Press | Umweltbundesamt

Octylphenol will become the first chemical to be taken up on the European ‘Candidate List of Substances of Very High Concern for Authorisation’ because of its endocrine disruptive effect. The Federal Environment Agency (UBA) had drafted the proposal for Germany, which the responsible Member State committee at the European Chemicals Agency has approved unanimously. Octylphenol is used in the manufa... read more

The cities of Stuttgart, Arnsberg and Wuppertal and the WOGENO housing cooperative in Munich are this year’s winners of the Blue Compass contest (Blauer Kompass 2011). The prize is awarded for the best ideas in adapting to climate change in Germany. It is being awarded for the first time in 2011 by the German Federal Ministry for Environment (BMU) and the Federal Environment Agency (UBA) and repre... read more

The aircraft operators for which Germany is responsible will soon be receiving first-time notification of how many CO2 certificates will be available to them for emissions trading in Europe until 2020. Background: starting January 2012, aircraft operators - both airlines and business jet operators - will have to render one certificate for every tonne of carbon dioxide emissions they produce. The a... read more

The UN estimates that humans are producing 23 hectares of desert every minute - an area equivalent to about 30 football pitches. The most common cause is the improper cultivation of soils, which is becoming a serious problem because soils are a non-renewable source of our livelihoods. They are used as the source of 90 percent of our food and, increasingly, to produce renewable raw materials for th... read more

There will be no “all clear” for the climate: global emissions of greenhouse gases have reached another new all-time high - never in the history of mankind has so much CO2 from fossil fuels been released into the atmosphere as in 2010. A major political effort will be needed at the UN Climate Conference in Durban if effective rules to curb emissions are to be agreed. The Kyoto Protocol, the only i... read more

Since November of this year the Swiss supermarkets chains COOP and Migros have been printing some of their customer flyers with inks free of mineral oil. “Switzerland is one step ahead of us in this regard”, said the President of the Federal Environment Agency (UBA), Jochen Flasbarth. “It has been proven that technology now makes it possible to use mineral oil-free inks in newspaper printing.” read more

25 years ago, in November 1986, one of the biggest chemical accidents caused by man in the history of Europe unfolded. After a fire at the plants of the Swiss chemicals company Sandoz 20 tonnes of toxic red-coloured extinguishing foam was dumped into the Rhine. Massive dying of fish was the result; virtually the entire eel population was wiped out. In commemoration of the disaster, the Federal Min... read more

The Re-Source conference brings together experts and stakeholders from science, politics, public administration, industry and trade from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland to continue their dialogue and close cooperation in the area of sustainable resource management. It aims to promote more rapid implementation of strategies and action programmes and to make gains in the sustainable use of natural... read more