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Last update: January 2013

EU Strategy for Sustainable Development

The goal of the EU strategy for sustainable development, adopted in the summer of 2001, is to improve the quality of life on earth of both present and future generations. In particular, it is intended to ensure that economic growth, environmental protection and social integration go hand in hand.

The strategy adds the environmental dimension to the Lisbon Strategy and is conceived as a supplement to the European Union's commitment to economic and social renewal. In a first step, the sustainable development strategy addressed four topics of central importance for sustainable development: climate change, transport, health and natural resources. Moreover, it contains statements on issues of global environmental protection. For the review of the strategy, the European Commission carried out a broad public consultation between August and October 2004. The new, more complete and more ambitious EU sustainable development strategy with objectives, indicators and an effective monitoring procedure should be based on a long-term positive vision and fully include the external dimension.

On 13 December 2005 the Commission presented its review of the sustainable development strategy. On the basis of this, the European Council adopted the renewed
EU sustainable development strategy on 15/16 June 2006.

The renewed EU sustainable development strategy names clear goals and priority measures for the seven key challenges in the field of sustainable development:

It confirms key goals and planned measures in the field of climate change and clean energy. These include the 2°C target, the 2010 targets for renewable energies, the 9% reduction in energy consumption by 2017, EU support for climate targets for 2020 and (indirectly) for 2050, and the strategy for biomass. The EU sustainable development strategy makes it clear that energy policy must be consistent with the goals of competitiveness, security of supply and ecological sustainability, and that energy policy is of key importance in mitigating climate change.
The strategy confirms the building blocks of a sustainable development of the transport sector, including decoupling economic growth and the demand for transport, the goal of shifting from road transport to environmentally friendly transport modes, controlling demand for transport through costs including the internalisation of external costs, reduction of noise and pollutant emissions from traffic and measures for reducing the environmental impacts of mounting air and maritime traffic.
In the field of sustainable consumption and production, by 2010 the strategy aims to reach an EU average level of green public procurement equal to that currently achieved by the best performing Member States. A benchmarking has been introduced for this. For setting environmental and social performance targets, a dialogue process will be initiated between the European Commission, Member States and trade and industry. The labelling of products with high environmental impacts will be extended. The strategy contains a mandate for the Commissions to propose an Action Plan for sustainable consumption and production, which was carried out in July 2008.
For the conservation and management of natural resources the renewed strategy calls for targets and measures in the framework of the thematic strategy on the sustainable use of natural resources.
In the field of public health, the European Union is required, inter alia, to propose a strategy for improving indoor air quality.
With regard to the global challenges relating to poverty and sustainable development, strengthening multilateral environmental agreements should contribute to improving international environmental governance. The EU should use trade agreements to improve environmental and social standards.
In the field of social inclusion, demography and migration, improving the quality of life is a priority goal. Specific environmental topics are not addressed in the context of these challenges.

Furthermore, the renewed strategy calls on the Member States to take further steps to shift taxation from labour to resource and energy consumption and to pollution. It is confirmed that relative to the Lisbon Strategy, the two strategies complement each other. However, the EU sustainable development strategy represents the overall framework, within which the Lisbon Strategy will serve as a driving force of a more dynamic economy.

The revised EU strategy for sustainable development also strengthens the relationship with the national sustainability strategies , for example through voluntary peer reviews and streamlined progress reports based on existing reports. The strategy also lays down a new monitoring process for reviewing implementation: the European Commission will submit a progress report every 2 years, on the basis of which the European Council will review the implementation of the strategy, also at 2-yearly intervals.

In July 2009 the European Commission published its Review of the European Union Strategy for Sustainable Development 2009 (PDF file, 73 KB); the Swedish EU Council Presidency drew up a Presidency Report (PDF file, 217 KB) on this, with the participation of the Member States. On the basis of the report, in December 2009 the European Council reaffirmed that sustainable development remains a fundamental EU objective under the Treaty of Lisbon and that the Strategy will continue to form the overarching political framework for all European Union policies and strategies. In their conclusions (PDF file, 186 KB) the heads of state and government highlighted climate change, high energy consumption in the transport sector, the loss of biodiversity and natural resources and the transition to a safe and sustainable low-carbon economy based on responsible resource management as areas where action is urgently needed. The heads of state and government decided that priority actions should be more clearly specified in future reviews. Governance should be reinforced, for instance through clearer links to the future EU 2020 Strategy. This follow-up to the Lisbon Strategy was adopted in June 2010 by the heads of state and government and envisages the European Council conducting a comprehensive annual assessment of progress at EU and national level, on the basis of a Commission Report. In its Conclusions on Rio+20 of October 2012, the EU Environment Council laid down that the EU Sustainable Development Strategy should be reviewed as soon as possible, in 2014 at the latest.