Zero Pollution Webinar Recording and Questions Now Available Online
HERA consortium organized the first online webinar in the series Research for EU Green Deal. On 23 February 2021, we spent an hour discussing the Zero Pollution Ambition and role of research in it. There were four distinguished speakers at the panel discussion, Veronica Manfredi (DG ENV), Sophie Perroud (HEAL), Åke Bergman (Stockholm U) and Martin Scheringer MU/ETH Zurich) who provided perspectives of the European Commission, civil society and research community, respectively. The webinar attracted a good audience of more than 100 participants who also interacted with the speakers by providing comments or asked questions. All questions are now available on our website at the event along with the recording of the webinar so we invite you to visit the webinar page (https://www.heraresearcheu.eu/hera-webinars-research-for-the-green-deal) to re-live the webinar or read questions.
We also asked Sophie, Ake and Martin for a written response to the title question in the webinar "What can research do to help achieving the Zero Pollution ambition?" and here are their answers:
Sophie Perroud
I would emphasize that what is key for disease prevention right now from environmental pollution is that our policy makers step up the implementation of the Green Deal and that every cent invested in the recovery from the pandemic is a zero pollution cent, meaning that there is only very limited actions that people can undertake individually and that the big lever for systemic change is environmental and climate conditionality of the attribution of recovery funds.
On the side of the research needed, HEAL's view is very clear and loud: we need data on the assessment of policy actions undertaken right now under the Next Generation EU framework, and mainly those under the RRPs (resilience and recovery plans from MS). We need articles to be published on the health benefits/impacts of those actions, ideally already one year from now and using the same policy terminology as the one used in those plans, so that policy makers can feel targeted by those articles and that future policy decisions can adjust the path and, where necessary, implement corrections close to real time, so that we get every possible obstacle in the race to zero pollution out of the way asap.
In other words, the pragmatic policy question to date is mostly about the HOW to change policies in order to better protect health quickly and not so much anymore about the WHY change is needed, as the is already ample evidence on that.
Ake Bergman
A (Ake Bergman): Since so much can be done on basis of the present scientific knowledge to implement actions to move towards zero pollution, science must move forward with research tasks on the "unknown". The full picture of the "chemosphere" has to be researched. That means in my perspective identification of the complex mixtures of chemicals in indoor environments, mirroring the discharges from our living environments. The other main task is to focus on waste stream discharges, i.e., wastewater and biosolids, which is a mirror of all uses of anthropogenic chemicals and their transformation products. This is a way forward until full declarations of chemicals in products, materials and goods becomes available. Changes in occurrence levels can be taken as a measure for evaluating the effectiveness of actions implemented.
Martin Scheringer
For achieving zero pollution, it is important to support research that looks at the sources of the pollution. Given the history of pollution and all regulatory actions taken, we still do not fully understand where the pollution comes from and how it interacts with the environment and people where they live. There is ongoing research, but for many chemicals on the market is not clear enough where they are used, in what amounts and by whom apart from the segment of the market that they are designed for. And there is nobody who knows everything on the uses. Because there are strong impacts on the environment and human health, we need a better understanding of how the chemicals are used and how do they enter the environment and cause the concerns that we see. And that is a big task.
Further, chemicals cross borders and circulate between media. We need a more integrative view on the environment and the different aspects of the problem. Science can provide a more integrative and broader view and interpret how chemicals move in the environment and in different media and explain what monitoring data actually mean. That has not been fully exploited so far. There are data, but what is the big picture that all of it tells us? Research fully exploiting trend data that we have in Europe should also be supported, it is very important for effectiveness evaluation and designing new measures.
Finally, a third component is the need for new, safer chemicals along with curbing pollution from chemicals that we have used for a long time. It seems that new chemicals have not become greener yet, the endeavours of green chemistry and sustainable by design are still at the very beginning. A turn is needed, but we need a close collaboration with chemical industry for that.