Making EU trade agreements greener, fairer, and more sustainable

The modern EU trade agreements include chapters on sustainable development. Now, the European Commission published a new plan to make these agreements greener, fairer, and more sustainable: protecting the climate, environment and labour rights worldwide by strengthening the implementation and enforcement of these chapters.

This covers results-oriented and priority-based engagement with partner countries, more participation and support for Civil Society and a stronger focus on implementation and enforcement.  To learn more, please click here.

Over 80% of Europe’s bathing waters met excellent water quality standards

On June 3rd, the European Environment Agency (EEA) published the Bathing Water report showing that in 2020 almost 83% of Europe’s bathing water sites met the European Union’s most stringent ‘excellent’ water quality standards.

The latest assessment, put together in cooperation with the European Commission, is based on the 2020 monitoring of 22,276 bathing sites across Europe. These cover the EU Member States, Albania and Switzerland throughout 2020.

The share of ‘excellent’ coastal and inland swimming sites has stabilised in recent years at around 85% and in 2020 was 82.8% across Europe. The minimum ‘sufficient’ water quality standards were met at 93% of the sites monitored in 2020, and in five countries – Cyprus, Austria, Greece, Malta and Croatia – 95 % or more bathing waters were of excellent quality.

Learn more on the official website.

Have your say on better management of nutrients

The European Commission has recently launched a public consultation on an Integrated Nutrient Management Action Plan.

The Action Plan, announced in the EU Biodiversity and Farm to Fork strategies, will help achieve the European Green Deal 2030 target of reducing nutrient losses by 50%, while ensuring no deterioration in soil fertility. The objective is to reduce fertiliser use by at least 20%. Farmers, industries, NGOs, citizens and other interested parties are invited to share their views on this action plan via an online consultation that runs until 26 August 2022.

Check the public consultation here.

Step up your career in the water sector with the IHE Delft online courses

The IHE Delft has launched high-quality online courses in an increasing number of topics of interest in the water sector.

The innovative delivery format makes learning exciting, flexible, interactive and effective. Starting in 2023, early and mid-career water professionals can take two to three-week short courses at the IHE Delft Institute for Water Education to sharpen their knowledge and skills in topics related to current developments in the water sector.

The new offering of 17 courses will have start dates throughout the year and target anyone involved in water and sustainable development, for example scientists, engineers and policy-makers. Find out more.

Open calls for proposals under the Horizon Europe EU Missions on Adaptation to Climate Change

The Mission on Adaptation to Climate Change, HORIZON-MISS-2022-CLIMA-01, will provide state of the art knowledge and identify key remaining gaps on enabling conditions for building climate resilience in all phases (plan, respond, adapt).

The gaps include embedding digital technologies in climate risk monitoring, modelling and simulation, unlocking financial resources to improve the bankability of the adaptation solutions, defining best practices for the provision of climate-relevant insurance products, including in financial instruments to manage temporary risks, whether market or climate-induced, and untapping the potential of novel and innovative approaches to transfer climate risks to insurance sector actors.

Find more about the call. The submission deadline is 27 September 2022.

The EU Missions are a new way to bring concrete solutions to some of our greatest challenges. They have ambitious goals and will deliver concrete results by 2030.  They will deliver impact by putting research and innovation into a new role, combined with new forms of governance and collaboration, as well as by engaging citizens.

EU Missions are a novelty of the Horizon Europe research and innovation programme for the years 2021-2027.

New Eurostat Report shows EU waters appearing to have become more sustainable

The statistical office of the European Union, Eurostat, has recently published the ‘Sustainable development in the European Union — 2022 monitoring report on progress towards the SDGs in an EU context‘, providing a statistical overview of progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the EU.

The monitoring report presents short-term and long-term trends relating to the SDGs in the EU as well as analyses of the COVID-19 pandemic’s impacts during 2020, 2021 and the beginning of 2022.

