Eva Maria Bille is the Head of Circular Economy at European Environmental Bureau. She is in charge of the EEB activities on circular economy policy, leading the team and co-chairing the EEB working group across rethink, refuse, reuse, recycling all the way to waste.
Needless to say, EEB and RREUSE collaborate on different occasions; therefore, it was natural for us connect with them for our 25th anniversary campaign and gather their point of view on our collaboration and the future of the reuse and repair sector.
RREUSE has a really unique profile and is able to very skillfully bridge the environmental and social aspects in the reuse-sphere. Where the EEB gathers a wide array of environmental civil society organisations, RREUSE combines on-the-ground knowledge and lived experiences of social enterprises and reuse operators, with policy expertise and a solid understanding of the implications and opportunities of EU laws on their members. I have learned a lot from working with RREUSE, and always appreciate your thorough and considered input, which adds nuance to EEB positions and has helped us steer clear of policy recommendations that may have led to negative unintended consequences for social enterprises.
Through giving a voice to the social and circular enterprises, and giving their members the tools to participate in policy discussions, RREUSE brings solidarity and social risks and opportunities into the policy debates. By bringing their members together, RREUSE has a stronger voice at the table, a table at which pure business and profit interests often have more resources and more volume. Through uniting and collecting evidence from the ground, RREUSE is able to bring real lived experiences to the awareness of policymakers.
Life changing? That's a great question! If I had a magic wand. I would want the EU, and the world, to take a critical look at the resources we have available and the rate at which we are extracting them. In line with that, set a binding target for resource use reduction, that will set a policy framework guiding all other action - making extraction of virgin materials more expensive, forcing investment in durability, reuse and recycling, and ensuring that we respect the limited resources that we have.This is a pretty big wand and a pretty big ask - a bit more realistically, I would want extended producer responsibility schemes to have more inclusive governance, and to have the EPR fees cover more than just waste management, to also fund actions higher in the waste hierarchy and to follow the products where they end up (also if this is outside of the EU's borders).
What stood out for me at the event was the feeling of community. There were several generations of leadership and employees present, and it was clear that there is a shared sense of purpose and mutual respect across anyone who's interacted with RREUSE, whether employed or affiliated or just lucky enough to work together with the organisation in any capacity. It feels like a very people-centric movement, and I was glad to participate in the event.
