Europe and the world face unprecedented sustainability challenges, largely as a result of unsustainable consumption. Since similar consumption patterns are expected to continue, technological and efficiency gains are likely to be insufficient to keep environmental and climate pressures within sustainable limits.

A more circular economy in Europe has the potential to reduce environmental and climate pressures and impacts from our consumption, but will require reshaping our consumption and production systems. This report presents trends in European household consumption and its environmental and climate pressures, and explores conditions for and pathways to a transition towards more sustainable and circular consumption patterns in Europe.

New skills development is one of the conditions for moving towards the circular economy.

However, closing the materials cycle while eliminating waste according to repair, reuse and recycle principles requires specific strategies and processes.

First, it is imperative to understand the skills needed to design and subsequently implement these strategies and processes. Then, we need to develop these new skills, both within the education system and in the labour market.

The study reviews recent analyses in order to understand the green or circular skills of the future identified to date in sectoral and EU-wide research. It also examines EU initiatives on skills development for circularity.

With the EU striving to achieve circularity and climate neutrality by 2050, this publication explores the Netherlands' target of reducing primary raw material consumption by 50% by 2030. This is all the more impressive given that the current global circularity rate is 7.2%.

The brochure showcases over 20 best practices from the Netherlands, with an emphasis on the transformative applications of chemical recycling. The toolboxes and strategic approaches presented serve as a pragmatic blueprint for implementing effective and sustainable chemical recycling initiatives.