7th European Environmental Evaluators Network Forum: The impact of evaluating environment and climate policies

Dates: Thursday 22 and Friday 23 November 2018
Venue: European Economic and Social Committee, Brussels, Belgium
Co-hosted by: European Economic and Social Committee and European Environment Agency

Agenda

The final agenda and link to the event subpage with presentations from the event are available below:

Agenda (last  modified: 20 November 2018)

Speakers' presentations

Event themes

In order to achieve the goal set out in the 7th Environment Action Programme of “living well, within the limits of our planet”, the European Union and its members states have put in place a range of environment and climate policies. These seek to address the challenge of turning Europe into a resource-efficient, green and low-carbon economy. The 2018 Forum reflected on how environment and climate policies are serving these societal and environmental challenges, focusing on the evaluation of these policies and the impact of the evaluations in the policy cycle.

The 2018 Forum focused both on the evaluations of the impact of environment and climate policies and on the impact of the evaluations of environment and climate policies.

The following event themes reflected the so-called enablers of the 7th Environment Action Programme and provided the broad framework for the EEEN Forum 2018:

1. Better information by improving the knowledge base

Developing the necessary knowledge base is one of the key challenges to find out whether policies are effective in serving their purpose. Even more important is the way that developments in the knowledge base are communicated. Which stakeholders are being addressed by evaluation results? What do evaluators communicate and how should they communicate?

2. More and wiser investment for environment and climate policies

If we want to increase the efficiency of our investments, we need to improve knowledge on the socio-economic impact of environment and climate policies. Do evaluations sufficiently address these socio-economic aspects? As the focus on finance and investments for sustainability intensifies (not least the Sustainable Development Goals), what are the challenges for the evaluation community?

3. Better implementation of legislation

As environment and climate policies are developed and implemented at many levels – international, European, national, regional, local – there are many different levels at which legislation is being evaluated. What can the European environmental evaluation community learn from others, including international, national, or regional actors? What can be learned from other policy areas? Can we learn from the different methodologies being used and their impact?

4. Full integration of environmental requirements and considerations into other policies

How do evaluations of environment and climate policies address the challenges of the future, including the fact that many policies are interlinked and that we experience synergies and trade-offs between them? How do evaluations deal with the integration dimension? Does the integration dimension influence the methodologies needed? How do evaluations deal with the need for systemic approaches needed for the transition towards circular economy, bioeconomy, low-carbon economy?

Invited speakers included:

• Luca Jahier, President of the European Economic and Social Committee
• Hans Bruyninckx, Executive Director of the European Environment Agency
• Daniel Calleja Crespo, Director-General DG Environment
• Andreas Kopp, Member of the Regulatory Scrutiny Board
• Patrick ten Brink, Director of EU Policy, European Environmental Bureau
• Felix Poetschke, Press officer for the German Environment Agency

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The event was co-hosted by the European Economic and Social Committee and the European Environment Agency.

Contact

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About EEEN Fora

The purpose of the international Environmental Evaluators Network (EEN) is to advance the practice, policy and theory of evaluating environmental programmes, policies and other interventions. Since 2012, the European Environmental Evaluators Network (EEEN) has been organising Fora to promote more systematic and collective learning in these areas.

The EEEN Advisory Group

• Kris Bachus - University of Leuven
• Philippe Cuisson - European Economic and Social Committee (2018 EEEN Forum co-host)
• Matthias Duwe - Ecologic Institute
• Lisa Eriksson - Swedish Environmental Protection Agency
• Jenny Faichney - Scottish Environment Protection Agency
• Andrew Farmer - Institute for European Environmental Policy
• Odile Heddebaut - IFSTTAR
• Paula Kivimaa - University of Sussex & Finnish Environment Institute
• Eeva Primmer - Finnish Environment Institute
• Andrew Pullin - Collaboration for Environmental Evidence
• Georg Rebernig - Environment Agency Austria
• Marleen Van Steertegem - Flemish Environment Agency

Previous EEEN Fora

• EEEN 2017
• EEEN 2016
• EEEN 2015
• EEEN 2014
• EEEN 2013
• EEEN 2012