The European Commission is accepting applications for the Programme for Environment and Climate Action (LIFE) under the topic Environment Governance.

Objectives-Themes and Priorities

The aim is to facilitate the transition toward a sustainable, circular, toxic-free, energy-efficient/climate-resilient economy and toward a toxic-free environment as well as to protect, restore and improve the quality of the environment.

The specific objective is to cover one or more of the following topics:

Activities in Support of Public Administrations’ Decision-Making and Voluntary Approaches

Improving the capacity of public administration to implement a holistic vision of the environment, including managing, monitoring, assessing environmental plans, programmes and initiatives, by involving responsible authorities, also through institutional collaboration at different territorial level and/or where appropriate in partnership with private entities, with a view to develop synergies, to reduce administrative burden and/or to optimise environmental outcomes. These activities will contribute, where applicable, to the implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development Goals.

One or more of the following shall be targeted:

Plans, programmes, initiatives, analyses, reviews and assessments

National air pollution control programmes;

Air Quality Plans

Programmes of measures, analyses and reviews associated with the River Basin Management Plans;

Flood risk management plans;

Nitrate action plans;

Waste management plans;

National or Regional Circular Economy Action Plans, Strategies, Roadmaps or similar;

Actions, Measures and Plans to implement the Green City Accord;

National Radon Action Plans

Decisions related to:

industrial emissions;

waste management;

water pollution and water abstraction.

Development, promotion, implementation and/or harmonisation of one or more of the following voluntary instruments and approaches and their use by entities aiming at reducing the environmental impact of their activities, products and services:

Third-party verification of the performance of innovative technologies when they are ready for the market;

Product environmental footprint category rules (PEFCR) and/or organisation environmental footprint sectoral rules (OEFSR) at European level for products and sectors not yet covered by the existing PEFCRs/OEFSRs and related high-quality data bases, based on the latest available version of the European environmental footprint methods and the latest available guidance;

The EU Ecolabel, for the promotion of products (goods and services) with excellent environmental performance, in all sectors concerned and in particular in tourism and finance, and as a tool to promote sustainable consumption patterns and lifestyles. In a broader perspective, fostering the use of officially recognised ecolabels;

Actions, services, networks and innovative business models for fostering the use of reused, repaired, refurbished, remanufactured also linked to product durability and planned obsolescence; Development of indicators linked to product policy.

Green and Circular Public Procurement: common tender specifications and/or uptake monitoring tools for public authorities with similar purchasing needs, in order to foster uptake. The option of making public procurement green compulsory should be considered;

Linking regulatory, financial or reputational incentives to environmental performance by using EMAS;

Assessment and reporting of the sustainability performance of buildings, using Level(s), the building framework with core indicators.

Environmental Compliance Assurance and Access to Justice 

Supporting environmental compliance assurance by

establishing new or, where in place, enhancing existing cross-border, national or regional networks of environmental compliance assurance practitioners or experts; and/or establishing or, where in place, improving professional qualifications and training to improve compliance with binding EU environmental instruments (other than on nature and biodiversity), through promoting, checking and enforcing compliance, and applying the polluter pays principle, using a mix of administrative law, criminal law and environmental liability; and/or

by developing and implementing strategies and policies and/or developing and using innovative tools and actions to promote, monitor and enforce compliance with binding EU environmental instruments (other than on nature and biodiversity), and ensure application of the polluter pays principles through environmental liability; and/or

engaging with citizens and others to promote and monitor compliance, and ensure application of environmental liability.

Promoting effective public participation and access to justice in environmental matters61 amongst the public, NGOs, lawyers, the judiciary, public administrations or other stakeholders with a view to improving knowledge, understanding and application of effective means of public participation and/or access to justice, with a particular focus on protecting people’s health and well-being and protecting the quality of the environment via the requirements of EU air, water and waste and environmental liability instruments. Projects should draw on existing modules and know-how in the area of environmental law training developed by the Commission and the Commission Notice on access to justice in environmental matters and related materials.

