40th EPA Network plenary, Helsinki

Leif Schulman, Director General of the Finnish Environment Institute (Syke) welcomed participants to the 40th plenary of the Heads of European Environmental Protection Agencies’ Network (EPA Network) taking place on 28-29 September 2023 in Helsinki. Around 60 participants representing around 30 countries and European institutions were gathered at the meeting.

Kai Mykkänen, Minister of Climate and Environment, presented to Heads of EPAs the work on reaching carbon neutrality in Finland as well as preparations for a new National Biodiversity Strategy, including the necessity for a basis to translate complex biodiversity challenges into quantifiable and measurable policy targets. Juhani Damski, Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of the Environment, emphasized the important role of EPAs as actors in the knowledge-to-policy landscape, looking back at the evolution of integrating environmental issues into policy, towards economy and finance and now lastly, into broader in issues like security and resilience. Damski lastly looked forward to new opportunities and challenges for EPAs, pointing to the opportunities in integrating Copernicus data and including future generations in our knowledge basis for policymaking.

Patrick Child, Deputy Director-General of DG ENV, European Commission and Leena Ylä-Mononen, Executive Director of the European Environment Agency (EEA) shared updates to inform Heads of EPAs on recent developments in European policy processes and work. Sharon McGuinness, Executive Director of the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), presented developments around chemicals, emphasising the links between ECHA and the work areas of EPAs and EEA, avoiding gaps between legislation, as well as mutual challenges and opportunities in communicating science and knowledge.

Patrick Child, Deputy Director-General of DG ENV, European Commission and Leena Ylä-Mononen, Executive Director of the European Environment Agency (EEA) shared updates to inform Heads of EPAs on recent developments in European policy processes and work.

Sharon McGuinness, Executive Director of the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), presented developments around chemicals, emphasising the links between ECHA and the work areas of EPAs and EEA, avoiding gaps between legislation, as well as mutual challenges and opportunities in communicating science and knowledge.

Meeting participants discussed recent network priorities in the session dedicated to network activities, including an update of the EPA Network role survey, a network paper on considerations for policymakers in the upcoming policy cycle and important outcomes and developments in the work of the network’s Interests groups on BRIG (Better Governance, Compliance and Implementation), Environment and Tourism, Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) (joint EPA Network/ENCA Network Interest group) and Sustainability Research and Solutions (IG EPAS). The new EPA Network Secretariat, Nicolas Perritaz, will take up duties on 1 November 2023.

In a dedicated afternoon session on Knowledge-driven decision-making, Eeva Primmer, Research Director of Syke, presented considerations related to the shared EPA ambition to reach sustainability transformation through knowledge and how EPAs can exchange to innovate and improve. Marko Hekkert, Director General of the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL) presented the mandate and work of PBL, emphasising the pressure on knowledge institutions as the need for sustainability transitions is growing as well as PBL experiences and perspectives on how to innovate. Dirk Messner, President of the German Environment Agency, shared experiences and work from Germany, emphasising especially implications on EPAs work and structure as the nature of challenges change from developing technological solutions and industrial instruments towards managing transitions across societies. Nuno Lacasta, Executive Board President (CEO) of the Portuguese Environment Agency, presented experiences from Portugal, including in capacity building necessary to span across boundaries, integrating all aspects of environment as well as other societal disciplines, sectors and actors.

Photo: © Aino Laine, SYKE 2023

On the second day of the meeting, Kurt Vandenberghe, Director-General of DG CLIMA, European Commission, introduced his perspectives on Integrating climate and nature policies, with a focus of making use of public-private collaboration. Mr. Vandenberghe underlined the importance of the land sector in the EU's efforts to tackle climate change; the need for improved monitoring of land change and forestry to be able to apply measures rapidly, the need for certifying carbon removals that respect biodiversity and to provide a new business case to trigger financial flows towards nature.

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Eila Kreivi, Chief Sustainable Finance Advisor at the European Investment Bank, emphasised the importance of biodiversity for the global economy, highlighting the dependence of European companies of nature related services and the importance of developing common principles for identifying and tracking nature positive investments. Aino Juslén, Director of the Nature Solutions Unit at Syke presented to Heads of EPAs efforts to balance biodiversity conservation with business demands in Finland, including work on biodiversity accounting and voluntary offsetting. Baptiste Fabert Perrissin, Executive Director of ADEME's Expertise and Programmes, presented French policies to improve forest resilience in France, emphasising especially the increased demand on forest (e.g. biomass) coupled with reduction in quality of forest due to climate change.

In the last session on Security and Resilience, Paula Kivimaa, Research Professor at Syke, presented connections between climate change, energy and security and the influence of climate change impacts outside Europe on European trade, finance and security. Sara Kajander, Director of Unit, Community and Environment at the Ministry of Defence in Finland, presented the Comprehensive security model in Finland, “a whole of society” approach to defense, the need for addressing both the security and environmental sides of climate change, and the role of EPA knowledge in informing policymakers of the urgent need for resilience. Vadim Kononenko, Stretagic Foresight expert at the EEA, presented resilience in the context of the European Green Deal, and the importance of maintaining the transformative intent for the full 25-year transition period, as well as the need for more use of foresight and anticipation to measure the intent and resilience of transformational policies.

In the closing session, Leif Schulman and Mari Erlandsen, EPA Network Secretariat, summarised the meeting and follow-up. The EPA Network will convene for their 41^st plenary in May 2024 in Slovakia.