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The sustainable development goals (SDGs) constitute an ambitious comprehensive global framework including monitoring mechanisms and indicators to evaluate progress towards precise targets of sustainable development. Most European countries have adapted their national sustainability indicator systems to conform to the UN Agenda 2030 for sustainable development, introducing new indicators and monitoring frameworks and governance processes in which these are embedded. What do we know about the political processes and struggles of implementing this important global framework? How does the politics of indicators differ in national contexts? We propose a classification of national indicator systems along dimensions of indicator selection, appraisal landscape, participatory nature, and political communication. We empirically explore these dimensions for four European national sustainability indicator systems through a comparative analysis based on national policy documents, indicator databases, and web portals as well as inputs from workshops and expert interviews. Given the considerable variation with respect to the trajectory of national sustainability indicator systems, we posit that these differences correspond to different national interpretations of sustainability., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

This research explores the theory that cultural factors shape how people feel about the environment. Both theoretical and empirical approaches are used in our investigation of this problem. In the theoretical part of the study, we provide a model for transferring cultural practices from one generation to the next. To provide empirical evidence for the existence of this cultural factor in environmental views, we analyze survey data from the European Values Research. Using a comparative method, we use differences caused by migration patterns in Europe and America. According to our research, cultural influences on migrants' ecological beliefs are long-lasting and statistically significant. Variations in migrants' environmental views may be traced back to societal norms that endure in their home countries. We also demonstrate that ecological views are robust in the face of incentives originating from the external environment, demonstrating that migrants' choices in the host nation are not much influenced by the environmental circumstances they were exposed to in their home countries. We uncover fascinating variations in the cultural transfer procedure, and our results hold up under various hypotheses. These findings suggest that, in light of the prevalence of ecological problems requiring community action, it is crucial to formulate policies that consider the factors that led to the development of ecological cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biodiversity loss, climate change and natural resource depletion are major concerns at local, state-wide and global scales. In the European context, addressing these challenges depends largely on the implementation of European Union (EU) environmental policy. This Special Issue sheds light on the making of environmental Europe in localized action and practice, from the perspective of non-linearity of policy implementation processes and trajectories. The different articles address three analytical challenges examining policy implementation of (i) highlighting the ties between the macro and the micro scales of implementation; (ii) taking into account the materiality of ecosystems as well as the diversity of forms of knowledge, representations and values associated with nature; (iii) characterizing the new relational configurations emerging between public and private actors involved in hybrid forms of governance. Through examination of the implementation of EU environmental and sustainable development policies primarily in the French context, the Special Issue contributes to a renewed understanding of policy implementation as institutional change. Further, the articles highlight the values underlying the implementation of environmental Europe and the specific role of science in shaping the representations, instruments and strategies at stake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Even if in Europe the costs of the transition to a green economy are reflected in the final consumer's bills and in the prices of finished products - an effect already felt in the Community - the necessity to clean up the economy cannot be disputed. However, Europeans need to determine if the priority is to give up conventional energy or to develop the green energy production, because it is becoming increasingly clear that the two objectives cannot be achieved simultaneously without affecting the purchasing power of Europeans. Within this context, the study involves: a) the statistical analysis of the impact of the conventional energy overtaxation and the renewable energy subsidization on the average price charged by suppliers for final consumers on the Romanian market in the first three quarters of 2021 and b) to identify the correlation coefficient between the spot price for energy on the Romanian market and the share of renewable energy in the national mix for the same period. The objective of the research is to assess the costs paid by the final consumers within the context of the energy transition and the production capacity of renewable sources that must be added to the National Energy System for their amortization. The results show the importance of the Black Sea basin in the regional energy equation and its potential to become a point of attraction for European energy investments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Forest condition, biodiversity and ecosystems services are strongly interlinked. • A transferable and operational European wide forest condition indicator is presented. • The methodology includes structural, functional, and compositional variables. • This spatially explicit indicator is built on information accessible EU databases. • This supports the monitoring and assessment of efforts towards EU and SDG goals. Forest condition, biodiversity, and ecosystem services are strongly interlinked. The biodiversity levels depend to a large extent on the integrity, health, and vitality of forests at the same time as losses of forest biodiversity lead to decreased forest productivity and sustainability. Under this conceptual framework, this study presents a methodology for mapping forest condition at European scale supporting the attainment of the 2020 Aichi Biodiversity Target 5 " the rate of loss of all natural habitats, including forests, is at least halved and where feasible brought close to zero, and degradation and fragmentation is significantly reduced" and the implementation of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), as well as the EU forest strategy since the sustainable forest management is oriented to support the provision of forest services and to enhance the condition of biodiversity forests' host. The work presents the developments of an operational indicator at European scale. This spatially explicit information on forest condition can be the baseline map with a 1 km resolution to monitor the state and changes of condition by exposition to pressures and threats. This condition indicator considers structural, functional, and compositional aspects of forest with relevance for health and vitality of species and habitats hosted by forest ecosystems. The methodology implemented used harmonized, published and open datasets. It provided confident results for the assessment of the condition within hemiboreal, temperate and alpine forests, showing the Carpathian, Dinaric Alps and Alps, among others, as hotspots with pre-dominantly good condition. The results were validated with data derived from the reporting for the EU Habitat Directive and explicit dataset on known primary forests in Europe. However, this method underestimated the forest condition in the Mediterranean and Boreal forest types due to data gaps, regional specific characteristics, and design limitations. This study illustrates an operational and transferable approach for addressing the assessment of ecosystem forest condition at European scale being considered as a support tool for European countries when mapping and assessing their national territory, as potential common approach to map forest ecosystems that allows for consistent aggregation and comparisons across scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]