It is well known that renovation rates in Europe are low – figures indicate around 1% of the total building stock – but at the same time it appears that there’s a recent pick-up in the energy efficient housing market. Regulations have started to apply pressure on the real estate markets, which are leaning towards respecting standards for building refurbishment. Investors are beginning to understand the importance of these European requirements and value the long-term impact that these decisions would have on their real estate.

These observations are supported by the findings of a recently released study by the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change. The study also discovered that low energy certificate ratings are becoming more widely used to reduce acquisition prices in France, Germany, and the UK. As such, more and more green clauses are being taken into consideration when leasing and at least minimum sustainability standards are being set. Germany leads this movement, probably because there is a culture that favours these kinds of actions. Still, there is a need for more data on this issue and from the EU side for a more decisive push towards harmonization so that Member States can develop common building standards and efficiency certificates.

In order to have a different perspective on this issue we suggest reading the new survey “Investing in Energy Efficiency in Europe’s Buildings”, where the EIU (European Intelligence Unit) explores how companies in the European building sector approach energy efficiency investments, how they perceive the latest EU regulations, and how innovative financing could help them ramp up retrofits to achieve emission reduction targets.

The data on municipal waste are broken down into municipal waste generated, landfilled, incinerated, recycled and composted. For incineration, the countries are asked for a distinction between incineration with and without energy recovery. However, as no clear classification criteria have been applied so far, the comparability of results among countries and over time remains fairly limited. Therefore, the current data allow only analysis of the total amount incinerated.

The figure 1 below shows municipal waste generation and treatment in EU 27 from 1995 to 2011, in kg per person. Municipal waste generation has increased from 474 kg per person in 1995 to 526 kg per person in 2002 and since then there is a slight decline to 503 kg per person in 2011. During the same period the share of municipal waste being landfilled decreased constantly from 62% (296 kg per person) to 36% (179 kg per person), while the recycled amounts (material recycling and composting) increased substantially from 73 kg per person (15%) to1 95 kg per person (39%).

Figure 1: Municipal waste generation and treatment in Europe (EU 27), from 1995 to 2011

Please note that up to 2001 only every second year is shown in figure 1, this is mainly due to data quality, from 2001/2002 the data show fewer breaks in series and is more reliable.

Although only a few countries reduced their municipal waste generation between 2002 and 2011, there are clear indications of a shift away from landfilling towards preferred waste management approaches. The number of countries that landfill more than 75 % of municipal waste output decreased sharply, while the numbers recycling more than a quarter of their municipal waste recorded the opposite trend.

Looking at the latest data referring to 2011 it has to be noted that the amount of municipal waste generated varies significantly across Member States. Denmark, with 718 kg per person, had the highest amount of waste generated in 2011, followed by Luxembourg, Cyprus and Ireland with values between 600 and 700 kg per person, while values of below 400 kg per person were recorded in Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Latvia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Poland and Estonia.

Also the treatment of municipal waste varies widely, as shown in figure 2. The majority of countries still landfilled more than half of their municipal waste in 2011. On the other hand, several countries have made very good progress in achieving the European target on diverting municipal waste from being landfilled.

Figure 2: Municipal waste generation and treatment in EU 27, per country in 2011

Generally the picture of municipal waste generation and treatment is characterized by a large diversity among countries; the overall trend is leading in a positive direction with the amount of municipal waste generation being stabilized or even decreased combined with an increase in municipal waste recycling and a reduction of the amount landfilled.

For more information please consult the following articles and websites:

European data centre waste
News release on municipal waste March 4, 2013
Statistics explained – municipal waste
EEA – recent publication on managing municipal waste

Article written by Eurostat

One of the main messages of the event was that policy makers should engage citizens and local communities from the very beginning of the decision-making process and adopt a more integrated and participatory bottom-up approach towards EU funds. After the presentations of project proposals on “Better ideas for EU funds” it was clear that prioritizing local initiatives can deliver great results in fields such as energy efficiency, biodiversity, sustainable transport, waste management and renewable energy. As such, unlocking the potential of small community driven initiatives may have a wider spread impact than previously anticipated. I therefore think the contest and event achieved what they set up to by demonstrating that citizens can make a worthwhile contribution to the process of the EU Budget spending through small-scale projects and by encouraging citizens to actively participate in the process of programming funds.

Overall, ensuring good governance through partnership needs two-way directional communication and the debate has now been launched. It’s up to the policy makers to build a framework that takes public perspective into account when dealing with the distribution of funds.