In the monitoring of the SDG 14  ‘life below water‘, the report highlighted trends in the areas of ocean health, marine conservation and sustainable fisheries. Marine conservation efforts have increased and fishing activities in EU waters appear to have become more sustainable. Trends in ocean health, however, remain mixed:

🔹88.4% of EU coastal water bathing sites had excellent water quality in 2020;
🔹0.20% of marine waters in the EU’s exclusive economic zones were classified as eutrophic in 2020;
🔹In 2020, the mean pH level of global ocean surface water reached a new low of 8.05;
🔹10.7% of the EU’s marine area were protected in 2019;
🔹Between 2004 and 2019, fishing pressure in EU marine waters decreased by 35%;
🔹Between 2004 and 2019, fish stock biomass in EU marine waters increased by 30%.

Online webinar ”Water scarcity and water pollution” on June 29 co-organised with Climate-KIC

Are you interested in learning more about water scarcity and water pollution in Southern Europe? Water Europe and Climate-KIC are co-organised an online webinar on June 29 from 16:00 to 17:30 pm ‘Water scarcity and water pollution‘ to discuss how to tackle contaminants in water bodies as well as the available methodologies to prevent water scarcity.

The group of experts will explore issues related to water pollution and water scarcity in the southern European context with a series of short presentations on Water pollution and sustainability compliance of the new economic models, contaminants of emerging concern, PFAS, impacts from Nitrogen and Phosphorus discharge in water bodies and the available solutions.

A special highlight on the novel available methodologies towards the ESG impact evaluation of no action against water scarcity will complete the prospective analysis. The presentations will be followed by a panel discussion with distinguished guests from the utilities, food and beverage industry, policy makers and researchers. The final list of guests is to be confirmed.

The group has received support from Ana Rita Ferreira, Joana Costa, Piet Lens and Sanin Musovic. The work presented is based on the EIT Water Scarcity White Paper publication and wants to demonstrate the fundamental link between technology and economy

The presentations will be followed by a panel discussion with distinguished guests from the utilities, food and beverage industry, policy makers and researchers. Register for free at the event here.

New adoption of pioneering proposals to restore damaged ecosystems and bring nature back

The Commission adopted yesterday pioneering proposals to restore damaged ecosystems and bring nature back across Europe, from agricultural land and seas, to forests and urban environments. The Commission also proposes to reduce the use and risk of chemical pesticides by 50% by 2030. These are the flagship legislative proposals to follow the Biodiversity and Farm to Fork Strategies, and will help ensure the resilience and security of food supply in the EU and across the world.

The proposal for a Nature Restoration Law is a key step in avoiding ecosystem collapse and preventing the worst impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss. In the same vein, the new rules on chemical pesticides will reduce the environmental footprint of the EU’s food system, protect the health and well-being of citizens and agricultural workers, and help mitigate the economic losses that we are already incurring due to declining soil health and pesticide-induced pollinator loss. 

European Commission launched the LIFE Programme 2022 Calls for project proposals

The European Commission has recently launched the LIFE Programme 2022 Calls for project proposals. This year, there is €598 million available for nature conservation, environmental protection, climate action, and clean energy transition projects. The areas where LIFE funds projects are under its four sub-programmes:

– nature and biodiversity – €242 million
– circular economy and quality of life – €158 million
– climate change mitigation and adaptation – €99 million
– clean energy transition – €98 million

See how to apply here.

New Workshop on water and sustainable agri-food systems coming up on June 20

The Water Europe – Working Group on “Water and sustainable agri-food systems” is organising the workshop on “Towards the adoption of Regulation 2020/741: Guidance document and approach to risk management”, to be held online, on June 20 from 15:00 to 17:00 pm.

The water resources of the Union are increasingly coming under pressure, leading to water scarcity and a deterioration in water quality. In particular, climate change, unpredictable weather patterns and drought are contributing significantly to the strain on the availability of freshwater, arising from urban development and agriculture.

The Union’s ability to respond to the increasing pressures on water resources could be improved by wider reuse of treated waste water, limiting extraction from surface water bodies and groundwater bodies, reducing the impact of discharge of treated waste water into water bodies, and promoting water savings through multiple uses for urban waste water, while ensuring a high level of environmental protection.

The workshop will inform participants about the Regulation 2020/741 and the white paper on “Possible effects of EU Regulation 2020/741 on minimum requirements for water reuse on the agri-food value chain and strategies for its adoption implementation”. You can find more info and attend the workshop for free here.