Circular economy, free trade agreement and AEO

The OECD report (2020) International trade and the circular economy underlines that:

• “…At the regional level, different economies are considering including circular economy provisions in free trade agreements (FTAs). In order to implement these provisions, it is necessary to better understand the interrelations between trade and circular economy…”;
• “…Transitioning towards a more resource efficient and circular economy provides a way to decrease material use and reduce associated environmental impacts across the value chain. A resource efficient circular economy has broad interlinkages with international trade through global supply chains, end-of-life value chains, and services trade…”;
• “…thus, facilitating trade is important to support refurbishment and remanufacturing activities. Barriers in bringing back a product or a core component to intermediate repair facilities or industrial factories, or to re-selling a remanufactured product to another market, can impede circular activities and hinder market development…” and “…significant challenges concern the regulatory definitions and restrictions on refurbishment, remanufacturing and reuse that are often associated with the definition of waste. For this reason, products for refurbishment and remanufacturing require a standardised classification…”.

We’ll see (the hope is to see ita sap) how AEO will develop internal policies and compliance programm to guarantee high level of control and governance of all internal processes about a) classification; b) preferential origin as laid down by the new free trade agreements; c) new MEA (multilateral environmental agreements).