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European forests are vital to achieving Sustainable Development Goals 15 and 6, related to life on land, and clean water and sanitation, respectively. Insights into the current state of European forest ecosystems, drivers of societal demands and other pressures, and their governance are essential for effective management and decision-making at local, regional and European levels. This briefing outlines the main characteristics of forests in Europe today and some key trends around their extent and condition.
To sustain their multiple services, forests must be both resistant and resilient. Resistance refers to a forest’s ability to resist or withstand external pressures such as pests, disease or natural disturbances. Resilience refers to a forest’s ability to recover and adapt after a disturbance. Maintaining healthy forests requires a combination of strategies, including sustainable management practices, landscape-scale planning, and proactive efforts to address the impacts of climate change. This way, forests can continue to provide the many benefits that society depends on, both now and in the future.
The ways in which societies, institutions and citizens relate to and value nature have played a key role in the interconnected biodiversity, climate change, natural resource and health crises we face. This briefing explores how to reframe the relationships between humans and nature. It examines how holistically understanding humans’ deep interconnection with other life forms and ecosystems could lead to new motivations to protect nature and accelerate the societal transformation we need to live well within the limits of the planet.
The Corporate identity manual provides a graphical style guide for EEA reports and online services as well as guidelines for a coherent look of other items produced by the Agency.
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.
Climate change is happening. To reduce its economic impact, adaptation and mitigation actions are urgently needed. Decision-makers need to understand their benefits and costs compared to not acting at all. This briefing summarises the main assessment concepts, key methods and related challenges and constraints, and provides practical examples of approaches relevant to the EU.
Textiles are on average the fourth-highest source of pressure on the environment and climate change from a European consumption perspective, as shown in previous EEA briefings . Europe faces major challenges managing used textiles, including textiles waste. As reuse and recycling capacities in Europe are limited, a large share of used textiles collected in the EU is traded and exported to Africa and Asia, and their fate is highly uncertain. The common public perception of used clothing donations as generous gifts to people in need does not fully match reality.
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.
Plastics play an essential role in modern society. However, their value chain is currently unsustainable, contributing to the generation of climate changing emissions and increasing waste and pollution. Reducing such impacts while retaining plastics’ usefulness requires a shift towards a more circular and sustainable plastics system. This shift can be accelerated by scaling up good practice examples and making improvements across the plastics value chain.
Secondary raw material (SRM) markets are crucial for a circular economy. This is because SRMs enable recyclables to re-enter the production value chain, which reduces dependency on primary resources as a result. This role is acknowledged in the EU circular economy action plan of 2020. However, if policy is to help establish or further develop such markets, we need to better understand the currently-fragmented SRM markets in the EU.
We’ve all seen the photos. Piles of plastic waste drifting in the open sea. A daily tide of plastic and other detritus washed up on our beaches. Scenes of turtles and fish tangled in discarded fishing nets. Yet all of it is preventable. This web report traces the problem of marine litter from source to sea to help policymakers and citizens understand what we can do about it.
A tremendous effort has been already invested in soil monitoring in Europe, at country and at EU levels. However, there is no comprehensive and updated body of knowledge for identifying healthy soils and those that are degraded and require protection.
SPD 2023-2025 adopted by EEA’s Management Board at its 97th meeting on 8th December 2022
Advancing towards climate resilience in Europe: status of reported national adaptation actions in 2021
Plastic is used in many ways and in large quantities across Europe. Environmental concerns make this a key focus for policy. Currently, most policy actions focus on plastic packaging, even though a large proportion of plastics are used for non-packaging applications, such as construction, furniture and consumer electronics. Improved reporting on the flows of non-packaging plastics is needed to inform the development of effective policies and measures that target this significant waste stream and increase resource efficiency, in line with the aims of the circular economy action plan.
The zero pollution action plan is a cornerstone of the EU’s ambitions to improve the well-being and health of citizens and future generations under the European Green Deal. It sets out the vision that by 2050, the EU should have reduced pollution to the extent that it no longer harms human health and natural ecosystems. This is translated into key 2030 targets to speed up reducing pollution at source. The European Environment Agency has produced this zero pollution monitoring assessment to assess progress towards these targets and to support the Commission in the delivery of the long-term vision of a non-toxic environment.
Biodiversity is strongly declining in Europe and across the world. To reverse this, we need to use all available tools to strengthen actions taken by governments, businesses and consumers. Public policy tools (such as establishing nature reserves, regulating hunting and fishing, and providing support for biodiversity-friendly farming) are widely used to tackle biodiversity loss. However, the actions of consumers and businesses are also very important. This briefing focuses on key areas for further development to build the knowledge that is needed to finance biodiversity.
This briefing provides an overview of the key sources of methane (CH4) in the EU and the trends in and drivers of emissions since 1990. It looks at projections, policies and measures implemented, and relevant EU legislation in force and forthcoming. It also describes the main EU and international policy processes for reducing CH4 emissions, which contribute to achieving the objectives of the Paris Agreement and climate neutrality. The EEA has developed a ‘methane emissions’ visualisation tool to underpin the briefing, where users can see countries’ CH4 emissions as reported in their greenhouse gas inventories.
EEA Signals 2022 takes a broad look at energy and sustainability in a Europe that recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, faced with a war in Ukraine and committed to ambitious goals on protecting the climate, nature and people’s health.
Air pollution is the largest environmental health risk in Europe and significantly impacts the health of the European population, particularly in urban areas. While emissions of key air pollutants and their concentrations in ambient air have fallen significantly over the past two decades in Europe, air quality remains poor in many areas.
For references, please go to https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/latest or scan the QR code.
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