European Environmental Agency

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Digitalisation and Europe’s sustainable transport economy

22/05/2023 17:29 Comments Off

Digital technologies can offer scope to alleviate the impact that Europe’s mobility sector has on our everyday lives, be it damage to the environment from our vehicle emissions, or the unwavering time we spend in congestions. A new investigation by the European Environment Agency (EEA) has reported that any gains made are circumstantial to the employment of digital solutions and the demand of transport in more general.

New report: Digitalisation and mobility

The EEA’s Transport and Environment Report explores the impact of digitalisation on what is largely one of the most important facets of our lives and the EU economy: transport. Parameters have been set by the European Green Deal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 90% by 2050, but the process is not straightforward.

Sustainability is strived for in the transport sector, and digital transformation can certainly help how it operates. According to the EEA, the effects are still unclear and depend on transport demands, something that has, until recently, off-balanced technological efficiency gains, such as lower fuel consumption.

Perhaps the most effective consequence of digitalisation on our mobility sector is the new data that can be produced and used to create and meet targets that support a better, more objective mobility infrastructure. With the introduction of automated mobility, digitalisation will certainly be an influence, not least in terms of safety and passenger accessibility.

The EEA report goes on to warn that automated technology might, in fact, have a detrimental effect and increase transport demands. Optimised journeys and an eventual reduction in costs will play a significant role.

New briefing: Commuting or working from home?

Teleworking, commonly known as working from home, generates more uncertainties for the mobility sector as it is still a relatively new concept. According to a new EEA briefing, ‘From the daily office commute to flexible working patterns — teleworking and sustainability’, these new-founded working patterns will have an effect on our car-commuting habits and be an influence on the way our towns and cities are developed. However, due to the aforementioned uncertainties, the EEA recommends supporting policies be put in place.

The briefing on teleworking and sustainability is part of EEA’s foresight work that uses horizon scanning to identify emerging issues that can affect Europe’s sustainability efforts.

EU’s Environmental Agency Calls for Urgent Action

05/12/2019 17:49 Leave a Comment

Europe’s Environment Agency published its 6th ‘State of the Environment’ and calls for urgent action in the next decade of policy making. Future policies need to address the loss of biodiversity, tackle the increasing impact of climate change and solve the problem of natural resources overconsumption. If the Europe Union and its member states can do so, there is hope as well according the report.

While European policies helped to improve the environment over recent decades, progress is not significant enough. Europe’s sustainability vision ‘living well within the limits of the planet’ can only be achieved if there is a fundamental change in future policy making. The report urges leaders, member states and policymakers to radically speed up and scale up next decade of action to get back on track and achieve Europe’s medium and longer-term policy goals.

The current range of European policy actions provide an essential foundation for future progress but they are not enough. Europe needs to do things better, it needs to address certain challenges differently, and it needs to rethink its investments. Achieving Europe’s goals will require better implementation and improved coordination between current policies. It will also need additional policy actions to achieve fundamental change in the key systems of production and consumption that underpin our modern lifestyles, such as for instance mobility, which have substantial environmental impacts.

The report also stresses the importance of how governments can enable a transition to sustainability and the need to address things differently. For example, Europe should rethink how it uses existing innovations and technologies, how production processes could be improved, how research and development into sustainability could be fostered and how changes in consumption patterns and ways of living could be stimulated.

Lastly, achieving such change will require investing in a sustainable future and stopping using public funds to subsidise environmentally damaging activities. Europe will gain immensely from such a change in investment priorities because of the economic and social opportunities that it can create. At the same time, it will be crucial to listen to public concerns and ensure widespread support for such a shift — a socially fair transition.

‘Europe’s environment is at a tipping point. We have a narrow window of opportunity in the next decade to scale up measures to protect nature, lessen the impacts of climate change and radically reduce our consumption of natural resources’, says Hans Bruyninckx, EEA Executive Director

Find the article of EEA on https://www.eea.europa.eu/highlights/soer2020-europes-environment-state-and-outlook-report, where you can also download the report as a PDF-file.

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Digitalisation and Europe’s sustainable transport economy

EU’s Environmental Agency Calls for Urgent Action

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