the result would be an environmentally unbalanced planet with major pressure on the poorest regions of the world. The circular economy should also be seen in this context. Europe's waste policy is becoming a 'zero-waste' policy and any residual waste should be reintegrated in the economy.

Ambassador Cravinho ended his intervention by asking the rhetorical question of whether Europe and India could afford burying or burning valuable resources, rather than reusing and recycling them. Additional Secretary Kumar explained that there were many new policy initiatives announced by the new Indian Government but that details had still to be hammered out. The Forum would therefore offer an opportunity for shaping the Government's thinking on the circular economy,

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particularly how to effectively address waste management. At the moment, everyone in the Government was open to new ideas, which – where successful – would be shaping Indian policy for a while. He continued describing two main deliverables that he hoped to see addressed out of the Forum's discussions. The first concerned how to shape an effective legislative framework to ensure an efficient management of resources. He noted that an advisory committee to the Government had made 75 recommendations to improve the Indian regulatory context and now the Ministry would look at them from the viewpoint of resource efficiency. The second deliverable concerned the implementing rules that would follow from the revamped regulatory environment, in particular for important waste streams, such as plastics waste, e-waste, end-of-life vehicles and batteries. These rules were often not well implemented. For example, only one percent of hazardous waste was managed properly and big multinationals and EU firms, while in theory subject to extended producer responsibility (EPR), found loopholes in the legislation. Thus, the Ministry had now embarked on a major overhaul of existing regulations, inviting comments from stakeholders on the drafts published on the Ministry's web site. Additional Secretary Kumar invited the EU and its Member States to support the implementation of circular economy concepts in India, particularly on waste management, and concluded by reminding that the success of this kind of gathering was to look at concrete outcomes – in fact, the 8th Forum should review achievements to date. Director Mäkelä presented the European circular economy concept and its implementation through eco-innovation, resource efficiency and the waste hierarchy. He underlined that planet

boundaries were about to be reached (exceeded in certain cases) and that climate change was posing a serious global threat. There was a need to use less and better our limited resources. Concerning waste, Director Makela underlined that six Member States of the EU had practically completely phased out landfilling of waste in favour of more energy recovery, recycling and composting. He underlined that the business case for better resource and waste management was compelling and that Europe had many good stories to tell.

The presentations that followed covered a number of aspects relative to waste management in India and Europe. J.S. Kamyotra (Director, Central Pollution Control Board, New Delhi, India) provided detailed information on waste legislation and quantities of waste produced in India. Concerning municipal solid waste, 130,000 tonnes produced every day, of which some 90,000 tonnes were collected and 15,800 tonnes only properly treated, showing the need to dramatically increase collection and treatment capacity. There were 61 landfill sites, 313 composting plants and one

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incinerator with a capacity of 16MW, operating in New Delhi (another plant for 3MW was being commissioned). Particular challenges were posed by hazardous waste and e-waste management. Some 42,000 industrial installations generated 7.9 million tonnes of hazardous waste per year, of which 45,000 tonnes were co-incinerated in 38 cement kilns, thus reducing carbon dioxide emissions of these plants. E-waste (or WEEE = waste from electrical and electronic equipment) was largely handled by the informal sector, with serious health and environmental risks in the extraction phase of valuable materials. The legislation provided for the application of extended producer responsibility to e-waste but producers often failed to channel the waste to registered recycling facilities and didn't implement effectively take-back schemes. Other waste streams mentioned included bio-medical waste (416 million tonnes generated per year and 380 million tonnes collected and treated) and waste batteries (45 million batteries were sold in the country every year and even if producers had the responsibility to pay for the treatment, in practice the informal sector took over).

