State Councillor Laszlo Borbely: “We need to complete the sustainable development strategy by the third quarter of 2022“

“One of the challenges of the Department for Sustainable Development has been to have a new sustainable development strategy, to establish those institutions and institutional relations and to implement the 2030 agenda for sustainable development.

I hope that the inter-institutional relations will allow the adoption of this strategy for the circular economy.

I hope that Romania will become a regional leader in the circular economy because we have this capacity,“ Laszlo Borbely, State Councillor, Department of Sustainable Development Government of Romania said during Circular Economy Conference organized by The Diplomat-Bucharest.

“We have a Sustainable Coalition with over 100 entities. The Sustainability Embassy handled this project. We have an official partnership with them and we have had many working meetings on the circular economy.

We have an advisory board of 34 experts with whom we have completed the indicators by 2030. We have an action plan on the department’s website with 98 indicators by 2030. At this time we have finalized Romania’s action plans by 2030 It is up to all of us and the institutions involved to achieve these goals.

I hope that next year’s Romanian budget will also include sustainable development objectives. We need to complete the sustainable development strategy by the third quarter of 2022. We have an EU consultant. There is a draft strategy that can be accessed, we are partners with the Ministry of Economy and the Ministry of Environment in this process.

The taxonomy being discussed at EU level is a kind of guide that teaches companies how to make sustainable investments with sustainable financing. We must use all our levers to recycle, to conserve our resources. We also have a timetable for the action plan until the third quarter of 2023, also through PNRR. We will finalize the Sustainability Code by the end of this year.

I had discussions with two important banks and I was pleasantly surprised to learn that they are already ready to support circular economy projects.

I hope that by the end of 2025 we will have 2,000 experts in sustainable development in Romania. We are the only country in the EU that has created the profession of sustainable development expert. PNRR provides a budget of 5 million euros to train these 2,000 experts. This year, through an ongoing European project, the Academy of Economic Studies will train 150 experts through a postgraduate course. 80% of the 2,000 experts will work in local authorities and institutions. We are also preparing the establishment of a Center of Excellence to ensure the expertise for sustainable development through PNRR.“

Full recording of the conference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oonbexyNmcw&t=9905s