The global environmental problems we face today are largely the result of human overexploitation of natural resources, including (fossil) fuels, minerals, water, land and biodiversity. It has become increasingly clear that Europe's prevailing model of economic development — based on high resource use, waste generation and pollution — cannot be sustained in the long term. Today, the European Union (EU) is heavily reliant on imports and we need twice the total land area of the EU to meet our resource demands. Many of the resources are only in use for a short period of time, or they are lost to the economy through being landfilled or downcycled (involving a decrease of quality during recovery operations).
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Despite some promising efforts to address the growing problem of plastic waste like banning plastic shopping bags or straws, specific prevention targets for different plastic waste are still not widespread in Europe, according to a European Environment Agency (EEA) assessment published today. Only nine countries have explicit targets in place for plastic waste prevention.
Plastic waste remains a huge and growing problem. But what is the European Union doing to address the issue? Ioannis Bakas, the EEA’s waste prevention expert gives a brief overview of the EEA’s report on preventing plastic waste in Europe, which was published earlier this month.
This report introduces several methods the European Environment Agency (EEA) has developed for assessing and communicating early RES growth and the important knock-on effects that RES growth has on the energy sector and related areas. The report provides specific information at EU and country level on estimated RES progress in 2013, estimated gross avoided carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and avoided fossil fuel use due to the additional use of renewable energy since 2005, as well as an assessment of the statistical impacts of growing RES use on primary energy consumption.
This is the third in a series of reports on the circular economy
in support of the framing, implementation and
evaluation of European circular economy policy from
an environmental perspective. The two previous
reports applied a systemic approach to framing
a circular economy and to the products
within it. This report on the bioeconomy
addresses circularity aspects of bio-based products and
the sustainable use of renewable natural resources.
In line with EU legislation, Member States report information on their policies and measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This information is used to monitor climate action at a national level. It is also important for supporting policy evaluation and informing policy decisions. This briefing presents the results of two case studies analysing policies and measures targeting energy efficiency in buildings.
Total ecological footprint is represented by the colored areas (as the product of per person footprint and population size); total biocapacity is represented by the areas within red lines. As of 2014, the EU-28 had approximately 500 million citizens, and a biocapacity of 2.2 global hectares per capita.
The European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (E-PRTR) is a web-based register established by Regulation (EC) No 166/2006 which implements the UNECE PRTR Protocol, signed in May 2003 in Kiev.
Total annual quantities of waste generation across industry remained generally static over the period 2010-2016. Taking the reported industry gross value added (GVA) into consideration, waste generation per unit of industrial output may be showing limited signs of decreasing.
Data on E-PRTR waste movements (off-site transfers) from industrial sites does not indicate any significant downward trends in industrial waste transfers for hazardous or non-hazardous waste over the period 2007-2016.
Based on E-PRTR data, the overall percentage of waste being transferred for recovery was actually lower in 2016 than in 2007. The recovery trend within different industry sectors is variable, but the data do not suggest substantial progress in increasing the fraction of waste recovery.
The CORINE Land Cover (CLC) inventory was initiated in 1985 (reference year 1990) to standardize data collection on land in Europe to support environmental policy development. Updates were produced in 2000, 2006, 2012 and 2018. Change layers were produced for 2000, 2006, 2012 and 2018.
Despite an estimated decrease of total water abstraction by 19 % since 1990 in Europe, the milestone set in the EU resource efficiency roadmap — i.e. a water abstraction should stay below 20 % of available renewable water resources in Europe — has not been achieved in 36 river basins corresponding to 19 % of Europe’s territory in summer 2015.
Around 30 % of the total European population was exposed to water scarcity conditions in summer 2015 compared to 20% in 2014, mainly living in densely populated European cities, agriculture-dominated areas of southern Europe and small Mediterranean islands.
From 2000 to 2015, in the EU-28, there was an absolute decoupling of water abstraction (-9 %) and the gross value added generated from all economic sectors (+53 %).
A rapid increase (+11%) has been observed in bottled water consumption from 2010, particularly in southern and western Europe.
