It happens that, when we listen to various ideas, look closely at ambitious plans or want to take part in important work, the essential thing is that first-rate professionals should be able to explain it all in plain words, so that anyone interested can understand whether and how much it matters and how to get involved. If “politically public sustainability” has been somewhat forgotten, the practical kind is right here, and rather than forgetting it we ought to get involved.
If we talk about sustainability without going into detail, a person with a good command of Latvian should have no questions – it is about something that has to be long-lasting, constant, unchanging, stable. Would that be the right direction?
I would agree. In Latvian this word expresses beautifully everything it covers. Ilgtspēja – to be able to last. Whether we are talking about business, or the country's overall economy, or the country's overall development, or about the actions of every individual – not to live for today, for the short term, but to live, act and manage things today in such a way that we can keep doing so for a long time, in other words, in the long term. Sustainable decisions today are those that help us to live and work in the long term.
There was a time when sustainability, both as a word and as a concept, turned into a buzzword used by many, who forgot that businesses had already been working sustainably for quite some time, simply describing that process in other words.
I have to agree a second time. I myself became acquainted with the concept and principles of sustainability and began working with them around 2010. At that time, if I am not mistaken, the Employers' Confederation of Latvia began organising training for businesses on sustainability: what it is, what we understand by it, how to act, and so on. Back then it was something new, a new word and a new concept that we were learning. Ten years later, sustainability suddenly became a buzzword and a fashionable trend. It was used very actively in communications, almost creating the impression that if you are not sustainable, you do not exist.
Why did that happen? The active integration of the sustainability concept into various pieces of EU legislation had begun. In 2015 the Paris Agreement was created with the aim of limiting global warming, and that same year saw the creation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals; somewhat later, in 2019, a package of regulation was introduced that we now often refer to by the simplified term “the EU Green Deal”.
However, we observed that setting goals and making commitments alone unfortunately does not “make things happen”. To change the situation, financial sector regulation was strengthened in the European Union, encouraging funding to be directed specifically towards those implementing a “green strategy”. Financial institutions (banks) began actively developing “green” portfolios with more accessible funding (for example, on more favourable terms, at better interest rates and so on) for companies that take care of both the environment and various aspects of sustainability. Companies were given both the opportunity and the motivation to start thinking and acting sustainably, because it gave them access to more favourable and cheaper financial resources. That was the moment when quite a few companies and business people, wanting to present themselves as sustainable, began to raise their profile on sustainability topics in the public arena too; sustainability almost became an advertising slogan.
Soon afterwards, requirements for non-financial reporting were announced in Europe – initially they applied to large, listed companies with high turnover and large numbers of employees, which, together with their annual report, are obliged to prepare a non-financial report based on the three pillars of sustainability already mentioned – how the company looks after its impact on the environment, how it looks after its employees and customers, and how the company is governed. We can regard this as the next wave of sustainability – companies began preparing to meet these conditions, for example by analysing and assessing their data: what can we report, do we even have such data, is it sufficient, is it appropriate. Some companies prepared very diligently, understanding that this would be necessary in the future; others asked: “Why? It is far too complicated and time-consuming, it is a great deal of bureaucracy.”
Having listened to the views of businesses and understanding that it really is complicated, very cumbersome and time-consuming, the EU agreed that the complex process should be simplified; that is how the so-called Omnibus set of documents came about, easing reporting requirements and narrowing the range of companies that have to prepare such a report – small and medium-sized enterprises were relieved of this burden. These reliefs gave rise to the next wave of public communication, with people concluding that sustainability measures had now come to an end, that nobody needs them, and so on. This mood was significantly heightened by geopolitical events around the world, where a “need to declare” that the Green Deal is nonsense and rubbish and is not needed, because what matters most at present is security and defence and only that is important, became a significant part of everyday politics.
