Europe likes to talk about competitiveness and resilience alongside the green transition. Too often, however, these are treated as competing priorities. CONAI’s latest Sustainability Report shows they are, in fact, the same thing. Provided we are honest about what circularity actually delivers.
Let me start with the numbers, because they matter in Brussels as much as in Milan.
In 2024, Italy’s packaging EPR system generated €3.8 billion in economic value and contributed €2 billion to national GDP. The system also supports more than 24,000 jobs across the recycling value chain.
At the same time, it saved 55 TWh of primary energy, roughly equivalent to the electricity used by half of Italian households in a year.
These are sustainability results, but they also show something very concrete: Europe already has, in practice, a working model for managing its resources efficiently and securely.
At CONAI, we see every day a functioning model of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) that links producers, municipalities and recyclers into a single value chain. It is constantly evolving, but it works. And, crucially, it works economically and transparently, as it is a non-profit private system covering all types of packaging and all management solutions: from reuse and regeneration to recycling and recovery.
Each tonne reused or recycled means virgin raw materials avoided, energy not consumed and emissions not released. In a Europe exposed to volatile energy markets and fragile supply chains, this matters more than ever.
Sustainability, as I often remember, must survive economic reality. Otherwise, it is just wishful thinking. But let me say that, at the very same time, competitiveness that ignores resource limits is equally illusory.
Today, circularity is not yet delivering evenly across Member States. Italy is one of the European leaders in packaging recycling, but we are still operating in fragmented regulatory and market conditions that limit investment certainty and innovation uptake.
What a sustainable Europe needs now are harmonised rules, functioning unique market for secondary raw materials, and a regulatory environment that rewards performance. Without this, circularity remains a slogan.
That’s why the next phase must do three things at once. Make secondary raw materials genuinely competitive. Stabilise regulatory frameworks so that investment in recycling infrastructure is financeable at scale. Embed innovation, digitalisation and skills into circular systems at a European level.
In addition, we must stop treating local implementation as an afterthought, because the circular economy happens in territories.
The lesson from Italy is straightforward: when governance, industry and local actors align, circularity delivers measurable economic and environmental returns.
Ignazio Capuano is CONAI president
