Denmark’s Ministry of Environment is leading the nation’s efforts on climate change mitigation and developing a circular economy
The Ministry of Environment of Denmark is a young ministry, having only been established in December 2020 by the splitting of the former Ministry of Environment & Food.
The ministry focuses on supporting the development of sustainable industrial growth and workplaces in Denmark while simultaneously protecting the natural world, both as the basis for life and food production and in terms of protecting forests, lakes, coastlines and open landscapes as offering a variety of leisure activities for the public.
At the same time, the ministry works to ensure to protect the public against unnecessary chemical products in clothing, toys, soaps and houses, and that pollution that could influence everyday life are dealt with.
Lea Wermelin has been minister of environment since June 2019.
In a 2020 article for OAG, she set out her three priorities relating to the circular economy: less waste; more and better recycling; and a focus on plastics and textiles.
“The circular economy is crucial, and we have to act now. Too many years have gone by in which climate and nature research and knowledge have been systematically rejected. Knowledge that sends a clear message: our way of life has a serious downside,” she wrote.
“Since ancient times, human development has depended on consuming the wealth and resources of nature. But our consumption has side effects. It has consequences, and we need to take responsibility for these consequences.”
The Nature Agency
The Nature Agency is an organisation under the Ministry of Environment. The Nature Agency implements the government’s policies concerning nature and environment. The Nature Agency aims to secure clean water, protecting and securing nature, planning for cities and landscape, outdoor activities and information to the public about nature, forestry and land management of the state forests, gaming and wildlife management.
The Nature Agency consists of 23 nature management units across Denmark with approximately 850 employees and a central head office in Copenhagen with approximately 400 employees. The management team consists of the director-general and five directors.
Danish Environmental Protection Agency
The Environmental Protection Agency manages tasks in the following areas: rich nature, clean water, safe chemistry and green production.
It promotes sustainable consumption, including efforts to improve sustainable procurement in both the public and private sectors, and ecolabels to show consumers that products meet strict environmental requirements. The Environmental Protection Agency is also the competent body for the Eco-Management & Audit Scheme, which has been the preferred voluntary environmental management system of the European Commission since 1993.
In addition, the Danish EPA is engaged in work to identify chemical substances in consumer products and maintains a database of these substances. The public can search the database for reports on a specific substance or search in results within a given product type.
Climate change mitigation
Climate change is a key focus for the Ministry of Environment and in 2017, its predecessor the Ministry of Environment & Food held an AgriClimate Workshop in Copenhagen, with ministries and agencies of EU Member States, the European Commission and select
experts.
The purpose of the workshop was to facilitate interaction between policymakers from the agricultural, environmental and climate change ministries, and scaling up of mitigation practices and technologies in a manner that is cost-effective and creates opportunities.
The workshop looked at the options and challenges for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions in three key areas for agriculture: livestock; soil and land management; and a biobased economy.
Issues discussed included the adoption of data and digital tools in tracking emissions, how to motivate farmers to participate in adopting voluntary agri-environment climate measures and how to protect carbon pools in organic soil, including the state of agricultural soil degradation in EU.
Action Plan for Circular Economy
In July 2021, the Danish government published Action Plan for Circular Economy, its national strategy for the prevention and management of waste for 2020-2032.
The action plan contains a total of 129 initiatives, with
a focus on areas including:
• Less waste and better use of natural resources.
• More and better recycling.
• Better use of biomass.
• A sustainable built environment.
• Plastics in a circular economy.
Plastic waste is the single largest source of Denmark’s CO2 emissions from waste incineration. In 2019, around 514,000 tonnes of plastic waste was generated in Denmark. Only about 25% of this was collected for recycling and it is estimated that only half collected was actually recycled, with the rest being incinerated.
Incineration of both Danish and imported waste containing plastic emits approximately 1.3m tonnes of CO2 per year.
Under the action plan, the government aims to reduce the amount of incinerated plastic waste by 80% by 2030.
1. https://en.mim.dk/media/224197/alle-faktaark-engelsk-nyeste.pdf
2. https://en.mim.dk/the-ministry/
3. https://en.mim.dk/the-ministry/objects-and-history/
4. https://en.mim.dk/focus-on/copenhagen-workshop-on-climatechange-mitigation/
5. www.openaccessgovernment.org/denmark-green-agenda/86467
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