21. Points out that resource efficiency could help EU businesses exploit markets in fast-growing eco-industries, but notes that investment in innovative business models is, in many cases, not properly provided for; calls on the Commission to establish an appropriate political basis for the circular economy; calls on the Commission and the European Investment Bank to ensure that the European Fund for Strategic Investment (EFSI) supports resource and energy efficiency objectives – including improved energy efficiency of buildings (including social housing) and the development of environmentally sustainable and innovative SMEs, start-ups ...[+++]and entrepreneurs – and strengthens advisory services on resource efficiency; calls for funding allocated from the EU Programme for the Competitiveness of Enterprises and SMEs (COSME), Horizon 2020 and the European Structural and Investment Funds to be more focused on developing sustainable, innovative and resource-efficient solutions and new business models (such as leasing or product-service systems), and on improving product design and material efficiency in product and process performance; calls on the Commission to stop the use of EU funds for landfilling, and, in order to avoid waste of valuable materials and the creation of lock-in effects and over-capacity situations, to refrain from promoting and investing in waste-to energy infrastructure;

J. whereas there has been a huge and rapid increase over the past decade in the volume of financial transactions as compared to the volume of trade in goods and services, which can be explained, amongst other things, by the fast-growing derivatives market,

J. whereas there has been a huge and rapid increase over the past decade in the volume of financial transactions as compared to the volume of trade in goods and services, which can be explained, amongst other things, by the fast-growing derivatives market,

J. whereas there has been a huge and rapid increase over the past decade in the volume of financial transactions as compared to the volume of trade in goods and services, which can be explained, amongst other things, by the fast-growing derivatives market,

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 sustainability,

Although natural gas appears today as the diversification product which is essential for a healthy balance in energy consumption, capable of reducing CO2 emissions, its rapid growth on certain markets such as electricity could give rise to fears of the emergence of a new structural weakness in the European Union in terms of external dependence.