Waste policy: a key driver for shifting to a circular economy, morning session (from left to right: Director Timo Mäkelä (DG ENV) (Chair), Marco Mattiello (Contarina SpA, Italy), Panagiotis Karamanos (EU Expert, Greece) and Seema Arora (CII-ICT, India)) Seema Arora (Executive Director, Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Development, Confederation on Indian Industries, CII-ICT, New Delhi, India) briefly presented the Confederation of Indian Industries, equivalent to BDI (Federation of German Industries) in Germany or Medef (Mouvement des Enterprises de France) in France, with 7,000 members and running a number of 'centres of excellence' dedicated to specific issues, including one on

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sustainable development of which she is the Executive Director. On e-waste, she was of the opinion that the framework was in place but what needed to be done was to implement it on the ground and, in particular, to convince people to do separate waste at source. Moreover, it was

crucial to involve the informal sector and make sure the "waste pickers" didn't crowd out the formal recycling market (as there was not enough domestic e-waste delivered to them, recyclers had to import it from abroad to break even). This was particularly important, as e-waste was expected to increase considerably in coming years. Concerning hazardous waste, she noted that the use of fly ash in cement kilns had brought down costs and emissions dramatically. Finally, on Smart Cities she underlined that a city that cannot manage its waste properly would not be smart at all. To further improve

waste management in India, she suggested introducing incentives and subsidies for bio-methanisation, composting and vermicomposting, and a simplification of extended producer responsibility rules, particularly at the state level. Panagiotis Karamanos (EU Expert on urbanisation, Greece) started off by underlining that there was no agreed definition of what a 'smart city' would look like, but thought that elements such as energy, transport, water, buildings, telecoms, public safety and human services should all be part of it. He underlined the projected increase of the urban population in India at the horizon 2025 (India would have 10 mega-cities by then), with all the consequences that this would entail, including in terms of waste management (for example, 20% of particulate matter was attributed to inappropriate waste burning). Existing projects funded by the EU showed that waste management solutions would profit from a focus on prevention, awareness, incentives and innovation. He concluded by presenting the work done by the EU Delegation in Mumbai in the context of the Mumbai Partnership to build a long-term cooperation platform between the EU and Mumbai institutions in order to address the challenges of urbanisation in this mega-city, and how this partnership could serve as inspiration for future work on smart cities in India.

The last presentation in the morning session was by Marco Mattiello (International Relations Manager, Contarina SpA, Treviso, Italy) who presented the waste management approach of Contarina, a public company responsible for the management of waste in most of the Province of Treviso, in the Italian Region of Veneto. Contarina served 554,000 habitants in 50 municipalities and had reached levels of source separation of up to 85%, generating only 53kg of residual waste per inhabitant and year (as a comparison, the average source separation level in Italy was 42% and residual waste was 285kg per inhabitant and year). Not only had they done this at a lower cost than the Italian average (€178.9 v €245.6 per household) but they also created jobs – from 58

employees in 2013 to 84 in 2014 in the city of Treviso alone. Two key political factors could

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explain this astonishing result – a decision in 2005 by the province not to build an incinerator and a cross-party consensus over the last decade in the 50 municipalities concerned to give priority to recycling. A third key technical factor was a combination of kerbside collection and pay-as-you-throw schemes, coupled with intensive awareness raising campaigns. Contarina was now aiming at achieving 96.7% recycling (equivalent to no more than 10kg of residual waste per inhabitant and per year) by 2022, de facto reaching zero waste.

Waste policy: a key driver for shifting to a circular economy, afternoon session (from left to right: Director Timo Mäkelä (DG ENV) (Chair), Marc Adams (IVCIE, Belgium), Renu Shome (EU Chambers of Commerce in India, India), Pilar Chiva (ARC, Spain) and Suman Lahiri (EBTC, India)) The afternoon session was opened by Marc Adams (Director ad interim, Interregional Packaging Commission (IVCIE), Brussels, Belgium) who presented legislation and practice concerning packaging and packaging waste in Belgium in the context of extended producer responsibility. He underlined that Flanders, one of the three regions of Belgium, had moved from a high reliance on landfilling and incineration of municipal waste in the 1980s to more than 70% reuse, recycling and composting in the 2010s, with less than one percent of residual waste landfilled. A number of factors could explain this change, but certainly major ones were the introduction of separate collection, a practical implementation of the waste hierarchy, and supportive legislation introducing environmental levies on landfilling and incineration, pay-as-you-throw, and take-back obligations under extended producer responsibility. A cooperation agreement of November 2008, which – despite its name – had binding force, required Belgian producers, importers and industrial consumers to achieve an 80% recycling rate for packaging waste. He explained that the

