Publications | Umweltbundesamt

Air, Health

Guideline on the prevention, detection and remediation of mould in buildings

Mould and fungi pose major problems in residential buildings and indoor environments. Not only in older buildings without any insulation improvements on the envelope/building shell, but also in new energy efficient buildings can mould and growth of fungi occure. Most important is the influence of water and dampness. Mould on wall and furniture surfaces can be easily detected/recognizied, more diff...read more

Climate | Energy

GHG-neutral EU2050 – a scenario of an EU with net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and its implications

Given that the Paris Agreement has strengthened the long-term temperature goal and that it calls for a balance of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and sinks within the 21st century, there is the urgent need to re-assess the long-term targets of the EU and to show how the target of GHG neutrality can be reached in the EU. The aim of this study was to design one way to realize a European Union with ne...read more

Klima | Energie

Methodology for the evaluation of the German adaptation strategy

This report presents the concept for the evaluation and further development of the national German adaptation strategy (DAS), a description of the survey instruments that shall be used and a detailed description on how the concept was developed.read more

Water

Ecological safeguards for deep seabed mining

Interest in seabed mineral mining has renewed in recent years for various reasons and new offs-hore mining legislation is currently being developed for national and international waters. For this reason, agreement on the meaning of ‘effective protection of the marine environment from adverse effects arising from activities’ related to mining is needed. The International Seabed Authority (ISA) is m...read more

Climate | Energy, Sustainability | Strategies | International matters

Resource-Efficient Pathways towards Greenhouse-Gas- Neutrality – RESCUE: Summary Report

The RESCUE study describes in six scenarios possible development paths towards a resource-efficient and greenhouse-gas (GHG) neutral Germany until 2050. For this, assumptions related to the level of ambition for reaching GHG-neutrality, the magnitude of materials- and energy-efficiency, and the implementation of sustainable life-styles are varied. Until 2050, GHG-emissions can be reduced by 95 per...read more

Chemicals

Analysis of studies and research projects regarding the detection of nanomaterials in different environmental compartments and deduction of need for action regarding method development

Detection of manufactured nanomaterials (NM) still features enormous challenges for environmental exposure assessment and management of NM. The expert opinion presents a comprehensive survey on existing experimental approaches to detect NM in the environment and analyses to what extent these approaches could be utilized and advanced to be used routinely for data collection to assess and manage env...read more

Economy | Consumption, Transport

Environmentally friendly air conditioning for trains – Field data measurement and analysis on the ICE 3 air-cycle system

Testing, measurement and evaluation of systems with natural refrigerants for sustainable cooling and heating in means of public transport – Substitution of fluorinated greenhouse gases Final report

Today's railway air-conditioning systems cool primarily with fluorinated refrigerants, which have had to be scaled back step by step since 2016 due to their climate-damaging effect. Air-assisted air-conditioning systems, so-called air-cycle systems, use compressed outside air for cooling, so they do not require any fluorinated refrigerants. It has now also been proven that these air conditioning s...read more

Chemicals

Advancing REACH Financing options for ECHA

The European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) is responsible for the implementation of ⁠REACH⁠ and ⁠CLP⁠. This report describes the expenditure needed to sustain this work and the funding structure of the Agency. A number of new funding mechanisms which could be introduced into the discussions at EU level are proposed and fee levels estimated. These include: A new annual charge/...read more