(12 December 2013) – Eurostat has published today its fifth Monitoring report on Sustainable Development in the European Union.
Are there reductions in pollutant emissions in the EU? Is there a trend towards more sustainable consumption patterns in the EU? Is life expectancy continuing to increase? Has the employment rate of older persons in the EU increased? Is there a reduction in the EU greenhouse gas emissions? Is there an increase in EU financing for developing countries?
Answers to these questions and many more can be found in the fifth Monitoring report on Sustainable Development in the European Union, published today by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union. The Monitoring report is accompanied by a video which presents sustainable development in a simple and clear manner as well as the evolution of a number of indicators.
The Sustainable Development Indicators are grouped into ten themes: socioeconomic development, sustainable consumption and production, social inclusion, demographic changes, public health, climate change and energy, sustainable transport, natural resources, global partnership and good governance. Twelve headline indicators have been chosen to give an overall picture of whether the EU has achieved progress towards sustainable development.
The evaluation of these indicators is based, as far as possible, on the evolution from 2000 until the latest year available for the EU27. Progress is evaluated depending on how favourable or unfavourable the developments have been over recent years, and is represented visually through weather symbols. For further analysis, each chapter in the Monitoring report provides detailed assessment of the themes, covering all in all over 100 indicators.