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collection of household waste (paper and cardboard; coloured and non-coloured glass; plastic bottles, metals and drink cartons) was managed by the municipalities on behalf of Fost Plus (the accredited packaging recovery organisation for household packaging waste), whereas private waste collectors dealt with industrial waste, under the supervision of Val-I-Pac (the accredited packaging recovery organisation for commercial and industrial packaging waste). The penalties for free riders could be significant – €500-1,000 per ton of waste not properly handled and criminal sanctions of between one month and one year of imprisonment and/or a fine between €6,000 and €12 million. Pilar Chiva (Director, Prevention and Recycling Area, Waste Agency of Catalonia (ARC), Barcelona, Spain) presented the management of waste electric and electronic equipment (WEEE or e-waste) in the Spanish Region of Catalonia. Legislation regulating the collection and recycling of WEEE was based on European directives and regulations, with adaptations to the local conditions of Catalonia. Producers of electric and electronic equipment could choose between an individual management system (10 authorised to date) and an integrated

management systems (collective scheme) of which nine were authorised since 2007. WEEE generated by users from private households or similar, was collected through the collection systems organised by the producers, either through dealers (shops), if WEEE were generated by the replacement of old equipment with a new one, or by local authorities, via collection centres, collection of bulky waste, etc. WEEE not generated in private households was subject to a different regime depending whether it had been purchased before or after August 2005. On 22 December 2006, the Catalan Waste Agency and the EPR systems signed a collaboration agreement, according to

which local authorities could voluntarily join it to help them effectively manage waste treatment by sharing in the cost of separately collecting WEEE (a new agreement was signed in 2012 to cover the period 2013-2017). Despite the fact that there were 375 collection centres in 145 local authorities, an objective set in 2006 for collecting 4kg of WEEE per inhabitants per year had not been reached – at the moment collection rates were hovering around 2.7kg after a pick of 3.3kg in 2011. As businesses have an important role to play in waste management, the following two presentations were dedicated to opportunities offered to European operators. Renu Shome (Director, The Council of EU Chambers of Commerce in India (CEUCCI), Mumbai, India) briefly introduced CEUCCI, which was set up in 1992 in Mumbai. It counted as its members a number of bilateral chambers of commerce (including the Indo-German, the Indo-French, and the Indo-Italian Chambers of Commerce); the EU Ambassador to India (currently João Cravinho) was the chair of their governing bodies. European and Indian companies representing various sectors are also members of CEUCCI. Director Shome underlined that "wealth from waste” was a growing industry in India and CEUCCI was instrumental in supporting European businesses seize on these opportunities through their facilitating role between industry and government. In fact, Chambers of

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Commerce and Industry, being close to both business and government, are in the best position to carry forward the acceptance of new concepts, stimulate a debate and then encourage all stakeholders to implement such new concepts in practice. She also spoke about other various roles which Chambers can play such as continuously studying the subject as it has evolved abroad, with a focus on its applicability in the Indian context; create awareness of the subject among all concerned and hold stakeholders conferences throughout the country; conduct surveys on various subjects under circular economy; sponsor, along with government, study papers on the subject; facilitate data collection and create credible data bank on the circular economy and effective resources management; finally, Chambers can institute biodiversity awards recognising the action of those who are most active in the field. Suman Lahiri (Regional Director, Eastern Region, European Business and Technology Centre (EBTC), Kolkata) presented the work of the EBTC in supporting the business, science and research community, in Europe and in India, to work together towards generating new business opportunities in clean technology transfer. Through its offices across India (in New Delhi, where the EBTC headquarters are located, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Kolkata), EBTC supports EU clean-technology companies and researchers on their market entry to India. EBTC has successfully developed over 30 collaborations in the area of clean technology which includes product

