This year’s highest new entrant to our Hot 100 list, Ariadna Rodrigo, clearly has a lot of fans out there. Friends of the Earth (FoE) Europe’s Resource Use Campaigner (in effect, “a team of one person”, she tells me) was described with many a laudatory adjective by those who voted for her: ‘great’ cropped up more than a few times, as did ‘awesome’, ‘amazing’, and ‘important’, while ‘critical’, ‘radical’, and ‘tireless’ also had a few mentions, and, probably most appropriately, one commenter said she was ‘extremely resourceful’. Keen to find out more about the campaigner to whom such words could be so freely attached, I caught up with Rodrigo at a critical time for Europe’s resource agenda: the previous European Commission’s Circular Economy Package had just been dropped, with dubious promises to bring in something ‘more ambitious’. But before we delved into such policy issues, I found out a bit more about Rodrigo, and how she found herself fighting for resource efficiency at the European level. Born and raised in Barcelona, she studied political science and environmental politics at undergraduate level in her home city before carrying on her studies with a master’s degree in the UK, following which she stayed on for a few years. Initially employed at a consultancy working on international development and the environment, she eventually moved to WRAP, where she “spent a few wonderful years” on the Policy Team. Throughout this, as you might imagine, she cultivated her concern for the environment, volunteering for environmental (as well as human rights) NGOs, and taking note of the resource- efficiency activities (or lack thereof) going on around her. “For me, the whole idea of resources, and how we use resources, is pivotal, because it’s so linked to economic issues and wellbeing and social issues”, she notes, adding: “One of the things I did at the consultancy where I was working, was set up a recycling scheme, which believe it or not they never had! I thought that was crazy – they worked on environmental projects and they didn’t even recycle paper, and they had high-quality office paper!” She was also surprised by the contrast between our approach to resources in the UK and the general approach in the post-Franco Spain of her childhood, where her parents were very concerned with not wasting things, “wasting food was still a very major offence”, and water was (and still is) “a very hot topic”: “When I was in the UK, it really shocked me how we take for granted so many of these resources that are really valuable and they become waste very easily... One of the things that shocked me the most in the UK is the amount of waste generated. I had the impression that there was a lot more packaging waste – it’s all relative to the way people live. I left in 2011 when the recession had come on, but when I started living there, you could see there was a lot of disposable income for people to buy things that were single-use or short lived.” Given her background and concerns, it is perhaps no surprise that she now finds herself coordinating FoE’s efforts throughout Europe, “representing the network at the EU level” and “pushing the interest, the campaigns, that all the Friends of the Earth people do all across Europe”. The work involves “finding synergies” with different FoE groups’ activities, publishing reports and, of course, tryingto influence the policy process – which involves spending a lot of time talking to MEPs (Rodrigo was commended in our Hot 100 list for ‘put[ting] some MEPs right on how we manage our natural resources and waste’.) I ask her how she goes about it, and Rodrigo replies: “There are over 700 MEPs and I’m one person, so I can’t contact everybody – I try to contact those that are relevant.” Rapporteurs, shadow rapporteurs and committee members can all be key contacts, and Rodrigo adds that it’s not always the Greens that are most receptive to her approaches, as you might expect, noting: “Sometimes it’s useful to actually have people from a Conservative party pushing your message because it might be that that person is more convincing.” This is especially relevant given the persistent and perhaps intensifying focus on the economy: “We knew that the previous commission was not going to listen to any environmental policies unless there was a strong economic focus. What we see with this current commission is that this has even increased – from now on environmental policy is only valid if it’s economic policy too.” And while it’s quite common for the two areas to overlap, Rodrigo clearly finds this trend worrying, noting “you don’t have to put these two areas in conflict – if it’s good for the environment, in the long term, it’s good for everyone”. The trend is even more perturbing to the campaigner when it’s paired with a tendency to remove legislation in favour of voluntary targets – something Rodrigo fears will happen with the new commission’s revised Circular Economy Package, due by the end of the year. “The arguments that the current commission have given for the withdrawal of the package just do not stand up to scrutiny”, she claims, adding (without holding any of her punches): “Of course, everybody wants better regulations, but it is being used as a euphemism for getting rid of environmental legislation. We’re going to have these people in the EU institutions for the next five years, and it’s not a good start. We have Business Europe, which is an alliance of mainly quite conservative businesses, who sent a letter to Timmermans [the EC Vice President in charge of screening pending legislative proposals] saying ‘We want these proposals withdrawn’ and that’s what happens. I think it’s extremely worrying. As a citizen, I am extremely concerned about this potential corporate takeover. Who is governing? “I think moving towards voluntary targets is a bad idea – it’s obvious from most of the legislation that has voluntary targets in member states. A lot of member states don’t even implement legislation that is not voluntary, so I don’t think that’s the key to achieving the transformational change we need, which is fairly urgent.” She adds, however, that having a dedicated advice-giving body, like her former employer WRAP, can make voluntary targets successful where the government is behind the idea: “The Courtauld Commitment was successful because you had an organisation, WRAP, really pushing”, she says. “You had people spending their full-time work on that and companies keen to get some results.” Without that funding and government-backed support, she warns: “Nothing will happen.” It’s a far cry from what FoE would like to see, with the organisation last year calling for a zero residual waste target for 2025. When the previous European Commission proposed a 70 per cent recycling and reuse as a target for 2030, commentators from some quarters questioned its achievability, so I ask Rodrigo what steps would need to be taken to meet FoE’s much more ambitious target. “There’s a lot of scepticism that this can be achieved,” she concedes, “but we see from examples across Europe that it would involve not just looking at waste, but rethinking how we use resources and having an overarching approach. That means designing out all those materials that become residual waste – non-recyclable packaging should be basically avoided or banned... The other thing that needs to be done is we need a waste reduction target, and that’s something that’s been done in a very successful way in some parts of Europe.” Rodrigo highlights Flanders as having taken the lead with a residual waste target, though she insists: “If you don’t do it at a European level, you will always have a lot of materials entering the market that are not repairable, reusable or recyclable.” It’s a view that’s been backed up through the recent publication of ‘Preventing Waste’ by FoE Europe (with the telling subheader ‘Recycling isn’t enough for a circular economy’), which concludes: ‘Europe cannot face the challenges of a resource- constrained world unless waste legislation becomes part of a wider strategy to reduce resource use... communities dotted across Europe are starting to lead the much needed transformation. However, without changes to EU legislation these best practices can only remain marginal and localised activities.’ The document, Rodrigo tells me, contains “proof-of-concept projects”, such as municipalities increasing recycling to over 80 per cent, citizen-led repair projects, and networks of borrowing shops that “show what would be possible with the proper governmental support”. Now, we just have to hope that this ‘extremely resourceful’ campaigner can use her ‘tireless’ energy to get this ‘critical’ message across to the politicians before targets are set later in 2015. I’m sure she’d appreciate all the help she can get!