environmental law

Waste | Resources

Resource conservation law

aufgestapelte, gefällte Bäume

Despite the growing demand for natural resources and the environmental problems entailed by this demand, in Germany there are as yet no laws on the books that adequately address this issue. Resource conservation law should take into account the entire value creation chain and should mandate both multi-sector and sector-specific instruments. read more

Sustainability | Strategies | International matters

Precautionary principle

Once damage to the environment has already occurred, the only option is to put it right by retrospective remediation. If there is a risk to the environment - that is to say, if environmental damage is foreseeable with a reasonable degree of probability - the principle of danger prevention requires that its occurrence be prevented. The precautionary principle goes one important step further: The in... read more

Sustainability | Strategies | International matters

Access to environmental information

Blick auf Bürgerinformation und Bibliothek im UBA-Gebäude Dessau-Roßlau

The Environmental Information Act (Umweltinformationsgesetz, UIG) sets the framework for free access to environmental information and regulates the active dissemination of information of this kind. The federal Act entered into force on 14 February 2005 and transposes the Environmental Information Directive 2003/4/EC into German law.The Länder (German states) have enacted their own laws on freedom... read more

The Umweltbundesamt

For our environment