development, demonstration projects, project development, commercialisation, manufacturing, etc. He explained that EBTC is the coordinator of the Enterprise Europe Network (EEN) India consortium. EEN is the largest technology platform in the world, active in 54 countries, and with close to 600 member organisations across the EU and beyond. He underlined that EEN-India is being managed in cooperation with the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), which both have a wide network and reach across India. EBTC has undertaken multiple activities in the area of solid waste

management. He discussed key issues and challenges of the Indian solid waste sector and presented a number of specific activities in the field of waste facilitated by EBTC, including a cleantech mission in Leh and Kargil in the Ladakh region, along with Swedish Environmental Research Institute (IVL), a cleantech mission in Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala) by the Basildon Borough Council (United Kingdom), a demonstration project on biogas production from sludge in cooperation with the Swedish Environmental Research Institute (IVL), an e-waste recycling in Hulladek (West Bengal) through a memorandum of understanding with a Spanish company, and software development to improve the energy efficiency of industries and buildings from an Italian SME. The last intervention was by Luca Marmo (India Desk, Environment Directorate-General, European Commission, Brussels), who presented the Environmental Technical Assistance and Information Exchange Facility (TAIEF) of the EU, a project financed under the EU's Partnership Instrument. TAIEF has the objective to allow an efficient delivery of expertise on EU environment policies and instruments, often at short notice, in response to demand from stakeholders in emerging and middle-income countries in Asia (China, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam), Latin America (Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru,

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Bolivia, Guatemala, Mexico) and Africa (Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa). Topics covered included the vast array of EU environmental policies, including on eco-efficiency, waste management and water. Target groups were national, regional and local authorities, as well as NGOs and private organisations concerned with the implementation of environmental policy and instruments. TAIEF covered peer-to-peer exchanges with public administrations experts from EU Member State, expert missions, training seminars or workshops, and study visits. He then presented some recent exchanges supported by TAIEF, including an ASEM seminar on water management and workshops in China and Thailand on the implementation of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Today's Forum was also supported by TAIEF.

After intensive discussions and a lively debate among the participants, Alok Agarwal (Director, Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Climate Change of India, New Delhi) drew his personal conclusions of the Forum. He began by underlining that the issue of waste management in India was one of immediate concern, and limited land resources only compounded the problem. There were many local solutions, but there was a need to scale them up to make effective changes. He pointed out that no government could tackle waste problems alone – all stakeholders had to come and work together in order to achieve this. He ended by saying that the work of the Forum had just begun, as new ideas and initiatives would be need to make practical changes on the ground.

Taking stock of the day's thought-provoking presentations and answering Additional Secretary Kumar's morning plea for a concrete outcome of the Forum, Timo Mäkelä (Director, Global and Regional Challenges, Environment Directorate-General, European Commission, Brussels) presented his take-home message for the European Commission. He firstly thanked the participants, in particular the colleagues from the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Climate Change of India, for having actively contributed to the Forum's discussions. He was of the opinion that the debates had shown a bilateral interest in pursuing further a number of specific cooperation areas between India and the European Union on the circular economy, constituting a kind of roadmap that would now need to be implemented. He outlined the key elements as follows: 1) Supporting awareness raising activities, particularly of children but also of local

administrators and the wider public, about waste management options, especially the importance of separate collection for supporting high-quality recycling. A wealth of experience was available in both the EU and India, which should be fully exploited.

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2) Exchanging technical information on operating conditions and standards for landfills, incinerators (waste-to-energy plants) and recycling installations on the basis of best practice, with a view to aligning waste management practices with the waste hierarchy of prevention-reuse-recycling-energy recovery-disposal in the context of a circular economy.

