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Thursday, 15 December 2011 08:00

EU launches carbon and water footprint mapping tool

The European Union’s One Planet Economy Network EU project (OPEN:EU) has launched a unique new tool for mapping ecological carbon and water footprint data across all the 27 EU member states.

Over the past 2 years the 8-partner project has received €1.5million from the EC’s FP7 funding stream and carried out evidence gathering, software tool design and network dialogue activities to explore how policy makers can achieve a clear understanding of the effects of policies (or the lack of policy) on the environment.

 The EUREAPA tool (EU Resource and Energy Analysis Programme Application) is now available for free online, aimed at EU and national government policy makers, NGOs and academics as a support tool for responsible decision-making at national and EU government level. The tool is based on the integration of the Footprint Family of indicators with an economic model so that the impact of the EU’s trade on the environment can be demonstrated.

 Dr Chris West from the Stockholm Environment Institute at the University of York, one of the project partners, commented:

“The EUREAPA tool represents the culmination of a lot of hard work by the OPEN:EU consortium, including a significant contribution from members of the Stockholm Environment Institute. As a group we are excited to make this data and scenario modeling tool freely available, and look forward to its continued use in exploring a transition to a One Planet Economy.”

 Rachel Brown, OPEN:EU Programme Manager at WWF-UK, said:

“This is a fantastic tool to help policymakers, NGOs and academics understand the impacts of our consumption patterns on the environment. We hope this will make it easier to evaluate the effect of different policy scenarios in inherently complex areas before bringing them into effect.”

The OPEN:EU project has also released a report describing the findings of the development of four One Planet Economy (OPE) future scenarios. The scenarios are designed to support policy makers in thinking about the policy effort needed to transform Europe into a One Planet Economy by 2050.

Using the EUREAPA tool, the four OPE scenarios were quantified to explore the influence of different policy approaches on the EU’s carbon, ecological and water footprints and identify policy approaches that have the greatest influence.

The results have significant implications for policymakers - “no scenario was able to achieve sufficient reduction to achieve footprints within… environmental limits” - challenging the idea that economies can continue to grow while simultaneously reducing environmental impacts.

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