Transportation, one of the backbones of today’s economy, is a service that significantly impacts the environment. The volume of transport, transport modes and technology used by transport vehicles determine the level of emissions into air (CO2, SO2, NOx, noise, etc.) and consumption of resources (energy, raw materials, land). At the same time, stakeholder consultations indicate that environmental technologies are not sufficiently used in this sector, partially due to a lack of knowledge and clear information.

For a sustainable development within the EU all social costs of economic activities have to be considered. The integrated project EXIOPOL aims to assess these costs, which include environmental impacts, for the EU-25 and will depict them in an environmentally extended input-output framework. The results of the assessment and the accounting framework will be applied to important policy issues and will help to assess the policy impact of past research.

Pharmaceuticals in the environment is an issue receiving growing attention. Over the past few years, the amount of research on the potential environmental effects and risks of pharmaceuticals has greatly increased. It thus becomes essential to point out key issues to be addressed in order to increase the effectiveness of research. The EU project KNAPPE aims to identify relevant priority actions to be taken in order to reduce the occurrence, impacts and risk of pharmaceutical products in the aquatic environment.

The project's objective is to identify optimal waste management strategies for three different European regions. A multidisciplinary (environmental, economic, social, legal) approach is applied in evaluating different strategies. Ecologic will cover the socio-economic assessment of the identified strategies.

One of the key elements of the latest 2003 reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is compulsory compliance with environmental, food safety, animal welfare, and animal and plant health standards. Additionally it is required that farmers maintain their farmland in good agricultural and environmental condition as a condition for receiving direct payments. The project will focus on the investigation of the value-added resulting from introducing cross-compliance as a tool to improve compliance with existing standards; and the investigation of the cost implications and competition effects of compliance to EU standards on the world market.

The challenge of developing robust methodologies to undertake ex ante and/or ex post sustainability assessments of trade policies remains largely unmet. In cooperation with further members of the CAT-E network Ecologic analyses and develops methodological approaches for sustainable impact assessments for specific trade areas.