3) Implementation and enforcement of waste legislation, for example on a) hazardous waste, where India had national legislation but its practical implementation would benefit from sharing best practice with European countries; b) e-waste, where European experiences on e.g. extended producer responsibility and take-back schemes could provide useful ideas to be adapted to the Indian situation; c) waste packaging and waste batteries, where there was scope for improving collection and recycling rates; and d) end-of-life vehicles, where the EU had developed ground-breaking legislation, resulting in the development of a new sector of the economy, providing green jobs and achieving high recycling rates.

4) Collecting already existing best practice and successful experiences in waste management in India, for example those involving the informal sector on e-waste and batteries, and evaluate their potential to be scaled up at the state or national level.

5) Contribute to the Smart Cities programme of the new Indian Government to support a circular economy approach, in particular concerning waste management and water issues (without forgetting energy efficiency, transport sustainability and the need to preserve agricultural and natural land from urban sprawling).

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Annex Programme of the 7th EU-India Environment Forum

09.30 – 10.00 Registration

Inaugural Session

KEYNOTE ADDRESSES Co-Chairs:

Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change (MoEFCC) and European Commission

10.00 – 10.15 Introductory remarks – Mr João CRAVINHO, Ambassador and Head of Delegation, European Union Delegation to India

10.15 – 10.30 Introductory remarks – Mr Susheel KUMAR, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change (MoEFCC), India

10.30 – 10.50 Circular economy and eco-innovation in the field of waste: the European experience – Mr Timo MÄKELÄ, Director for Global and Regional Challenges, Environment Directorate-General, European Commission, Brussels

10.50 – 11.15 Refreshment Break

WASTE POLICY - A KEY DRIVER FOR SHIFTING TO A CIRCULAR ECONOMY

Co-Chairs: Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change (MoEFCC) and

European Commission Rapporteur: Mr Panagiotis KARAMANOS

11.15 – 11.35 Waste management policy in India: setting the scene – Mr J. S. KAMYOTRA, Central Pollution Control Board, India

11.35 – 11.55 Situation, trends and prospects of waste management in India: a business perspective – Ms Seema ARORA, Executive Director, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), ITC Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Development, India

11.55 – 12.15 Circular economy and the development of smart cities: waste management aspects – Mr Panagiotis KARAMANOS, EU Expert

12.15-12.35 The role of local authorities in supporting recycling: an example from Italy – Mr Marco MATTIELLO, Contarina SpA, Treviso, Italy

12.35 – 13.00 Questions and answers / Discussion

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13.00 – 14.00 Lunch

14.00 – 14.20 Stimulating recycling and limiting landfilling: the role of extended producer responsibility for packaging waste – Mr Marc ADAMS, Director, Commission interrégionale de l'emballage (IVCIE), Belgium

14.20 – 14.40 Stimulating recycling and limiting landfilling: the case of waste electric and electronic equipment (WEEE) – Ms Pilar CHIVA, Agència de Residuos de Catalunya (ARC), Barcelona, Spain

14.40 – 15.00 Achieving a circular economy: the role of the EU-India Chamber of Commerce – Ms Renu SHOME, Director, EU-India Chamber of Commerce, Mumbai

15.00 – 15.20 Supporting business opportunities in the waste field – Mr Suman LAHIRI, European Business and Technology Centre (EBTC), Kolkata

15.20 – 16.00 Questions and answers / Discussion

16.00 – 16.30 Refreshment Break

Closing Session

EU-INDIA COOPERATION ON ENVIRONMENT

Co-Chairs: Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change (MoEFCC) and

European Commission

16.30 – 16.45 The Environmental Technical Assistance and Information Exchange Facility (TAIEF) of the European Union – Mr Luca MARMO, Policy Officer, Environment Directorate-General, European Commission, Brussels

16.45 – 17.00 Summary of discussions by Rapporteur – Mr Panagiotis KARAMANOS, EU Expert

17.00 – 17.15

Closing remarks and way forward – Mr Alok AGARWAL, Director, Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change (MoEFCC), India, and Mr Timo MÄKELÄ, Director for Global and Regional Challenges, Environment Directorate-General, European Commission, Brussels

17.15 – 18.00 Cocktail