In my view, these questions can be addressed very successfully in parallel. It is absolutely clear that in the current circumstances security must be thought about and taken care of, but at the same time sustainable activities and care for the sustainability of the country and the economy can also be pursued. For example, if we analyse why and over what wars often start around the world, and what peace talks just as often concern, we have to conclude that to a large extent it is about resources, their global sufficiency and access to them. Sustainability, too, is closely linked to the sufficiency of resources, to the consequences of today's management for the availability of resources in the future. When we talk about environmental impact, we always end up discussing the responsible consumption of resources, how and whether we take care of the ability of resources to renew themselves, and so on.
I will stress it once more – both things can be pursued very successfully in parallel: care for security and care for sustainability.
How can we avoid the all-too-popular exaggerations in discussions and decisions about sustainability and security? For example, so that in their enthusiasm for implementing ideas the EU or Latvia does not “shoot itself in the foot” by weakening economic security. If we draw up strict and harsh rules for our own businesses and residents while the world outside Europe carries on as usual, that will be neither far-sighted nor sensible. The war in Ukraine, Covid-19 and the fighting in the Persian Gulf region have changed the situation, and many thinkers are not keeping up with it.
Polarising a topic is a good tool for highlighting a problem or its urgency, taking the discussion to a stark “yes” or “no”, as if there were no middle ground.
When it comes to sustainability, discussions are often confined to “greenness” alone – it is the Green Deal, it is renewable energy, it is electric cars and so on. We must remember that sustainability is made up of three pillars and that success rests on the balance between them, caring and thinking equally about all three – about the impact on the environment, about care for society, and about smart governance.
When we speak about the international world order, sustainability, its purpose and rules, and circular management are in some respects being disrupted at the moment. From time to time we feel how everything that is happening affects global competitiveness. For example, if we look at plastic, which is the biggest polluting element in the world, plastic recycling in Europe is currently becoming uncompetitive, because virgin plastic is flowing in from third-country markets and is much cheaper. Recycled plastic is not competitive, because in terms of economic logic there is no demand for it. Businesses assessing profitability will always think about cheaper resources and cheaper raw materials.
It is possible that we will see a situation in which Europe turns to protecting its internal market (we cannot influence the global market), and possibly to tax policy and so on, in order to reduce dependence on the cheaper products entering the market.
Colleagues in the forestry sector highlight an important nuance that is often forgotten, namely overall consumption and reducing it. We hear talk of large amounts of food being thrown away; when sorting packaging, we remember that the yellow containers used to be emptier. What can policy and business do to change or influence consumption habits?
I would agree that changing consumption habits is impossible for policy without the involvement of business, and vice versa. Politicians think about regulation. One solution is to work on reducing consumption, which would be linked to society's habits; on the other hand, we, working in the waste management sector, which deals directly with the consequences of consumption, have to think about how to turn waste into resources so that as little as possible ends up in landfill. There are various solutions; one, understandably, is the legal framework. Another – at national level we have worked a great deal on educating the public and providing the infrastructure needed for waste sorting. Ideally, a good synthesis would be needed: regulation, which mainly applies to local authorities; a waste manager able to provide the relevant infrastructure; and a third party, which is very topical in large cities such as Riga, the building manager. Because between the waste manager and the person living in a flat there is the building manager – cooperation with them is very important. The more diligently everyone in this chain of cooperation works towards a single goal – high-quality waste sorting – the more resources we create (the more resources are reused); what ends up in the plastic, cardboard, metal and glass packaging containers can become a resource, because all of these are recyclable materials. How can we increase the amount of waste that can become a resource?
Speaking of the legal framework, it must be said that regulations are being drawn up in Europe that do not fight the consequences but “work” on the causes. For example, the Ecodesign Regulation requires manufacturers to choose recyclable materials at the very moment packaging is produced. I would like to stress that there are still many so-called composite materials on the market. The simplest and best-known example is the coffee cup you can buy at a petrol station, which appears to be made of cardboard even though it is in fact non-recyclable packaging that ends up in landfill. Why? A composite material has several components, and the inside of the coffee cup has a thin layer of plastic.
