Press

Applications are accepted starting today for the Blauer Kompass, Germany’s highest state award for climate change adaptation projects. The application deadline is 25 March 2022.

Scholarship from the German Environment Agency, Bauhaus Dessau Foundation and Kulturpark e.V. for artists cooperating with scientists and contemporary witnesses

For the sixth time the publishing house Matthes & Seitz Berlin is awarding the German Prize for Nature Writing in cooperation with the German Environment Agency and the Stiftung Kunst und Natur. The competition is under the patronage of President Dirk Messner of the German Environment Agency. Author entries will be accepted until 6 March 2022.

The EU Emissions Trading System (EU-ETS) generated 5.3 billion euros for Germany through auctioning in 2021, a sum double that in 2020. An additional 7.2 billion euros was generated through sales of certificates in the new national emissions trading system (nEHS), which came into effect in 2021 and targets the heat and transport sectors.

Sales volumes of plant protection products (pesticides) in the agricultural sector remain high, says data from the Federal Office of Consumer Protection and Food Safety (BVL). After a temporary decline in sales in 2018/2019, farmers demonstrated greater demand for specific problematic active substances, including insecticides that are dangerous to bees and herbicides critical to groundwater.

The share of renewable energies in gross electricity consumption will decline in 2021 – from 45.3 percent in 2020 back down to a level similar to 2019 of around 42 percent. While total electricity consumption increased, five percent less electricity was generated from renewable sources than in the previous year due to weather conditions.

Ten winners received the German Ecodesign Award 2021 today. The award went to a very diverse set of innovative projects, ranging from personal care products one can mix at home, a school building with a climate-positive energy balance, mail order that does without packaging waste, to giving old fur a new life.

The construction sector is the second-largest consumer of plastics with a volume of some 2.6 million tonnes used in 2017. However, proper guidelines for the recycling of plastic building products are still lacking, and recycling volumes are not recorded adequately.

The German Environment Agency (UBA) is calling for the sustainable use of chemicals. At its Sustainability Transformation Conference held on 30.11.2021, UBA identified six key aspects of chemicals management that protects human health and the environment. These include giving preference to the use of non-harmful substances and achieving climate neutrality of chemicals throughout their life cycle.

Despite their separate administrative remits, cities and the urban hinterland are nevertheless closely linked and mutually dependent upon one another. A new strategy paper titled UMLANDSTADT umweltschonend shows how to link work and private life, recreation and mobility in cities and the surrounding areas, in order to increase the quality of life and to better protect the environment.

The German Environment Agency (UBA) is calling upon businesses to review their packaging systems and optimise their environmental friendliness. Significantly more reusable products would also have to be introduced – not only in beverage packaging but also in other areas, such as e-commerce and to-go consumption.

The phasing out of tax breaks for automobile and agricultural diesel, the private use of fossil-fuel company cars and agricultural vehicles, as well as of the commuter mileage allowance would generate additional revenues for the public sector in the double-digit billions. This is the conclusion of a new study by the German Environment Agency (UBA) on environmentally harmful subsidies in 2018.