German Environment Agency

All the views expressed are those of the Federal Environment Agency (UBA) and may under no circumstances be regarded as an official opinion of the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Climate Protection, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMUKN) or the Federal Government of the Federal Republic of Germany.

Filed in German · English published by the European Commission

In the special report on public procurement in the EU, the European Court of Auditors concludes that, in the vast majority of Member States, strategic procurement is only implemented to a very limited extent, including environmental procurement (https://www.eca.europa.eu/ECAPublications/SR-2023-28/SR-2023-28_DE.pdf, p. 35 et seq.).

Filed in German · English published by the European Commission

The German Environment Agency has contributed to the development of the EU Taxonomy since its beginning, and welcomes the opportunity to give feedback. The EU Taxonomy was developed to provide corporates and financial market participants with standardized guidance on the sustainability or transitional nature of an economic activity.

The German Environment Agency has the following comments on the proposed amendments to Regulation EU 2019/6 and the corresponding annex II due to the Biotech Act: i) Art. 136a, regulatory sandbox - The concept of the regulatory sandbox is complex.

The German Environment Agency (UBA) welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the Call for evidence on the Biotech Act II, a proposal for regulation prepared by the EU Commission (DG GROW). From an environmental policy perspective, the identified challenge of insufficient market uptake of bio-based innovations is closely linked to persistent market distortions, regulatory gaps, and widespread uncertainty about…

The Environmental Awareness Study 2024 is part of a biennial series that has been conducted since 1996 to assess environmental awareness and attitudes toward environmental policy among the German population. The core of the study is a representative population survey in Germany.

Thank you for providing the opportunity to give feedback on the envisaged Advanced Materials Act and its purpose. In our opinion, advanced materials (AdMa) can play a pivotal role for providing technical solution in strategic areas needed for the societal and industrial transformation, including renewable energies, improved circularity, more sustainable products and procedures, but potentially also to reduce…

The German Environment Agency is the agency responsible for environmental risk assessments of biocidal active substances and products in Germany. We welcome the initiative of the European Commission to evaluate the Biocidal Products Regulation (BPR). While the BPR undoubtedly already reduced emissions of biocidal active substances into the environment, we see room for some improvements.

The German Environment Agency would like to provide feedback on the following topics regarding Regulation 1223/2009 on cosmetic products: - Preservatives in cosmetic products - Definition of nanomaterials - Surfactants in rinse-off cosmetic products - Environmental labelling of cosmetic products The detailed comments can be found in the attached document.

Note: Any views expressed are the views of the German Environment Agency and may not in any circumstances be regarded as stating an official position of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection or the Federal Republic of Germany.

We would like to thank you for the opportunity to participate in the public consultation. We see potential for discussion on the following 3 points. 1) In our opinion, Article 1 lacks a definition of intended use and a classification as application of a specific area of law.

In the past years, several studies (e. g. https://www.aok.de/mk/cms/fileadmin/user_upload/AOK-BW/CSR_Info_Hub/Policy_Paper_Sustainable_supply_of_pharmaceutical_products_AOK.pdf) have shown that fluctuant and peak concentrations of pharmaceuticals in the environment can be attributed to emissions from pharmaceutical production processes, often unintentionally.