Behavioral Change and Awareness-Raising Initiatives 

The geographical scope of behavioural change and awareness-raising initiatives will be taken into account in the assessment of the European added value of proposed projects.

Raising awareness on environmental problems, EU environmental policies, tools and/or legislation among the relevant target audiences, aiming to change their perceptions and fostering the adoption of environmentally friendly behaviours and practices and/or direct citizen’s engagement. Applicants need to provide substantial evidence that a change of awareness levels65 in the field(s) addressed by the project is a crucial factor supporting correct implementation and/or future development of EU environmental policies tools and/or legislation. The awareness-raising activities should have the widest coverage relevant for the specific issue targeted66. These activities will contribute, where applicable, to the implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development Goals. The environmental problems, EU environmental policies, tools and/or legislation targeted should be directly linked to one or more of the priorities included in:

The European Green Deal to raise awareness on the environmental impacts to underpin the transformative changes towards more sustainable food, energy, mobility and building systems and to mainstream environmental considerations across policies and activities in line with the EGD oath to do no harm;

The Circular Economy Action Plan to ensure waste prevention and reduction, sustainable production, sustainable products, services and business models, sustainable consumption and transformation of consumption patterns in particular in the sectors that use most resources and pose higher sustainability challenges, namely textiles, chemicals (including plastics), construction and buildings, electronics and ICT, batteries and vehicles;

The Zero Pollution Action Plan addressing the protection of citizens from environmental pressures and risks to health as a result of Europe’s zero-pollution ambition and measures for a toxic-free environment including, in particular, sustainability in the use and management of chemicals and promoting clean air.

Scope 

The present Call topic targets Standard Action Projects (SAP) aimed at achieving the objectives of the Circular Economy and Quality of Life sub-programme. SAP are defined in section 2 (Type of Action) while the general objectives of the subprogramme in section 1 (‘Circular Economy and Quality of Life’).

This call topic focus exclusively on environmental governance projects, other projects as defined in the related Call topic named LIFE-2024-SAP-ENV-ENVIRONMENT as well as LIFE-2024-SAP-NAT-GOV are excluded.

Third countries associated to the LIFE Programme: The assessment of each proposal will be done in line with the provisions of the relevant association agreement.

Funding Information

• The estimated available call budget is EUR 79,500,000.
• Budget: EUR 6,500,000

Expected Impact

• Applicants are expected to define, calculate, explain and achieve the expected impacts as described in the Award criterion ‘Impact’.
• All LIFE proposals will have to report on their expected outputs and impacts taking into account the LIFE Key Performance indicators (KPIs). These KPIs will contribute to evaluating the impact of the LIFE proposals on an environmental but also socioeconomic level (e.g. via actions impacting the local economy and population).
• Applicants should review relevant indicators in Part C of the eGrant application and complete them with the estimated impact of the project. Part C data should be coherent with the description of impacts of section 2 of Part B of the Application Form.
• In case Part C does not include impact indicators that are important for your project (e.g.: NOx emission reduction for projects targeting Air Quality Plans) applicants should make use of the indicator “Other project specific KPIs” in Part C and provide a relevant description of such indicators in section 2 of Part B of the Application Form.
• If relevant, projects must upload a Geographic Information System (GIS) file and associated data of the specific geographical area where the intervention took place as a deliverable in their final report. This map should enable to spatially visualise the impact already reported in the KPI database. The specific format and technical requirements of the GIS files will be provided to the supported projects during their implementation.

Eligibility Criteria

In order to be eligible, the applicants (beneficiaries and affiliated entities) must:

• be legal entities (public or private bodies)
• be established in one of the eligible countries, i.e.:
• EU Member States (including overseas countries and territories (OCTs))

non-EU countries:

• listed EEA countries and countries associated to the LIFE Programme
• the coordinator must be established in an eligible country.

Source: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/opportunities/topic-details/life-2024-sap-env-gov?order=DESC&pageNumber=1&pageSize=50&sortBy=startDate&isExactMatch=true&status=31094501,31094502&frameworkProgramme=43252405