Similarly, when we choose freshly baked bread at the supermarket, we can take a paper bag... with a transparent plastic window built into it, which makes this supposedly convenient and, in many people's view, practical packaging non-recyclable. I think the examples I have named are well known and easy to understand, and they show that many things can be changed at the very moment packaging is produced, and that it is quite simple to do.
A few years ago, in a conversation with Gints Kukainis, chair of the board of “ZAAO”, I heard some reflections on the further recycling of sorted waste in relation to volumes, with a mention of sour cream pots: “What am I supposed to do with 200 pots?” How are these questions being resolved?
In 2023 our company opened a plastic recycling plant in Ķekava municipality, and there is also a PET bottle recycling plant operating in Latvia. We do have recycling capabilities; the question, in the context of the shrinking demand for recycled resources already mentioned, is one of throughput and capacity. A business will understandably think about the business side – how profitable it is to do something when the investment is fairly large. If in Latvia we complain that there is a lot of waste, or too much of it, then looking at this problem from a business point of view, the amount of recyclable plastic waste in particular cannot be assessed too optimistically. When we talk about waste recycling and reducing the volume of waste going to landfill, it is worth recalling that every EU country has a regulated volume of waste it may send to landfill, and that volume has to be reduced over time. In 9 years' time – in 2035 – we in Latvia will have to landfill 10% of the amount of waste collected. At present that figure hovers around 45-50%, so almost half ends up in landfill. Yes, the volume is decreasing every year, but seeing the quality of sorting and the recycling volumes we are capable of, it is doubtful whether we will reach the required 10%.
For about 10 years now there has been a debate in Latvia about waste recovery, that is, non-recyclable waste can be recovered by incineration, converting it into heat and electricity. In Europe this is nothing new; at present Latvia is one of only two countries where recovery does not take place. Estonia and Lithuania already do it. As we know, here the matter is stuck, because, much as with wind farms or with almost any infrastructure or production facility, such plans meet active resistance from residents. “On the whole we support it, but not here, not near where I live.” Where will such a place be, where can we find it?
When we speak about recovery, it must be clearly understood that this is not about simply burning waste, but about a process that results in thermal energy, which then has to be conveyed somewhere. It is logical that the planning of recovery plants is concentrated in locations close to one another; at present the discussion concerns Ropaži and Salaspils municipalities near Riga, where the infrastructure of “Rīgas Siltums” operates.
Forests and waste. Industry representatives describe the situation as consistently bad... How can that be changed?
Yes, we know about the problem too! There are several things a waste manager can do, and we do them. One is educating the public, starting with kindergartens and schools, where we meet a wonderful, receptive audience that “carries” what it has learned home and introduces new habits there. Of course, we also work with adults; I call it environmental literacy. Not so long ago, as a society, we learned a great deal that was new as a result of various economic developments; for example, the crisis of 2008-2009 turned quite a few people towards financial literacy, and later, as social networks took off, a large part of society learned and continues to learn what we call media literacy. Right now, environmental literacy is becoming more topical by the day.
In surveys we see a part of society that does not know or understand how important waste sorting is, or that says someone else should do the sorting; there are people who see no obstacles or problems in burning waste on the grounds of their private houses or allotments, and so on. Attitudes vary, and I believe that educating the public is an almost never-ending process.
Another equally important thing is practical solutions – how to offer people the most convenient waste management possible. One is that Latvia has a number of sorted waste sites, which usually accept bulky waste such as construction debris. We have our own construction waste collection and sorting centre, to which anyone can bring what is left over after renovation work. That, admittedly, requires transport. We run mobile campaigns (Tīrmāja), letting people know that on a particular weekend a “van” will be standing all day in the courtyard of an apartment block, to which they can bring things they no longer need. There are exchange points where you can take something that might be useful to someone else. At the “Nomales” construction waste exchange point you can swap or leave items left over from small renovation jobs, for example two rolls of wallpaper or leftover tins of paint, and so on. With this I want to stress that there are various ways of getting rid of unnecessary or unwanted things conveniently and in an environmentally friendly way.
