The specific objective is to cover one or more of the following topics:

• Circular Economy and Waste
  • Recovery of Resources from Waste – Implementation of innovative solutions to support value-added
    recycled materials, components or products.
  • Circular Economy and the Environment – Implementation of business and consumption models or solutions to support value chains, particularly the key product value chains set out in the new EU Action Plan for the Circular Economy, aiming at reducing or preventing resource use and waste.
• Air: The thematic priority “Air” focuses on the implementation of air quality legislation and a comprehensive approach to related urban, industrial and rural environmental problems. Projects should refer to reducing air pollutants, particularly PM, NOx, and/or ammonia.
  • Air quality legislation and the NEC Directive – Air quality projects should generally focus on urban areas, or on approaches for rural areas with a large replicability potential in the EU, in order to cover as many people as possible.
  • Industrial Emissions Directive – Projects will focus on the reduction of air pollutants and should notably address PM2.5, NOx, SO2, NH3 and/or NMVOCs generated by industrial installations regulated by the Industrial Emissions Directive (IED).
• Water: restore natural functions of ground and surface water. The focus of water actions, both legislative and non-legislative, will be on both water quality and quantity management, as well as coastal and marine waters management:
  • Water quality & quantity – Improvement of water quality.
  • Marine and coastal water management -Application of innovative solutions (tools, technologies or practices) to ensure the protection and conservation of the seas, oceans and their coasts, by fostering sustainable human activities within the marine environment. This would include initiatives aimed at reducing the pressure of human activities on the marine environment.
  • Water services – Application of innovative technologies and tools for drinking water and urban
    wastewater treatment systems.
• Soil: Contribute to the soil-related commitments set in the EU Biodiversity Strategy towards 2030.
  • Implementation of actions to protect the quality of EU’s soil.
  • Restoration, protection and improvement of soil health and prevention of soil degradation including soil loss.

• Noise: priority will be given to projects in urban areas in order to improve the situation for a maximum number of persons.
  • Substantial reduction of noise inside densely populated urban areas through solutions with high environmental and economic sustainability; for instance, by using low noise surfaces and/or tyres having life cycle costs comparable to those of standard surfaces and/or tyres, low height barriers with low landscape impact and eco-friendly materials, or lowering noise from railway traffic or airports.

• Chemicals
  • Prevention and Reduction of the impact on the environment or human health, of hazardous substances.
  • Prevention and Reduction of the impact on the environment or human health of chemical production and use across the value chain.
  • Digital innovations for advanced tools, methods and models, and data analysis capacities to also move away from animal testing.
  • Implementation of safe- and sustainable-by-design solutions, including through the development, commercialisation, deployment and uptake of safe- and sustainable-by-design substances, material and product. The overall sustainability should be ensured by minimising the whole environmental footprint in particular on climate change, resource use, ecosystems and biodiversity from a life cycle perspective.
  • Facilitation of the implementation of the Seveso III Directive on the control of major-accident hazards involving dangerous substances through deployment of particularly cost-effective methodological tools for carrying out human health and environmental risk mapping, and for addressing domino effects.
• A new European Bauhaus: the following project proposals that contribute to the implementation of the New European Bauhaus initiative will be given priority for LIFE support:
  • Proposals focused on a holistic reduction41 of environmental impacts of new buildings;
  • Proposals on circular districts involving creation of circular value chains to boost urban economies whilst producing urban and territorial regeneration.
  • Proposals for maintaining or restoring biodiversity that contribute to the implementation of the New European Bauhaus initiative. This may include, for example, demonstrating biodiversity friendly practice for the energetic isolation of buildings, innovative architectural approaches for wildlife-friendly buildings, etc.