The circular economy is not longer an option, but rather a requirement for Basque companies to be competitive in an ever more demanding market and regulatory context. Adapting to carbon neutrality, complying with European ecodesign regulation and the need to improve environmental transparency have become key factors that will mark the future of business. In this scenario, the Basque Circular Summit 2025 will be the place to hear about the strategies and solutions of the companies leading this transformation, and where the challenges will be analysed that will define competitiveness in the coming years.

The latest Strategic Environmental Watch Report  by the Basque Ecodesign Center identifies the challenges that Basque companies must face to consolidate its position on market where sustainability is not a matter of corporate responsibility, but rather a key factor to access customers, financing and investments. Reducing the carbon footprint will be a priority, not only due to international undertakings, but also because European regulations be ever more demanding in strategic industrial sectors. The Basque Country has already cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 33% since 2005; the challenge is now to speed up the rolling out of clean technologies and decarbonisation in industry, affecting both large companies and SMEs.

The Basque Circular Summit 2025 will also be the opportunity to discuss the New European Ecodesign Regulation, which will require companies to incorporate circularity criteria in their products, from the design to their end of life. In the Basque Country, over 300 companies already or will have environmental transparency obligations, which includes sustainability reporting and digital product passports. Furthermore, over 250 Basque industrial facilities will be subject to the new Industrial Emissions Directive, which will require the best available techniques to be adopted to reduce the environmental impact of the production processes.

However, the challenge is not limited to production. There will be ever greater pressure on companies to avoid greenwashing and guarantee that their environmental communication is rigorous and verifiable. The regulation will be stricter for those companies that are not transparent in their climate undertakings or which offer unreliable information. On the other hand, the market will penalise those companies that do not include circular economy strategies in their business model, in a context where the lack of critical raw materials require dependency to be lower on external resources and for impetus to be given to the use of secondary raw materials.

The transformation underway will also have a direct impact on access to financing. European taxonomy and sustainable finances will be the difference between companies that can access investments and those who will see their capacity for growth limited. Managing environmental information will be key for SMEs, which will have to adapt to new requirements throughout the value chain, from assessing the impact of their products to alignment with financial sustainability criteria.

In its latest assessment of Basque business competitiveness, the Basque Ecodesign Center stresses that the Basque Country is favourably positioned with respect to other European regions thanks to its early adoption of key measures in the transition towards the circular economy. However, it warns that the public instruments that facilitate investment in clean technologies, private-public partnership and training for working professionals will need to be bolstered. These key points will be at the centre of the sessions of the Basque Circular Summit 2025, a forum which will analyse the sector’s challenges and solutions shared to guarantee that Basque companies continue leading the sustainable transformation and remain competitive on a global market.