4.4.2. The Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris agreement on climate change serve as a pointer towards the common good, but there is an urgent need to adapt and extend indicators by means of a common methodology combining quantitative and qualitative parameters and monetising the impact of positive and negative externalities. The new set of indicators must include those touching on the global value change dimension, reflecting the European Union's values and challenges.

4.4.3. The most specific challenge is to link the 17 SDGs and the 169 related targets (which are integrated and indivisible) with the headline indicators already set out for industry, without overlooking any of them. This battery of indicators should cover both the valuation of individual performance (business entity) and sectoral and regional performance.

4.4.4. Cradle-to-cradle traceability of global value chains. The EESC calls for codes of conduct to be introduced for the internationalised segments of the European product or service value chain, many of which remain beyond legal governance. It also calls for closer market surveillance and for the introduction of deterrents or penalties for practices harmful to sustainability, such as tax avoidance and planned obsolescence.

4.4.5. Strengthening and democratisation of research and innovation as part of a bottom-up approach, as is the case with responsible research and innovation. More accurate prediction of specific sectors, region by region, and matching of investment with the EU's strategic objectives for 2030 and perspectives for 2050[3].

4.4.6. A fair industrial policy transition by 2030 means not only innovating for the people and investing in jobs for the workers but also innovating with the people and with the workers, getting them into decent new jobs.

4.5. Gaining ambition in the action plan for European industry

4.5.1. Necessary actions of the EU industrial policy regarding global value chains

4.5.1.1 A more ambitious “New skills agenda for Europe” is needed, reviewing the European Key Competences Framework for assuring that people acquire the knowledge and skills that industry requires to strengthen Europe´s economy resilience as well as promoting sustainable development (target 4 of the SDGs).

4.5.1.2. Private or public-private initiatives and measures in keeping with the renewed industrial policy towards 2030, harnessing the strength of the rewards-based pan-European global public network - in its various functions and territorial levels - through an extensive range of possible stimuli and benefits, especially geared to SMEs, which includes liberal professions as pioneers in provision and export of innovative high-level knowledge-based services:

● Public procurement (nearly 20 % of EU GDP)

● Support for internationalisation

● A sandbox for multistakeholder experimentation, support for prior validation of innovation solutions

● Clustering (sectoral, horizontal and vertical) and start-up incubators, boosting links between industrial actors in order to share and exchange resources

● Specialised, high added value mentoring, regular meetings between start-ups and established businesses in the sector to liaise on plans and initiatives

● Second chance: shock treatment to rescue insolvent businesses

● Special access to funding and public guarantee schemes

● Tax benefits

● etc.

4.5.1.3. Stimulating knowledge and consolidation of the new sustainable economic models[4]. Boosting social innovation (new people-centred ways of meeting society's needs) as a result of applying emerging 4.0 methods. Official recognition of the role of the new actors and fostering of synergies between the diversity of business models, together with planning and arbitration to ensure coexistence with conventional management models in an ordered transition towards a more sustainable economy.

4.5.1.4. Local development agencies and the range of tools they have must serve as motors for the creation of "microclimates" or "ecosystems" that bring together and catalyse the growing synergies between manufacturing and services, starting with the needs of individual people and of areas.