13 Environmental Technologies Action Plan
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5864/04
COM(04) 38
| Commission Communication: Stimulating Technologies for Sustainable Development: An Environmental Technologies Action Plan for the European Union
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| Legal base | — |
| Document originated | 28 January 2004
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| Deposited in Parliament | 6 February 2004
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| Department | Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
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| Basis of consideration | EM of 26 February 2004
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| Previous Committee Report | None
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| To be discussed in Council | No date set
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| Committee's assessment | Politically important
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| Committee's decision | Cleared
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Background
13.1 According to the Commission, sustainable development is one
of the Community's core objectives, in addition to which the European
Council has recognised that environmental technologies can play
a key role in creating the necessary synergies between environmental
protection and economic growth. The Commission has therefore
put forward in this Communication an Environmental Technologies
Action Plan (ETAP), which would aim to remove any obstacles to
realising the full potential of such technologies, to ensure that
the Community takes a leading role over the coming years in developing
and applying them, and to mobilise support for these objectives.
The current document
13.2 In introducing the proposed Action Plan, the Commission highlights
a number of general factors which it regards as important, and
which it says underpin the Plan. These include the diverse nature
of environmental technologies, and hence their potential use in
a wide range of economic sectors; the existence of many potentially
significant, but currently under-used, technologies; the role
which targeted and effective incentives can play; the extent to
which investment in environmental technologies can be helped by
reducing uncertainty about future market developments; and the
importance of building on the experience and commitment of different
stakeholders, and of optimising the use of different policy instruments.
The Commission also notes that some of the measures needed may
take time to affect investment decisions, and that it is therefore
necessary to take action if there is to be a significant impact
in the medium to longer term.
13.3 The actions proposed in the Plan itself fall
into the following three main areas, and, in each of these, the
Commission suggests a number of priorities.
GETTING FROM RESEARCH TO MARKETS
13.4 Priority actions would include:
- increasing and focussing research,
demonstration and dissemination, and improving co-ordination of
relevant programmes, through the linking of research and demonstration
funding;
- establishing technology platforms, which would
bring together all interested stakeholders to develop and promote
a specific technology or solve particular issues; and
- establishing European networks of technology
testing, performance verification and standardisation, so as to
increase the confidence of purchasers in new technologies.
The Commission also suggests that other potential
actions could include developing a Community catalogue of existing
directories and databases on environmental technologies, and ensuring
that new and revised standards are performance-related.
IMPROVING MARKET CONDITIONS
13.5 The Commission places emphasis on:
- developing and agreeing performance
targets for key products, processes and services (such as emissions
standards for cars, or energy efficiency standards for refrigerators);
- mobilising financial instruments, such as loans,
guarantee mechanisms and venture capital, so as to share the risks
of investing in environmental technologies;
- reviewing guidelines on state aids to see whether
these inhibit investment in environmental technologies;
- reviewing environmentally harmful subsidies which
may distort prices and hence act as a barrier to investment in
the technologies concerned;
- encouraging the public procurement of environmental
technologies, which the Commission suggests is a powerful economic
driver to their further uptake;
- raising business and consumer awareness, which
the Commission regards as crucial in creating a framework conducive
to the investment needed; and
- providing targeted training.
13.6 The Commission also identifies a range of other
possible actions under this heading. These include public-private
partnerships, the promotion of new business niches, financial
instruments for renewables and energy-efficiency technologies,
measures to support eco-industries, the promotion of socially
and environmentally responsible investment, the dissemination
of good practices among financial institutions, the identification
of opportunities to integrate environmental technologies when
capital stock is replaced, a review of the operational criteria
of the Structural Funds, encouraging the systematic internalisation
of costs through market-based instruments, the promotion of life-cycle
costing, and the investigation of technology procurement.
ACTING GLOBALLY
13.7 The Commission says that investment in environmental
technologies has the potential not only to increase employment
and economic growth within the Community, but to promote sustainable
development at the global level, addressing detrimental social
and environmental impacts. It suggests that the priority here
should be to promote responsible investment in and use of environmental
technologies in developing countries and countries in economic
transition, and that these steps could be supplemented by responsible
investment and trade.
13.8 The Commission proposes to review the Action
Plan every two years, and to set up a European Panel on Environmental
Technologies to oversee its implementation. It would also use
the so-called Open Method of Coordination to exchange best practice,
develop indicators, and establish guidelines and timetables.
The Government's view
13.9 In his Explanatory Memorandum of 26 February
2004, the Minister of State (Environment and Agri-Environment)
at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Mr
Elliot Morley) says that environmental technologies are a priority
for the Government as they have the potential to improve the environment,
whilst also helping to modernise the economy, infrastructure,
and production and consumption patterns. In view of this, the
Government supports the proposed Plan, believing that there is
a need for the Community to explore ways in which environmental
technologies can be more effectively encouraged, and more widely
and rapidly employed, and that the clear framework of objectives
and actions set out in the Plan should help to achieve this.
13.10 However, the Minister also points out that
the policy implications of the wide range of measures proposed
cannot be fully appraised at this early stage, and that work is
in hand to identify key priority areas for the UK and to identify
where Government action would be most effective. He adds that
the Government will work closely with the Commission and other
Member States to ensure that implementation of the Action Plan
is rapid, effective and proportionate, and says that Regulatory
Impact Assessments will be carried out in the light of any regulatory
measures proposed.
Conclusion
13.11 Since the present document seeks simply
to set out a framework for any further initiatives in this area,
we are clearing it. However, in view of the importance placed
by the European Council on the use of environmental technologies
to create the synergies between environmental protection and economic
growth needed to meet the Community's sustainable development
objectives, we think it right to draw the Communication to the
attention of the House.
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