Participation of the PABSEC International Secretariat to the OECD Webinar “International Trade and Circular Economy”, 25 March 2021
Mr. Miltiadis Makrygiannis, PABSEC Deputy Secretary General, attended the Webinar titled “International Trade and Circular Economy”, organized by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), on 25 March 2021.
The panelists discussed the role of international trade in the transition to a resource efficient and circular economy. The presentations that took place, highlighted the findings from a series of recent OECD reports, titled “The Consequences of a more resource efficient and circular economy for international trade patterns” and “International trade and circular economy: Policy alignment”.
Moreover, they underlined that a circular economy aims to transform the current linear economy into a circular model to reduce consumption of finite material resources by recovering materials from waste streams for recycling or reuse, using products longer, and exploiting the potential of the sharing and services economy. Circular economy policies and initiatives largely take place domestically at the national or regional level. However, they have important interlinkages with international trade.
They also pointed that the international trade plays an important role in circular supply chains in materials and products, end-of-life value chains in waste and scrap, secondary raw materials and second-hand goods. In this light, they further presented and discussed the ways that the trade can contribute to a more resource efficient and circular economy and how would the circular economy transition have an impact on global trade patterns.