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.
