Circular Economy Act

The Ministry of the Environment has launched a process to prepare a new Circular Economy Act. The Circular Economy Act will replace the Waste Act currently in force. The reform will implement several items of the Programme of Prime Minister Petteri Orpo’s Government.

The working group that will draft the Circular Economy Act was appointed in August 2024. The aim of the new act is to boost Finland’s transition towards a circular economy. The act will be extended from the regulation of waste management towards covering the whole lifecycle of products and promoting a circular economy market. The aim to increasingly replace virgin materials with secondary raw materials sets new expectations for the legislation. 

Another purpose of the new act is to clarify the legislation concerning the waste sector. The aim is to ease the regulatory burden and create an operating and investment environment for circular economy actors that is as predictable as possible. Access to information related to waste and waste management will be improved as well.

The Circular Economy Act will also implement any new EU legislation to be introduced, such as the reform of the Waste Framework Directive and the Regulation on circularity requirements for vehicle design and on management of end-of-life vehicles. 

Working group to prepare the Circular Economy Act

The Ministry of the Environment has appointed a working group to prepare the new Circular Economy Act. The term of the working group is from 28 August 2024 to 31 December 2025. The working group is chaired by Anna-Maija Pajukallio and the vice chair is Jarmo Muurman, both from the Ministry of the Environment. The preparation process will be carried out in interaction with the cooperation group for the waste sector and circular economy.

• Press release: Working group to prepare new Circular Economy Act (in Finnish)