Annexes to COM(2022)674 - First 'zero pollution' monitoring and outlook 'Pathways towards cleaner air, water and soil for Europe'

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dossier COM(2022)674 - First 'zero pollution' monitoring and outlook 'Pathways towards cleaner air, water and soil for Europe'.
document COM(2022)674 EN
date December  8, 2022
agreement.

This report marks the starting point on the ‘Pathways towards cleaner air, water and soil for Europe’. The evidence is compelling, and so are the challenges and opportunities. Overall, the levels of pollution are decreasing in several pollution areas, e.g. as regards air or pesticides pollution. At the same time, other pollution problems persist, e.g. trends for noise, nutrient pollution or municipal waste generation are rather stable over the past years. The achievement of the 2030 zero pollution targets is not guaranteed for those. Hence, the green and digital transition needs to accelerate to enable the EU to achieve these 2030 targets. On its side, the Commission has delivered or advanced on all 33 of the announced actions for 2021-2024 75 .

What is most needed now for zero pollution to increasingly become a reality is:

1.the co-legislators’ agreement on key legislative proposals;

2.the stepped-up implementation of crucial pieces of EU law at local, national and cross-border level 76 ; and

3.the promotion of global initiatives, supporting third countries in their efforts.

In addition, the report has identified a number of shortcomings such as the need for better sharing and using the latest available data. The Commission, together with the European Environment Agency (EEA), will address the identified knowledge and data gaps (e.g. on soil pollution) in order to present an even more comprehensive report by 2024.

5.Next steps

This first ‘zero pollution’ monitoring and outlook report provides a starting point for monitoring progress towards the EU’s zero pollution ambition. It compiles readily available evidence into the first ever EU-wide, integrated, high-level overview of the main threats from pollution and its sources. It will provide input into the first progress report on the European Green Deal and the 8th environment action programme, due by the end of 2023. It sets out detailed information in most of the pollution-specific sections, e.g. on air, water, marine, chemical and noise pollution. It has also highlighted a number of shortcomings which will be addressed in a targeted manner by 2024.

In particular, the report highlights that there are still significant knowledge and data gaps in some areas, e.g. on soil pollution and emerging issues that need attention. To address the data gap,  space data, services and applications provided by the EU earth observation system Copernicus have considerable potential. Ongoing and planned research and innovation will also support the next editions of the report 77 . Other areas for improvement include data availability and timeliness, and the efficiency and effectiveness of pollution knowledge management (e.g. by streamlining reporting, promoting citizen science and making better use of digital tools). Many initiatives are already under way or planned, e.g. as part of the ‘one substance, one assessment’ approach 78  or the recent proposals on the water pollutant list 79 .

The Commission and the EEA will lead the way to ensure that the scope, quality, timeliness and robustness of the ‘zero pollution’ monitoring and outlook framework will increase with every edition 80 . Moreover, the European Chemicals Agency and the EEA are working together to develop a specific indicator framework on chemicals that will feed into the next report.

A particular effort will also be made on further improving the presentation and visualisation of pollution impacts, including by combining and aggregating the various evidence to better support communication efforts. Moreover, the air, water & marine and, in particular, soil outlook capacities will be strengthened to better support policy making.

These efforts will also help support the nine flagship strands of the Zero Pollution action plan, since better monitoring and outlook helps us to identify health inequalities, improves our understanding of the scale of pollution from products and buildings, and enables a better use of digital solutions for monitoring pollution. A robust ‘zero pollution’ monitoring and outlook also contributes to global pollution assessment as it enables us to focus on specific cities and regions to determine their progress towards zero pollution.

The Commission invites EU institutions, Member States, businesses, non-governmental organisations, academia and other stakeholders to provide feedback on this first zero pollution monitoring and outlook report 81 . The Commission will also use the Zero Pollution Stakeholder Platform, set up in cooperation with the Committee of the Regions, to help prepare the second Zero Pollution Monitoring and Outlook Report in 2024.

The next version of the report will take stock of the initial progress made and set out a perspective for achieving the 2030 zero pollution targets in line with the 2050 zero pollution vision and thereby provide an input to the midterm review of the 8th EAP monitoring framework due in 2024.