By Cosmina Marian

The calls target both innovation and a range of societal challenges, building a bridge to Horizon 2020, the next funding programme for EU research from 2014-2020.

‘Knowledge is the currency of the global economy,’ says European Research, Innovation and Science Commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn. ‘If Europe wants to continue to compete in the 21st century, we must support the research and innovation that will generate growth and jobs, now and in the future. The high level of competition for EU funding makes sure that taxpayers’ money goes to the best projects that tackle issues that concern all of us.’

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have a special place in the current round of calls with a package worth around EUR 1.2 billion. This includes financing for SMEs of around EUR 970 million under the ‘Cooperation’ Theme, where ring-fenced budgets for SMEs will account for up to 75 % of available funding in specific calls. There will also be EUR 250 million for the dedicated SMEs programme ‘Research for the benefit of SMEs’, including demonstration actions for FP7 research results.

Launched in 2007, FP7 has a total budget of EUR 55 billion for research and innovation. It has so far supported some 19,000 projects involving over 79,000 participants (universities, research organisations and businesses) across all EU Member States, with a total EU investment so far of EUR 25.3 billion. By 2013 it is estimated that FP7 will also have directly supported some 55,000 individual researchers’ careers.

EU research funding generates significant added value for Europe. For example, one Euro of EU Framework Programme funding leads to an increase in industry added value of between EUR 7 and EUR 14. Specific areas and topics that will be supported in this round of calls for proposals touch many aspects of daily life, including:
– climate change;
– industrial innovation connected with piloting, demonstration, standardisation and technology transfer;
– research training and mobility around the European Union and further abroad;
– sustainable growth in the marine and maritime sectors;
– technologies for urban areas and cities;
– combating the threat of drug-resistant bacteria;
– innovative solutions for managing fresh water resources;
– sustainable supply of raw materials to the EU;
– efficiency in the processing of biological resources;
– safe and plentiful food;
– bio-based products and processes;
– new approaches to delivering public services and public policy;
– sustainable, low-carbon urban environments;
– energy supply and volatility;
– combating diseases of the brain like Alzheimer’s, depression and schizophrenia;
– mission-critical space technologies dealing with exploration missions, space weather, space debris and collision threats;
– post-disaster (natural or man-made) crisis management;
– information and communication technologies (ICT) in health-, material- and neuro-sciences and neuro-robotics;
– and more.

European Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes said: “Europeans are hungry for digital technologies and more digital choices, but governments and industry are not keeping up with them. This attachment to 20th century policy mindsets and business models is hurting Europe’s economy. It’s a terrible shame. We are shooting ourselves in the foot by under-investing. Europe will be flattened by its global competitors if we continue to be complacent.”

Key findings in the European Commission’s Digital Agenda (DAE) Scoreboard include:

Positive developments:

• Broadband is nearly ubiquitous in Europe. 95% of Europeans have access to a fixed broadband connection.
• Consumers and businesses are moving fast to mobile. Mobile Internet take-up grew by 62% to 217 million mobile broadband subscriptions.
• 15 million Europeans connected for the first time in 2011, with now 68% of Europeans online regularly and 170 million on social networks. For the first time a majority of economically disadvantaged Europeans have used the internet, but one in four Europeans have still never used the internet.
• Greece, Portugal and Ireland have turned to eGovernment to help maintain quality public services. Alongside the Czech Republic, the greatest increases in eGovernment provision and use have been in cash-strapped economies, underlining the valuable role of eGovernment in successful structural reform.

Areas of concern

Half of European labour force does not have sufficient ICT skills to help them change or find a new job. While 43% of the EU population has medium or high Internet skills and can, for example, use the Internet to make a phone call or create a web page, nearly half of the labour force is not confident their computer and internet skills are sufficient in this labour market. Almost 25% have no ICT skills. These problems are making it difficult to fill ICT vacancies which will number 700,000 by 2015.

Online shopping is still a national activity. While 58% of EU internet users are shopping online, only one in ten have purchased from a website based in another EU member state. Language barriers and red tape (such as refusal to deliver and copyright complications) are the biggest problems.

Use of eCommerce by SMEs has stalled. The majority of SMEs neither shop nor sell online, limiting their export and revenue potential.

Research investments are falling further behind our competitors. While public research has been protected from austerity measures – spending is well below the 6% annual growth needed to double public investment by 2020. Commercial research investments are falling. The EU ICT sector now has less than half the R&D intensity of the US ICT sector.

