Friends of the Earth Europe

Europes excessive material and consumption footprint has severe social and environmental consequences worldwide. We cannot continue to extract from a finite planet, nor recycle our way out of the current ecological crisis. The EU urgently needs to move away from a linear economy and ensure that resource extraction, processing, and waste do not exceed what the Earth can sustain.

FRIENDS OF THE EARTH EUROPE FEEDBACK TO THE INCEPTION IMPACT ASSESMENT Friends of the Earth Europe is the largest grassroots environmental network in Europe, uniting more than 30 national organisations with thousands of local groups. Since 2013 we have been campaigning to speed up the development of people’s ownership of renewable energy. Renewable Energy Target.

-Include a 2030 reduction target for critical raw materials in Article 1. Reducing EU demand and consumption of primary raw materials will increase its resilience to potential future shocks, reduce risks for human rights violations and social and environmental impacts in Europe and resource-rich third countries and help achieve EU climate goals under the Paris Agreement.

See attached paper for comprehensive consultation response. Firstly, the CRMA needs to not just focus on reacting to changes in the supply side but also actively influence the demand side. To prioritise demand reduction, sufficiency and circularity over primary resource extraction.

It’s clear: Now is the time to deliver subsidized renovation & renewable programmes across Europe. This is a no-regret solution to cut our energy bills, end our fossil fuel addiction & reduce our energy consumption to stay below 1.5 degrees.

Friends of the Earth Europe fully supports the revision of this directive, as outlined in option 3, to deliver on the Renovation Wave and drastically reduce Europe’s carbon emissions. Renovations can provide extensive co-benefits for tackling climate change, alleviating energy poverty and creating green, local jobs if enabled by a strong financial and legislative framework. This revision comes at a pivotal time.

BUND / FoE Germany welcomes the intention of the Commission to strengthen the pharmaceutical legislation. We regret that the roadmap is apparently limited to human medicines (HMP) and does not include plans to further improve legislative measures for veterinary medicinal products.

FoEE Messages on draft Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence law – Friends of the Earth Europe is committed to ending corporate impunity for human rights violations and environmental devastation. Our network has been proactive in taking cases in Europe against transnational corporations, for example recent successes on compensation for Nigerian farmers for oil spills and real climate action.

The revision of this Directive comes at a crucial time. Over 50 million Europeans currently live in unhealthy, leaky homes; forced to choose between heating their homes and having food on the table. Moreover the social cost of inefficient housing is severely understated, with indecent housing linked to over 100,000 premature deaths and a public health burden of over €194 billion a year across the EU.

Friends of the Earth Europe (FoEE) is the largest environmental network in Europe, uniting 32 member organisations, activist groups and supporters on social and environmental justice issues. We consider the Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) as an essential strategy to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change, end fossil fuel dominance and help Europe’s energy poor.

The EU Commission proposal lacks of any evidence for assumptions made from alleged safety of NGT that isn't based on EFSA opinions, is abolishing the precautionary principle and does not reflect any element that was raised by civil society since beginning of 2020 and should be rejected.

The entry into force of Regulation (EU) 2026/1388 with the distinction between the two categories of genome-edited plants lacks of scientific and technical evidence and creates insecurity for public administration and the whole food sector. The criteria set out in Annex I are not adequate to evaluate equivalence between NGT and conventionally bred/naturally occurring plants. See also Mundorf, J.; Simon, S.

Batteries put on the EU’s single market must have robust sustainability requirements – we call for an ambitious set of rules regarding the sourcing of raw materials, design and manufacturing stages of batteries, and end of life, as well as the necessary information to be conveyed to end users and the supply chain actors, ensuring as follows: 1.

Friends of the Earth Europe sees the European Commissions plan for nature credits as a dangerous distraction from the urgent tasks of phasing out harmful subsidies and establishing strong regulation. Instead of addressing the root causes of biodiversity loss, this proposal risks prioritising private profit over the public interest and deepening ecological and social injustices.

Friends of the Earth Europe is deeply concerned that the European Commissions plans for CO2 transport and dumping and risk a further lock-in of fossil fuels in Europe, further support for the fossil fuel industry who are at the heart of the climate crisis, another distraction from the clean solutions which we need to pursue and yet another dangerous delay to the day when we exit all fossil fuels.

A/ We welcome the acknowledgement that the expansion of agriculture is one of the most important drivers of deforestation and the role of the EU's trade in this is clearly recognised. We are however disappointed that despite this recognition, clear acknowledgement of the need to cut the EU’s demand for agrocommodities is missing from the problem definition.