(1) See Article 2(1) of Decision (EU) 2022/591.
(2) See Article 2(2)(d) of Decision (EU) 2022/591.
(3) COM(2021) 400.
(4) COM(2020) 667.
(5) ‘A Healthy Planet for All: Air, water and soil pollution is reduced to levels no longer considered harmful to health and natural ecosystems and that respect the boundaries our planet can cope with, thus creating a toxic-free environment.’
(6) COM(2020) 380.
(7) COM(2022) 542.
(8) COM(2022) 541.
(9) COM(2022) 540.
(10) COM(2022) 568.
(11) COM(2021) 44.
(12) COM(2022) 357.
(13) See Knowledge Centre for Biodiversity  
(14) COM(2018) 29 and SWD(2018) 17 (currently under review).
(15) See here .
(16) In particular the reporting cycles of the Water and Marine Strategy Framework Directives are not adequate for policy making and implementation and are made worse by delays in Members States delivering these reports. By the end of October 2022, more than six months after the deadlines, 14 Member States (BE, BG, CY, DK, EL, ES, HR, IE, LT, MT, PL, PT, RO and SI) have not reported their 3rd River Basin Management Plans under the Water Framework Directive and 12 Member States (BG, CY, DK, EE, EL, ES, HR, IE, LV, LT, MT and SI) have not reported their marine strategies under the Marine Strategy Framework Directive. 
(17) EEA Zero Pollution Monitoring : https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/zero-pollution/zero-pollution
(18) JRC (2022): ‘Zero pollution outlook’
(19) COM(2022) 673.
(20) EEA (2022): ‘Outlook to 2030-can the number of people affected by transport noise be cut by 30%?‘.
(21) FORENV report 2021
(22) ‘Horizon projects supporting the zero pollution action plan’. Report published by the Commission (DG RTD) in October 2022.
(23) See Annex 2 of COM(2021) 400 for details.
(24) EEA (2022) : ‘Health impacts of exposure to noise from transport’.
(25) See here .
(26) Underestimation as only to a limited number of risk factors are considered and does not, for example address the real health risks related to exposure to chemicals. Work is ongoing in the Horizon Europe partnership for the assessment of risk from chemicals ( PARC ).
(27) EEA Report No 22/2018 and new signal here .
(28) See  here .
(29) Regulation (EC) No 1272/2008.
(30) Regulation (EC) No 1907/2006.
(31) COM(2020) 98, COM(2020) 667, COM(2021) 400, COM(2022) 488.
(32) See Annex 2 of COM(2021) 400 for details.
(33) These five threats are changes in land and sea use; direct exploitation of natural resources; climate change; pollution; and the invasion of alien species (see IPBES ).
(34) EEA Report No 01/2020
(35) Persson et al. (2022) : ‘Outside the Safe Operating Space of the Planetary Boundary for Novel Entities’, Environmental Science & Technology (2022).
(36) See Annex 2 of COM(2021) 400 for details.
(37) See here .
(38) See here .
(39) E.g. EEA ETC-HE Report 2022/8 : ‘Review and Assessment of Available Information on Light Pollution in Europe’
(40) See signals here .
(41) COM(2020) 380, COM(2020) 381, COM(2021) 400, COM(2022) 488.
(42) See here .
(43) See Annex 2 of COM(2021) 400 for details.
(44) JRC (2013) : ‘Guidance for the Monitoring of Marine Litter’
(45) See more details here .
(46) Directive (EU) 2019/904.
(47) Directive (EU) 2019/883. 
(48) https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/12823-Microplastics-pollution-measures-to-reduce-its-impact-on-the-environment_en
(49) Eurostat  : Statistics on g eneration of waste by waste category
(50) EEA (2022): ‘Reaching 2030’s residual municipal waste target — why recycling is not enough’
(51) For ammonia emissions to air.
(52) For the use of the more hazardous chemical pesticides.
(53) The consumption and the domestic footprints are based on a set of 16 life cycle assessment (LCA)-based indicators (also available as a single score) whose purpose is to quantify the environmental impacts of consumption at EU and Member State-level. See details at: JRC (2019) and European Platform on Life Cycle Assessment  
(54) JRC (2020) : ‘ Environmental sustainability of European production and consumption assessed against planetary boundaries ’
(55) See here .
(56) COM(2020) 98.
(57) COM(2021) 709, COM(2022) 142 and COM(2022) 677.
(58) COM(2018) 673/2 and SWD(2018) 431/2.
(59) COM(2022) 673.
(60) Through the proposals to align air quality standards more closely with the WHO guidelines. See COM(2022) 542for details.
(61) In particular the Environmental Noise Directive 2002/49/EC but also specific source legislation, e.g. for road noise Regulation (EU) No 540/2014, Regulation (EU) 2019/2144, for railway noise Regulation (EU) 1304/2014 or for aircraft noise Regulation (EU) No 598/2014.
(62) E.g. see NEMO project .
(63) More details will be published in the upcoming Implementation Report on the Environmental Noise Directive.
(64) JRC (2022): ‘Zero pollution outlook’
(65)

   See here .

(66)

   See here .

(67) This could include citizen science approaches, such as through the EU Mission ‘Restore our Ocean and Waters’, that supports the EU-wide roll out of the Plastic Pirates initiative to engage and empower young people across Europe to monitor and tackle plastic pollution in rivers, coasts, and seas.
(68) Based on the JRC’s Consumption and Domestic Footprint, see here . .
(69)

    JRC (2020) : ‘Environmental sustainability of European production and consumption assessed against planetary boundaries’

(70)

   JRC (2022): ‘Consumption Footprint: assessing the environmental impacts of EU consumption, European Commission’, JRC126257.

(71) In contrast to the modelling-based outlooks, foresight is exploring, anticipating and shaping the future using collective intelligence in a structured, and systemic way to anticipate developments. See FORENV report 2021 and synthesis summary as well as COM(2022) 289
(72) E.g. pervasive digital tools and lifestyles, transformations in where and how we live and work, new pollution monitoring and data methods, living buildings and a new range of building materials and multi-faceted food system revolutions.
(73)

   E.g. the shortage of supplies of chemicals needed to clean polluted air (e.g. ammonia or urea-based products are used to reduce NOx emissions from diesel-engine vehicles) or water (e.g. iron salts, hydrochloride or sulfuric acid for wastewater treatment).

(74)

   See EEA Report No 1/2020  ‘Is Europe living within the limits of our planet?’.

(75)

   See the Zero Pollution action tracker .

(76)

   Through the Technical Support Instrument (Regulation (EU) 2021/240), the Commission supports Member States, upon request, in designing and implementing reforms across a wide range of policy areas, including tackling air, soil and water pollution as well as fighting biodiversity loss and supporting the transition to a more circular economy.

(77)

   See examples in Horizon Report .

(78) The Commission is planning to streamline the flow of information on chemicals into the relevant EU Agencies and make them available for reuse, including for the indicator framework. (see ‘ Have your say ’)
(79) COM(2022) 540.
(80) See SWD(2021) 141 for some details.
(81) Interested parties can also reach out to relevant ongoing Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe projects that are structured around the nine flagships in the above-mentioned report, so that the new knowledge and results can help in solving the problems of citizens, authorities, and the industry.