Telecoms companies continue to rip-off consumers with mobile roaming prices. In 2011-12 more companies broke ranks with rip-off approach, by offering price bundles or roaming rates that mirror national rates. However consumers still pay an average of three and a half times as much for roaming calls as for national calls.

As Ana Nieto, Regional Biodiversity Conservation Officer for IUCN, put it: “the event aimed to gain support from MEPs and other stakeholders to finance Natura 2000. Now is the time to push for further funding because the EU budget is under revision and if all EU funds contributed a little to Natura 2000, it would really make a difference.” To put things into perspective, one of the messages of the event was the fact that if every EU citizen contributed 3 cents per day to Natura 2000, it would be enough to preserve protected areas.  The strategy to increase the funds of Natura 2000 is based on the concept of an integrated approach, which basically means that both Member States and the EU should invest in protecting Europe’s biodiversity.

There are no quick fixes when it comes to environmental problems so it’s better to prevent any irreversible damage that could have long-term negative effects. On that note, Tony Long identified that the main challenge ahead of both researchers and policy makers is the fact that they need to put a value on nature and translate their passion for nature into economic policies. The most important argument that we can make now for the conservation of protected areas is an economic one based on facts and figures.

“Protected areas are at the core of efforts towards conserving nature and the services it provides us – food, clean water supply, medicines and protection from the impacts of natural disasters”[1]. When asked about the issue of protected areas and the efforts invested in conserving them, Roxana Bucioaca, BIOPAMA Liaison and Communications Assistant, said the following: “With no doubt, the European Union is aware of the benefits of protected areas for human wellbeing and the challenges in protecting them.” In addition to its internal policy, the European Union also seeks to establish the good management of protected areas through its development assistance policy. One of the most relevant examples is BIOPAMA (Biodiversity and Protected Areas Management), a programme launched by the European Commission and supported with intra-ACP resources from the European Development Fund. IUCN is an implementing partner of this programme, which will contribute to the development of capacity in protected areas in African, Caribbean and Pacific countries. More information about this programme can be found at this link: www.iucn.org/biopama

The event took place at the European Parliament on the 25th September and it was organised by IUCN, WWF, EEB and Europarc Federation.

By Cosmina Marian

]]> http://www.eurideastranslation.com/natura-2000-lobbying-for-a-budget-increase/feed/ 0 http://www.eurideastranslation.com/shaping-space-policies/ http://www.eurideastranslation.com/shaping-space-policies/#comments Wed, 24 Oct 2012 10:05:58 +0000 admini http://stand.mysitehosted.com/~deveurid/?p=381 Last week I had the opportunity to attend, for the very first time, a conference about space related issues. This topic has the tendency to draw attention from people who don’t have any particular expertise in this field, simply because we see all space-related endeavours as proof of human ingenuity and curiosity.

The conference that I’m referring to was organized by the Secure World Foundation and IFRI and tackled the topic of international relations and space, focusing especially on the European approach to this matter. The conference was divided into three panels, each discussing a particular subject, such as: the governance of Europe’s international relations in space, space cooperation for Europe’s Global Leadership and the geographic priorities of European space cooperation. The conference is on its 4th run and this is noticeable due to the speakers’ level of expertise and the turn out.

Generally speaking, the debates set out to cover three main talking points: combining internal and external perspectives, policy and operational aspects, as well as geographic and thematic approaches. Therefore, the speakers were able to portray a wide array of perspectives, coming from different backgrounds and working both in European bodies such as the Commission and the European Space Agency and representing Member States and external perspectives from the US and India. The starting point of the discussions was the idea that there is interdependency at work between space and international relations. As such, the key issues mentioned were: cooperation and competitiveness between all the actors involved and the challenges they encounter. What remained undeniable is that international space cooperation serves European interests and that it can also help to maintain Europe’s place in the international system.

What struck me most were the intricacies of the EU’s approach to space issues from the numerous bodies involved in dealing with space policies to the complexity of the Space Dialogues with the US, Russia, China, South Africa and soon with Mexico and, probably, Brazil. The multiplication of actors, both private and institutional, that deal with space policies on the international scene demonstrates the level of interest and dedication to this issue and it’s something worth considering when the EU shapes its policies.

I believe that the conference succeeded in offering a series of starting points for a more coherent European strategy for international relations in space.

For more information about the speakers, please see the agenda. I’m very eager to read the report that will soon be released about the discussions held at the conference.