In This Month's Newsletter:
envecon 2025 Call for Papers
Submit by November 17, 2024
Reflections on EU Chemicals Policy
Following attendance of the 2024 NerSAP conference
What Does Good Green Finance for Agriculture Look Like?
Reflections from participating at Groundswell Festival
envecon 2025 Announcement and Call for Papers
envecon, UKNEE’s longstanding annual environmental economics conference, will return to The Royal Society on Friday, 14th March 2025 - save the date!
Occurring annually since 2003, envecon is the only environmental economics conference in the UK that brings a large delegation of policy makers together with research providers, NGOs, and the private sector.
Earlier this month, UKNEE opened their call for papers. This year we are asking for submissions to be made through our website: click here for the submission form and further details. Submissions are due by November 17th, 2024.
We're looking forward to receiving your submissions and to seeing you all once again at the Royal Society in March!
Reflections on EU Chemicals Policy
Following the 2024 NerSAP Conference
At the end of June, the eftec team (Thea, Karli and Graham) attended the Network of REACH SEA and Analysis of Alternatives meeting in Antwerp. This annual gathering brings together chemicals policy practitioners, policymakers, and industry representatives to review concepts, methods, and experience related to Socio-Economic Analysis (SEA) and Analysis of Alternatives (AoA) for EU-wide and national chemicals management.
This year’s conference was centred around how substituting away from hazardous chemicals can be sustainable, and how to consider this in AoA and SEA. The sessions covered practical and analytical challenges, including implementation of the ‘Essential Use’ criteria, the use of regulatory option analysis, and economic tools that could stimulate a sustainable substitution.
Essential Use Criteria
The Essential Use Criteria were adopted by the EU Commission in April 2024 to assess whether a harmful substance is essential to society. They are:
That use is necessary: for health or safety, or is critical to the functioning of society, AND;
There are no acceptable alternatives.
The recent adoption of this definition has the potential to broaden the scope of SEA for chemicals to consider ‘necessity and criticality’ in addition to economic, human health, and environmental impacts.
REACH Authorisation Challenges
The REACH Authorisation process is facing challenges due to the length of the regulatory process and the administrative burden on both industry and authorities. To address such challenges, the conference discussed how to accelerate the transition from Substances of Very High Concern (SVHC), including:
The need for consultancies, industries, and think tanks to arrive at a common understanding on the terms ‘safer’ and ‘available’ in the context of AoAs.
The need for more consequences for downstream users who choose to import Annex XIV substances (which cannot be used without authorisation) rather than using alternatives developed by EU companies.
The need for collaborative R&D efforts to help accelerate the development of alternatives.
A more novel approach of using a transferrable quota system for SVHCs was presented as a potential way forward and is currently being explored at the University of Helsinki.
What Does Good Green Finance Look Like?
eftec at Groundswell
At the end of June, Groundswell Regenerative Agriculture Festival hosted those at the forefront of regenerative agriculture in the UK to share experience and discuss the future of agriculture and nature in Britain – with a surprise appearance from HRH The Prince of Wales!
Duncan Royle, eftec’s Natural Capital Accountant, joined the festival to speak in a panel held by the Wildlife Trusts on good green finance. He shared the stage with Elizabeth Beall (Finance Earth), Molly Biddell (Knepp Estate), Zoe Channon (Surrey WT), Phoebe Cox (WWT) & Host, Rob Stoneman (Wildlife Trusts).
During the session, Elizabeth Beall focused on the need for transparency and community involvement in projects, and that purchasers should support farmers to ‘inset’ emissions reductions in their supply chain. Phoebe Cox discussed the new Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) requirements in the UK, illustrating how the scheme can fund good projects but that it faces limitations: particularly with funding large-scale nature restoration projects. Molly Biddell shared her experience in successful regenerative agriculture at Knepp, while Zoe Channon emphasised the need for further funding mechanisms in addition to BNG – which alone will not be enough to achieve nature restoration targets.
Duncan discussed how adopting the principles outlined in BSI Flex 701 will help achieve greater trust and transparency in nature markets. He highlighted the need for symmetry of information between buyers and buyers and sellers, without which power imbalances may occur that could deter community involvement, break down trust, and prevent equitable distribution of benefits.
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