Publications

In Germany, as in almost all industrial countries, active pharmaceutical substances can now be found in virtually all water bodies and occasionally also in drinking water. Even though the concentrations in question tend to be very low, there are initial signs of their  impact on aquatic life. There is no evidence as yet of any acute consequences for human health.

Part: a departure into a new era - the elements of a sustainable energy supply ; Resource efficiency - a key skill for sustainable societies ; Sustainable chemistry - an elemantary building block of a Green Economy. Germany has decided the transformation of its energy sys-tem. The new energy era requires a fundamental transfor-mation of energy supply.

The new office building of the Federal Environment Agency (Umweltbundesamt, UBA) was erected as a model project for sustainable building with very ambitious goals. In order to significantly reduce the consumption of fossil energy sources, the energy demand of the building to be constructed had to be as low as possible to allow sustainable operation.

In 1999, Georgia signed the UNECE Convention on Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes as well as the Protocol on Water and Health. One of the Protocol goals is the protection of human health from waterborne disease and ensuring well-being in the framework of sustainable development in all the relevant national, transboundary and international contexts.

Transport accounted for 23% of global CO2 emissions in 2007. It is expected that both the overall emissions and the demand for energy in transport will continue to rise in the next decades unless appropriate policy measures are introduced.

The study proves the feasibility of a technical realisation of Article 10(1) of the BPD and elaborates a first concept for the cumulative environmental exposure assessment of biocides.

The ECHA Guidance Documents R.12 to R.18 include detailed provisions on how to conduct an exposure assessment as part of the Chemical Safety Report. The guidance documents, however, only restrictedly address the consideration of a substance’s emissions into the environment, if the local releases from various uses of the same substance result in a cumulative exposure.

Emissions from building products considerably impair the quality of indoor air. The AgBB scheme has been used to evaluate the emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOC) from building products. The hygienic evaluation according to the AgBB scheme requires product-specific measurement methods which are already available for a number of products.

Environmental protection has developed into an important factor in the German economy. This can be seen from the development of the environmental economy, a cross-sectoral industry comprising all businesses that supply environmental goods and services.

We are all aware of the importance of climate protection. We are also aware that time is running out. What is needed is the creation of a climate-neutral society where the amount of CO₂ and other climate-damaging gases released into the environment does not cause further damage. We must start now and make essential elements of a climate-neutral lifestyle part of our daily lives.

In the national assessment for authorisation in Germany the leaching behaviour of a plant protection product is determined in a stepwise procedure in accordance with FOCUS groundwater report (2009). The recommendations given in this paper here are related to tier 1 and tier 2, only.

Apart from the requirements traditionally defined in the building legislation the European Construction Products Directive (CPD) explicitly demands construction works to be built with construction products that meet the requirements on hygiene, health and environment in force in their place of use and not to endanger the health of the occupants and neighbours.