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Last changed: 6/10/11
For our Environment is the mission statement of the Federal Environment Agency (UBA). Founded in 1974, the UBA is Germany’s central federal authority on environmental matters. Its key statutory mandates are:
Identifying tomorrow’s problems today. The UBA sees itself as an early warning system which detects potential future adverse impacts on mankind and his environment in a timely fashion, assesses associated risks, and offers proposals for practicable solutions. To that end, experts at the Agency carry out research in in-house laboratories in addition to commissioning research projects to scientific institutions in Germany and abroad. The UBA adopts an exacting interdisciplinary approach in its activities. For example, economists, chemists, biologists or legal experts may well work together to find solutions to environmental problems. The Agency can thereby cover a wide range of topic areas and rely on the high level of commitment and motivation of its staff. UBA acts as partner and Germany’s contact point for many international organizations, including the WHO.
The UBA is divided into five divisions and the central division (administration). It has a total staff of around 1500, who work at 13 sites, of which seven are measuring stations of the UBA's own air monitoring network. Some 900 of UBA's total staff work in Dessau-Roßlau.
As well as visiting personally, UBA invites you to take a virtual walk through its office building in Dessau. To explore the building inside as well as from the outside, choose places on your virtual walk from where you have a panorama view or can zoom in on, say, the Forum with the information service and the auditorium. In the Atrium, you will see the basins and bridges. The points outside the building show the dimensions of the building, the impressive exterior façade with the main entrance, and “Wörlitzer Bahnhof”, a listed building which was once part of a train station and is now used by the Agency.
Take an entertaining journey through time in the history of the German Federal Environment Agency and the story of environmental protection. What environmental problems did we use to have? How were they solved?
UBA president Jochen Flasbarth explains the mandate of the Federal Environment Agency