Publications | Umweltbundesamt

Economy | Consumption

Methodological Convention 2.0 for Estimates of Environmental Costs, Annex B

Annex B: Best-practice Cost Rates for Air Pollutants, Transport, Power Generation and Heat Generation

Annex B to the Methodological Convention 2.0 for Estimates of Environmental Damage contains UBA’s recommendations for best-practice cost rates for greenhouse gas emissions and air pollutants and, based on this, estimates of the environmental costs of transport and of power and heat generation. The recommendations are based in large part on results of the research project “Estimation of Environment...read more

Economy | Consumption

Environmental costs in the energy and transport sectors – Recommendations by the Federal Environment Agency

The background paper presents an overview of key contents of the Methodological Convention 2.0 for Estimates of Environmental Costs and its annexes. The Methodological Convention 2.0 of the Federal Environment Agency summarises current scientific knowledge in this field, presents recommendations for best-practice cost rates and makes transparent the underlying assumptions and normative judgments....read more

Sustainability | Strategies | International matters

Towards Sustainable Development Goals: Working Paper

This report first describes the two processes for the development of SDGs and the post-2015 development agenda, and the options to integrate the results of both processes in order to arrive at one set of goals. It goes on to discuss the possible structure of a set of SDGs, and discusses a number of topic clusters, as an illustration of what possible SDGs could look like.read more

Chemicals

Georeferenced Probabilistic Risk Assessment of Pesticides

Further Advances in Assessing the Risk to Aquatic Ecosystems by Spray Drift from Permanent Crops

The current exposure assessment for pesticide entries into water bodies considers a water body model which represents a realistic worst case for water bodies in the agricultural landscape. For the factors determining the pesticide exposure in the model a variety of deterministic assumptions are made such as that it is a stagnant water body of a default depth of 30 cm which is directly situated in...read more

Air, Soil | Land

Air Quality and the Nitrogen Cycle

Factsheet

Nitrogen emissions in the form of nitrogen oxides (NOX) or ammonia (NH3) contribute to the formation of groundlevel ozone and secondary fine particulates, which, together with nitrogen dioxide, are major air pollutants with significant impacts on human health. In addition, ammonia and ground-level ozone cause damage to crops and natural ecosystems. Excess reactive nitrogen lost to the environment...read more

Climate | Energy

Assessing the costs of adaption to climate change in developing countries (AdaptCosts)

Unterstützung bei der Ausgestaltung der Kopenhagen- Vereinbarung und der Verhandlung eines Post-2012- Abkommens

The aim of the study was to fill knowledge gaps regarding the estimation of adaptation costs and to develop a concept towards comparing costs between developing countries. In the first part a conceptual approach is presented to estimate adaptation costs of various sectors. Based on a literature analysis, existing costs estimations regarding adaptation were identified and fields for potential advan...read more

Chemicals

Selection and use of chemicals in small and medium sized enterprises

Analysis of their sustainability

The criteria for the sustainable selection and use of chemicals were developed by the Umweltbundesamt between 2008 and 2010 and reflect the current state of the expert discussion. They were compiled in a guide for small and medium sized enterprises (SME). These criteria and the systematic approach outlined in the guide were to be further tested and analysed within the scope of the current project...read more

Agriculture

Ecological Focus Areas – Crucial for biodiversity in the agricultural landscape!

Position of the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation, the German Federal Environment Agency and the Agriculture Commission at the German Federal Environment Agency (KLU) on the issue of the national implementation of ecological focus areas

With its reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), the EU Commission strives for not only a fairer distribution of agricultural funds but, in particular, for a more environmentally friendly, a “greener” CAP. The dramatic decline in farmland biodiversity, persistently high nutrient deposition in soils and watercourses, and European as well as global biodiversity targets demonstrate the need f...read more