The CMUR measures an economy’s circularity. This is defined by the circular use of materials, which is approximated by the amount of waste recycled in domestic recovery plants minus imported waste destined for recovery plus exported waste destined for recovery abroad, divided by the material use. The material use is the sum of domestic material consumption and the aforementioned circular use of materials .
This indicator is directly based on data published by Eurostat and the underpinning methodology can be found in Eurostat (2021).
The EU’s circular economy action plan calls for a doubling of the Union’s CMUR in the coming decade. This policy objective aims to increase the EU economy’s circularity and thus benefit the environmental and climate. These benefits would mainly stem from the reduced need for natural resource extraction.
This indicator is likely to be a headline indicator for monitoring progress towards achieving the aims of the Eighth Environment Action Programme (8th EAP) , mainly in relation to industry-related aspects of the 8th EAP priority objective for 2030 set out in Article 2.f, namely: ‘promoting environmental aspects of sustainability and significantly reducing key environmental and climate pressures related to the Union’s production and consumption, in particular in the areas of energy, industry, buildings and infrastructure, mobility, tourism, international trade and the food system’.
No uncertainties have been specified.