EUR 10 billion to support the Circular Economy in the EU

Frankfurt am Main (ots) - The EU's largest national promotional
banks and institutions and the European Investment Bank launch a EUR
10 billion initiative to accelerate the transition to a sustainable
and circular economy

Five European national promotional banks & institutions and the
European Investment Bank (EIB) launched today in Luxembourg the Joint
Initiative on Circular Economy to support the development and
implementation of circular economy projects and programmes in the
European Union (EU). This flagship partnership will target at least
EUR 10 billion of investments over the next five years (2019 - 2023).
The aim is to prevent and eliminate waste, increase resource
efficiency and foster innovation by promoting circularity in all
sectors of the economy.

The five national promotional banks & institutions are:

- Bank Gospodarstwa Krajowego (BGK - Poland)
- Groupe Caisse des Dépôts (CDC - France) including Bpifrance
- Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP - Italy)
- Instituto de Crédito Oficial (ICO - Spain)
- Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW - Germany)

The six partner institutions will combine their expertise,
experience and financial capacity to better support the
implementation of viable circular projects and programme approaches.
The Joint Initiative on Circular Economy (JICE) will provide loans,
equity investment or guarantees to eligible projects and develop
innovative financing structures for public and private
infrastructure, municipalities, private enterprises of different size
as well as for research and innovation projects. JICE builds on the
ongoing initiatives led by the European Commission to build knowledge
through dedicated working groups and develop financing schemes.

The joint initiative will focus particularly on investments in the
EU Member States that will help accelerate the transition to a
circular economy. It will target all stages of the value chain and
lifecycle of products and services:

- Circular design and production: applying "reduce and recycle"
strategies to design out waste at the source, prior to
commercialisation.
- Circular use and life extension: enabling the reuse, repair,
repurposing, refurbishing or remanufacturing of products in use
phase
- Circular value recovery: recovering materials and other
resources from waste, recovering waste heat and/or reusing
treated wastewater
- Circular support: facilitating circular strategies in all
lifecycle phases, for example with the deployment of key ICT
technologies, digitalization and services supporting circular
business models and circular value chains.

Quotes

EIB President Dr. Werner Hoyer said: "Fighting global warming and