News

Report published: Climate change mitigation through policies on waste – intersectoral analysis

23 February 2024

This week, the European Environment Agency (EEA) released a briefing entitled “Capturing the climate change mitigation benefits of circular economy and waste sector policies and measures”. The briefing combines the outputs of two key technical reports, one of which was the product of research on waste sector policies and measures conducted by Aether under the European Topic Centre on Climate Change Mitigation (ETC CM).

The Aether-led report provides a comprehensive analysis of policies and measures for climate change mitigation in the waste sector across EU-27 Member States (MS) as well as Iceland, Norway and Switzerland. In the context of achieving climate neutrality within the EU, our research sought to explore the variation in country-level implementation of European waste policy and how this has impacted on current reporting, quantification of emissions savings, and historical waste emissions trends. This had the overarching aim of assessing whether additional action is required to strengthen policymaking and achieve further emissions reductions within the waste sector.

We find that there is further scope for many European countries and Member States to decrease GHG emissions from the waste sector, particularly based upon future implementation requirements under the Landfill Directive. However, we also conclude that effective quantification of GHG impacts from waste policies must consider linkages to other reporting sectors. For example, by properly accounting for the downstream impacts of measures including energy from waste plants, waste recycling and other stages of the waste hierarchy.

Both the briefing and the report can be viewed at the following links:

https://www.eea.europa.eu/publications/capturing-the-climate-change-mitigation

https://www.eionet.europa.eu/etcs/etc-cm/products/etc-cm-report-2024-01

Aether Team: Richard Claxton, Lucy Garland and Lewis Blannin

See all news


News topics

Aether Blog Air Pollution Air Quality Assessments Barriers to Net Zero Capacity Building Carbon Footprint Climate Emergency Climate Equality Climate Finance Consumption COP28 Culture Data Visualisation Economic Status Emissions Reporting European Topic Centre GHG Infrastructure Inventories Local Government Mitigation MRV National Government Net Zero Oxfam Paris Agreement Policy Recruitment Society Stakeholder Engagement Waste Sector Wider Impacts

Testimonial

Don't just take our word for it...

“ It is always an absolute pleasure working with Aether. I always know what is expected of me. Their work ethic is of a very high standard and projects are always handled in a very professional manner. I have learnt many skills in terms of project management, quality control and workshop training styles from Aether and I hope to carry these principles forward in my own work. I look forward to collaborating with Aether more in the future. ”

Luanne Stevens, Gondwana

“ A heartfelt thank you to all the Aether team for this very comprehensive review – this is certainly turning out to be one of the most beneficial capacity building projects I have ever been involved in. ”

Saviour Vassallo, Senior Environment Protection Officer, Malta Resources Authority

“ From their winning bid to final delivery, Aether's work with North Norfolk District Council was positive and thorough. They brought a clear understanding of the challenges local authorities face regarding carbon emissions and quickly understood the unique nature of the Coastwise project. Communication was effective, and the outcomes combined a depth of research with real-world utility for the council's activities around carbon emissions and mitigation. ”

Alastair Zangs, North Norfolk District Council

“ We have been collaborating with Aether for several years, and our projects have greatly benefited from it. Aether staff are very knowledgeable, professional and flexible - and last but not least, very friendly and a pleasure to work with. ”

Umhverfisstofnun, Environment Agency of Iceland

“ The support provided by Aether for this project was especially remarkable considering the situation of the COVID-19 pandemic. The tools and methods used in order to engage local stakeholders really added value to the capacity building of the national team. ”

Shanna Emmanuel, Saint Lucia BUR Project Coordinator

“ Aether's approach to couple innovative visualisation with high expertise manpower delivered valuable insights for our inventory work. ”

Umweltbundesamt (Germany)

Contact us

Get in touch

Call us on +44 1865 259 200, complete the short form below, or go to the Contact page

Aether would like to keep in touch with you via email with news and updates. Please be assured that we'll treat your information with the utmost care and will not share it with other companies for marketing purposes. See our privacy policy.

Newsletter