Publication

Chemicals are embedded in practically every single manufactured good in the EU. On the one hand, chemicals play a key role in ensuring quality of life and offer new solutions to deliver the green and the digital transitions. On the other, our increasing reliance on chemicals leads to serious problems. From creating adverse health effects to contributing to the climate crisis, chemicals come with a cost — so much so that we have now exceeded the planetary boundary for chemical pollution. Where do we go from here? This briefing describes the systemic use of chemicals across Europe’s current systems of production and consumption. Moreover, it discusses key policy measures foreseen in the European Green Deal’s Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability that offer significant potential to ensure consumer safety, cut pollution and clean up material flows.

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The EU has set ambitious targets to improve municipal waste management. EU Member States need effective strategies and policy instruments to achieve these targets. This briefing provides an overview of some of the main instruments used across the EU and the performance of Member States so far.

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The COVID-19 pandemic transformed our traditional understanding of ‘work’ and pushed us to embrace new ways of working. Instead of the daily commute to the office, many people are choosing to work from home or a 'third place'. This briefing builds on the outcome of a participatory foresight process and desk research to examine how teleworking could affect our daily lives, our health and the environment.

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Europe aims to become a circular economy. To encourage this, the EU has set targets for the 27 Member States (EU-27) to increase recycling and reduce landfilling. Specifically, by 2025, 55% of municipal waste and 65% of packaging waste must be prepared for re-use or recycled. This briefing assesses Member States’ prospects of meeting these targets and its findings constitute the basis of the European Commission’s 2023 early warning report.

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The EU has met its target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2020, compared with 1990 levels. However, meeting targets for 2030 and beyond requires a doubling of the annual reduction in greenhouse gas emissions achieved between 2005 and 2020. Heating and cooling account for half of the final EU energy use. With energy used for heating being significant, decarbonising heating is therefore critical. Solutions to save energy and introduce efficient, renewable heating and cooling systems exist and must be rolled out faster. This briefing looks at heating and cooling trends across the EU. It highlights the twin benefits — for climate mitigation and security of supply — of combining energy efficiency and conservation measures with rapidly switching to renewable and waste energy use in heating and cooling.

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