Publications

Sustainable development is hardly imaginable without a consistent circular economy. However, turning away from a predominantly linear economy requires many political, economic and social decisions.

The planetary boundaries concept was formulated in 2009 by a research group led by J. Rockström and revised by W. Steffen et al. in 2015. The most important challenges for the further processing of the concept include the translation, operationalization, utilization, downscaling and application of the concept.

The position paper reflects, which guiding principles for future environmental and sustainability policy might be necessary in addition to the existing ones in order to achieve firstly effective crisis management of current and possibly future pandemics and secondly the kick-off into socio-ecological transformations needed to reduce long-term environmental risks.

As part of the Energy Cooperation between the North Seas Countries to facilitate the further environment friendly, sustainable and effective deployment of offshore renewable energy, this report provides an overview on the site investigation procedures that are applied.

The ILESA project investigated magnetic materials containing rare earth metals, vehicle electronics and other waste streams containing precious and minor metals with the objective to enhance the recovery of these metals.

Walking is the healthiest, cheapest and most environmentally friendly means of transport. Furthermore, active mobility, such as walking and cycling, is an essential element in successfully transforming the transport sector and achieving sustainable urban mobility. Despite this walking is still a niche topic in Germany.

This position paper is the result of the work of the EPA Network’s group on Green Stimulus and reflects the inputs of all participants of the group. It emphasizes the urgent need to use the EU’s Covid-19 recovery efforts to also address the climate and biodiversity crises.

The position paper discusses the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic for the global economy and geopolitics, for the countries of the Global South and for international environmental and sustainability policy. On this basis, the paper proposes approaches for a substantive reorientation of international environmental and sustainability policy.

More and more people are flying. In 2018 alone, worldwide passenger air traffic will increase by 6.7 percent compared to the previous year. And it continues to grow. This means that the negative effects are also growing. With this brochure, the German Environment Agency (UBA) is therefore addressing an important and at the same time very complex issue.

The paper analyses 130 studies on green recovery programmes. It finds broad consensus on the need to use the Covid-19 recovery efforts to also address the climate and biodiversity crises. Consensus also exist on the benefits of green recovery programmes, the eligibility criteria to be applied and suitable areas of support.

The report gives an overview on synergies between the two EU-projects BRIDGE HEALTH and HBM4EU with respect to the linkage of human biomonitoring studies and health studies.

The NSAID in vitro-Bioassay – originally developed for municipal waste water samples – can now be used to detect activity of cox-inhibitors in surface waters as well. By using 44 water samples from several European countries the application range and quality of this bioassay was increased and the limit of detection is further reduced to now 12 ng diclofenac/l.