Germany has a comprehensive set of environmental policies and laws, strong environmental awareness of its citizens, and very active NGOs.
Green tech is an important factor in the German economy. Strong eco-innovation performance has helped to develop a highly competitive environmental goods industry, particularly clean energy and water technology.
Intensive agriculture, growing transport, and relatively high population density exert strong pressures on ecosystems and biodiversity contributing to compliance issues with water, air quality and nature rules.
Highlights
Germany’s circular use of materials has increased steadily over the past decade, reaching 14% in 2023, compared to the EU average of 11.8%. This positive trend will be further supported with the adoption of Germany’s first comprehensive national circular economy strategy in December 2024.
The Federal Government intends to contribute to improving the general state of Germany’s ecosystems, thereby strengthening their resilience and climate protection performance. From 2024 to 2027, a total of EUR 3.5 billion is available for various measures. The restoration and rewetting of peatlands is an essential component.
Main Challenges
Nature and biodiversity
The condition of many ecosystems has continued to deteriorate. In Germany, the status of 63% of the species and 69% of the habitat types listed in the Habitats Directive is classified as “unfavorable-inadequate” or “unfavorable-bad”, and only 9% of surface waters are in good or better ecological status.
Pollution
Pollution from agriculture and industry put significant pressure on water bodies and soils. Nitrates are the worst pollutant, causing failure to achieve good chemical status in groundwater.
Circular economy
Germany also generates far more waste than the EU average. Overall, there appears to be a very small decoupling of waste generation from economic growth throughout the period 2010-2022.
Governance and investment
The investment gap to meet Germany’s environmental objectives is an estimated €20 billion per year, representing around 0.52% of the national GDP, below the EU-average (0.77%).
Germany makes Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) portals available at federal and Länder level providing information on projects, including summaries, details on public participation, on progress made on the authorisation procedure and on the final decision on the approval of the project including an explanation of how the reasoned assessment, in particular comments from the public, were considered in the decision.