Maroš Šefčovič, the Vice-President responsible for the Energy Union, said: "The Energy Union is about more than energy and climate alone; it is about accelerating the fundamental modernisation of Europe's entire economy, making it low-carbon, energy and resource efficient, in a socially fair manner.

27. The ‘Resource-efficient Europe’ Flagship Initiative aims to support the shift towards an economy that is efficient in the way it uses all resources, reduces overall resource extraction and use, decouples absolutely economic growth from resource and energy use and its environmental impacts, reduces GHG emissions, enhances competitiveness through efficiency and innovation and promotes greater energy and resource security.

3. Believes that, in a world with limited resources and a fragile ecological system, the European Union should strive to become the most resource and energy-efficient economic area in the world; points to the costs of inaction or delayed action in this respect and emphasises the huge economic potential for energy-efficient technologies and renewable energies on the world market, which the European Union is best placed to exploit; ...[+++]

3. Believes that, in a world with limited resources and a fragile ecological system, the European Union should strive to become the most resource- and energy-efficient economic area in the world; points to the costs of inaction or delayed action in this respect and emphasises the huge economic potential for energy-efficient technologies and renewable energies on the world market, which Europe is best placed to exploit;

3. Believes that, in a world with limited resources and a fragile ecological system, the European Union should strive to become the most resource- and energy-efficient economic area in the world; points to the costs of inaction or delayed action in this respect and emphasises the huge economic potential for energy-efficient technologies and renewable energies on the world market, which Europe is best placed to exploit;

A. whereas economies are like ecosystems: both systems take in energy and materials and turn them into products and processes, the difference being that our economy follows linear resource flows whereas nature is cyclic; and whereas ecosystems perform functions which convert waste into resources, by transferring energy from the sunlight, and whereas industrial processes are not able to do this; whereas, against the backdrop of rapidly growing economies and populations, production and products that lead to waste streams which nature cannot absorb and turn into new resources are increasingly problematic from the point of view of sustaina ...[+++]bility,