IEEP is looking for a full-time lead on our bioeconomy and bioenergy work area, to shape IEEP’s thinking and policy messaging on bioeconomy and bioenergy related issues, maintaining its reputation as a trusted, objective, independent and evidence-based analysis of related policies and their implementation.
This IEEP-led study examines the EU policies and associated issues at EU level that play a role in driving or mitigating bioenergy impacts on biodiversity.
IEEP, Wageningen University & Research and Navigant held a workshop on 18 November to explore where crops for non-food purposes could be grown in Europe in the future. Current policy seeks to steer these crops to abandoned or degraded land, but the workshop looked at how much is available, where it is and how suitable this land might be in practice.
The European Commission has published its long-awaited strategy on food and farming that sets out the EU’s long-term goals and direction of travel to 2030 for the agri-food sector. The Strategy is a key and necessary element of the European Green Deal and together with the new EU Biodiversity Strategy comes at an important moment.
In its efforts to deliver on the EU Green Deal and to step up EU action, the European Commission launched a public consultation on deforestation and forest degradation. We've submitted several recommendations based on our work on these and related topics.
Never has a research and innovation framework design exercise been so important to the future of Europe. With a headline budget of €100bn, the Commission is currently engaging with citizens, researchers, policymakers, innovators and others to debate and shape the strategic priorities for Horizon Europe - EU’s future research and innovation framework programme.
Open letter after open letter, scientists are warning us that we are running out of time: the more we wait, the more likely it is that damage will become irreversible. The more we procrastinate, the more painful the decisions we'll have to make.
Keeping increases of global temperature to the Paris target levels could require a land area the size of the EU to change from agriculture to forest says a report published today by IPCC.
The newly elected European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen has pledged a Green Deal for Europe in her first 100 days in office. Last year, we asked sustainability experts from all over Europe for policy recommendations. Here is what a Green Deal that's aligned with SDGs should look like.
IEEP and the European Biogas Association hosted a session at the EU Sustainable Energy Week 2019. The following reflections recollect discussions on the governance of sustainable bioenergy and biogas in the EU.
What are the global implications of the EU circular economy and how are they interlinked with trade? That is the question IEEP and partners are exploring this year under the auspices of the upcoming Finnish EU Presidency.
IEEP welcomes the urgency of the Commission’s SDG reflection paper “Towards a sustainable Europe by 2030” and strongly supports the development of an overarching EU SDG strategy. To support further policy action, here is our ‘a-day-after’ analysis of the paper.
Anthropogenic climate change is a product of our patterns of behaviour and the choices we make; whether as consumers or, in the case of farmers, as land managers and producers. This session convened by IEEP at COP24 of the UNFCCC identified the common threads that could help in changing our behaviour and in the transformation of the agricultural sector. Read more and download presentations here.
The EU risks missing out on the opportunity to take a leadership role in the implementation of SDGs domestically and globally. This paper maps the action needed to step up the delivery of the 2030 Sustainability Agenda by the EU at the global level. The paper is part of the Think2030 initiative launched by IEEP and partners in 2018.
Half a degree may not sound that much but it can be a matter of life or death in the context of climate change. This is one of the headline messages of the recent IPCC special report, “Global warming of 1.5 °C”, which is based on the assessment of the latest scientific literature. The report confirms the urgency to act in order to avoid often irreversible consequences for human well-being, ecosystems and sustainable development. But what does this mean for agriculture in general and for the EU farming sector in particular? What kind of challenges would the sector face in a 1.5 °C or 2 °C world? And how can the farming sector contribute to keeping global temperature increase below 1.5°C?
This IEEP blog reflects on the future role of the bioeconomy in society.
It considers what the 2018 EU’s Bioeconomy Strategy revision needs to achieve to promote an equitable, environmentally responsible bioeconomy that delivers economic benefits and empowers rural actors.
In environmental terms there are at least two ways of looking at the prospects for 2018. Viewed through the rather sober lens of EU process, it has the look of a project completion and tidying up period with limited long term impetus to the last full year of the current European Parliament and Commission.