The EU is deeply committed to combatting climate change and protecting biodiversity. As the impacts of these environmental challenges become more pronounced, the EU is increasing efforts to address them through its policies and actions. One of the EU's key strategies to ensure a comprehensive approach is the concept of mainstreaming – i.e., the integration of climate and biodiversity considerations into various policy areas and funding mechanisms.

Objective

The project aims to provide the European Commission with information on how to best use the EU budget in the post-2027 MFF to achieve the ambitious environmental and climate objectives in an effective and efficient way. The results of this project will feed into the political processes that will shape the post-2027 MFF. More specifically, the project will provide guidance on which priorities the available funds should (task 1) or should not (task 2) be spent on in order to achieve the environmental and climate objectives. The project will also analyze the mainstreaming tools and how they can best be deployed throughout the architecture of the MFF by improving their consistency, optimizing their mutual interactions, and considering the efficiency of the toolbox as a whole (Task 3). Overall, the project will provide concrete conclusions and recommendations for all of those points (throughout all tasks and then horizontally in Task 4 in section 4.5).

Ecologic Institute in the project

Ecologic Institute is leading two tasks: The first one will define options for improving funding for nature restoration. It delves into the analysis of existing EU funding programs, and address challenges and barriers that Member States face when accessing and mobilizing EU funds for nature restoration projects and biodiversity mainstreaming. This knowledge will be used to inform about possibilities of mainstreaming existing EU funds and how to improve access processes to EU funds. The second tasks will analyze options for integrating nature-based solutions (NbS) and screen existing EU funds that have the potential to support NbS. The focus will be on identifying successful NbS projects funded under EU programs. The results will inform the discussions on how to better mainstream NbS under MFF programs and encourage the replication of best practices in future projects under the post-2027 MFF.