The positive examples I have mentioned by no means rule out the so-called grey market, where construction waste or rubbish hauliers still offer their services, ready to collect everything for a small fee, but... you can never know where the things you hand over will end up; there is no guarantee. Nobody can promise that renovation leftovers handed over to such people will not accidentally end up in a forest on the edge of town. That is why I encourage residents to check the companies they use and, as the safest option, to choose to work with waste managers operating in Latvia that already have infrastructure in place – sorted waste sites, recycling facilities and various campaigns.
To sum up, it is about the opportunities given to society and the responsibility to make use of those opportunities.
In business circles, when the Green Deal comes up, it sometimes seems that a great many important things are going on all around, yet the green locomotive keeps moving forward without paying attention to anything else. The requirements, rules and penalties do not change. What, in your view, should be done so that the Green Deal continues in a sensible way, avoiding disruptive exaggerations?
Alongside sustainability there is another well-known term – the circular economy, which is essentially smart management. At present we live in a linear economy, which scientists call the path from “cradle to grave” – we take raw materials, produce things, use them and in the end throw them away. In the name of the circular economy we can already read a circular system – or, to use the analogy, a path “from cradle to cradle” – at the moment when it would be time to throw away an item that has been used for a long time, we start thinking about whether it can be repaired, recycled, converted, used somewhere else and so on, or whether these apparently useless things can carry on living by being given to someone who finds them useful. If there is an item for which none of the above applies, it leaves the circle (the cycle) and becomes genuine waste. The aim of the circular economy is to keep resources in the existing economy for as long as possible and to create as little waste as possible.
In my view, the shift from a linear to a circular economy is happening more without pressure from the principles of the Green Deal, and more out of an awareness of careful and sensible use of resources and of keeping existing resources in the current economy for as long as possible.
What can we do? We often find that we are already doing a great deal, even if we do not always call these activities sustainability, the Green Deal or other popular terms. At “CleanR Grupa”, for example, we turn around 98% of the construction waste we receive at our sorting and recycling centre into resources (we recycle it), sending only about 2% to landfill. Looking at the calculations and the company's data, we realised that we are a zero-waste operation – we work with waste, but we do not create new waste. Of course that is positive, but in the circular economy you cannot be alone; the others need to join in too. As we explored how to help and support others, we concluded that there is an appetite to change the situation more broadly, thinking, for example, about the national economy.
Looking at international experience – what is done elsewhere, and what works successfully in the so-called old Europe and in Scandinavia – we realised that the shift towards a circular economy and smart resource management works best and is most successful when it has been implemented successfully at municipal level. A local authority is the point closest to residents and regional businesses, and it can introduce any changes fastest. Through binding regulations, local authorities can steer residents and businesses towards a particular goal. In 2024 we introduced the “Circular Economy Index” in order to study the level of circular economy in Latvia's local authorities. To make the study as objective as possible, we organised it in two parts – local authorities assessed themselves, and we asked their residents about the same questions. The study was certainly not like a competition, because local authorities differ. You cannot compare, say, Riga, Jelgava and Dagda. As a result we produced something resembling a scale – the wait-and-see local authorities, which are still weighing things up or wondering whether to start or not, and so on; the group of practitioners, which is already acting; and the leaders, which do almost everything. In 2024 there were two wait-and-see local authorities, two among the leaders, and the rest in the middle – in other words, already acting. The conclusion is simple – the best way to do something is to start doing it!
This year the second Circular Economy Index study is under way; in the autumn we will see whether and what changes have taken place since 2024. What this index has prompted is that local authorities have gained data on where they stand in implementing circularity, and at the same time we have created a platform on which local authorities are beginning to exchange information about good examples and to learn from one another, promoting smarter management in Latvia overall. I believe that step by step and, importantly, in step with one another and in cooperation, we can promote both the national security that is so essential right now and smart, green and sustainable management. The key word is cooperation!