Work Programme 2025

Science is clear: humanity has exceeded six out of nine planetary boundaries, and we are about to breach the seventh. 2023 was the warmest year on  record, with average global temperature likely to exceed 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels in the next five years – a limit the world had agreed not to surpass. In the midst of a triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution, we will not meet our Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.

We need a wake-up call, and we need it now. There are no quick fixes for the challenges we are facing. The environmental crisis must be tackled in a systemic way, ensuring a reconfiguration of our core systems to make them sustainable. This has been recognised by the Sustainable Development Goals, as well as the European Green Deal – but we are still at the beginning of our collective journey towards sustainability.

In 2025, ECOS will work to create momentum for an ambitious vision, backed with political decisions, allowing for fundamental, systemic changes to the way we consume and produce.

Solutions exist and are attainable – but we have no time to lose. Moving away from fossil fuels, greening industrial processes, making sustainable products the norm, and efficiently guiding our markets towards best practices – all of the above will set us on the path to meeting our climate goals and, more broadly, to sustainability. In 2025, ECOS will work towards these priorities, and our activities will be guided by two key principles: sufficiency and impact.

Sufficiency, because we need to drastically reduce the environmental footprint of our societies and recalibrate our consumption and production systems to respect the physical limits of the planet. Impact, because we strongly believe that environmental organisations such as ECOS must continue to strengthen their influence, to bring us closer to real change.

As the only environmental NGO systematically at the table where standards are developed, ECOS is perfectly placed to drive, define and assess how to drastically improve the environmental sustainability of key sectors and products. We will rely on our unique position and expertise to deliver and implement the green transition – one where environmentally ambitious policies are supported by robust standards, serving the environment, and protecting our planet.