The transition towards sustainability entails addressing systemic and interrelated resource challenges. Via the project "Assessment of resource nexus-related challenges and opportunities in the context of the European Green Deal", Ecologic Institute supports the European Environment Agency (EEA) in its objective to foster a better understanding on these topics for the European policy community and stakeholders. The project serves as background to an EEA briefing on the topic.

Sustainability challenges are typically tied to deeply interconnected "systems of systems". The European Green Deal – in its scope, scale, timeframe and multidimensionality – is a recognition that effective policy also needs to be multisystemic. To help policymakers address resource issues, resource nexus assessments analyze direct and indirect resource interconnections, identifying key resource synergies and resource trade-offs.

The project aims to link existing knowledge regarding resource interactions to the transition pathways that the EU Commission envisions in its European Green Deal. Specifically, the project aims to achieve the following aims:

• Review the large body of existing scientific knowledge on the interactions between two or more of the relevant natural capital components (nodes of the resource nexus) in order to identify key synergies and trade-offs;
• Prepare the key findings of this background research for further use by non-scientific audiences;
• Plot these opportunities and challenges to the objectives of the European Green Deal and its related transition pathways in order to identify potential challenges and opportunities;
• Communicate the results of this analysis in a brief, understandable and visually appealing manner, in order to awaken the interest of wider audiences in the topic, increase their understanding of it; and enhance its usability for practical policymaking.