The map reflects the most recent available information at the EU-level on implementation of the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive (UWWTD) in EU 28 plus Iceland, Norway and Switzerland based on data reported by the Member States (for reference years 2013 or 2014) in 2015.
The Human Development Index is calculated using three components: education,
life expectancy at birth and wealth. It is expressed as a value between 0 and 1, from
less to most developed countries.
The Ecological Footprint measures how much land and water area a population
requires to produce the resources it consumes and to absorb its waste. The world
biocapacity is the global productive area available on Earth (it decreases as
population grows).
Total ecological footprint is represented by the colored areas (as the product of per person footprint and population size); total biocapacity is represented by the areas within red lines. As of 2014, the EU-28 had approximately 500 million citizens, and a biocapacity of 2.2 global hectares per capita.
Plastic waste remains a huge and growing problem. But what is the European Union doing to address the issue? Ioannis Bakas, the EEA’s waste prevention expert gives a brief overview of the EEA’s report on preventing plastic waste in Europe, which was published earlier this month.
Despite some promising efforts to address the growing problem of plastic waste like banning plastic shopping bags or straws, specific prevention targets for different plastic waste are still not widespread in Europe, according to a European Environment Agency (EEA) assessment published today. Only nine countries have explicit targets in place for plastic waste prevention.
The European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (E-PRTR) is a web-based register established by Regulation (EC) No 166/2006 which implements the UNECE PRTR Protocol, signed in May 2003 in Kiev.
Total annual quantities of waste generation across industry remained generally static over the period 2010-2016. Taking the reported industry gross value added (GVA) into consideration, waste generation per unit of industrial output may be showing limited signs of decreasing.
Data on E-PRTR waste movements (off-site transfers) from industrial sites does not indicate any significant downward trends in industrial waste transfers for hazardous or non-hazardous waste over the period 2007-2016.
Based on E-PRTR data, the overall percentage of waste being transferred for recovery was actually lower in 2016 than in 2007. The recovery trend within different industry sectors is variable, but the data do not suggest substantial progress in increasing the fraction of waste recovery.
The CORINE Land Cover (CLC) inventory was initiated in 1985 (reference year 1990) to standardize data collection on land in Europe to support environmental policy development. Updates were produced in 2000, 2006, 2012 and 2018. Change layers were produced for 2000, 2006, 2012 and 2018.
This report introduces several methods the European Environment Agency (EEA) has developed for assessing and communicating early RES growth and the important knock-on effects that RES growth has on the energy sector and related areas. The report provides specific information at EU and country level on estimated RES progress in 2013, estimated gross avoided carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and avoided fossil fuel use due to the additional use of renewable energy since 2005, as well as an assessment of the statistical impacts of growing RES use on primary energy consumption.
Despite an estimated decrease of total water abstraction by 19 % since 1990 in Europe, the milestone set in the EU resource efficiency roadmap — i.e. a water abstraction should stay below 20 % of available renewable water resources in Europe — has not been achieved in 36 river basins corresponding to 19 % of Europe’s territory in summer 2015.
Around 30 % of the total European population was exposed to water scarcity conditions in summer 2015 compared to 20% in 2014, mainly living in densely populated European cities, agriculture-dominated areas of southern Europe and small Mediterranean islands.
From 2000 to 2015, in the EU-28, there was an absolute decoupling of water abstraction (-9 %) and the gross value added generated from all economic sectors (+53 %).
A rapid increase (+11%) has been observed in bottled water consumption from 2010, particularly in southern and western Europe.
The map reflects the most recent available information at the EU-level on implementation of the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive (UWWTD) in EU 28 plus Iceland, Norway and Switzerland based on data reported by the Member States (for reference years 2013 or 2014) in 2015.
The Human Development Index is calculated using three components: education,
life expectancy at birth and wealth. It is expressed as a value between 0 and 1, from
less to most developed countries.
The Ecological Footprint measures how much land and water area a population
requires to produce the resources it consumes and to absorb its waste. The world
biocapacity is the global productive area available on Earth (it decreases as
population grows).
Plastic waste remains a huge and growing problem. But what is the European Union doing to address the issue? Ioannis Bakas, the EEA’s waste prevention expert gives a brief overview of the EEA’s ...
