EEA catalogue of European environment and climate policy evaluations
The EEA catalogue of policy evaluations in the field of environment and climate policies is a database that contains extensive information on almost 600 published evaluations.
The aim of the catalogue is to provide an easy access to the available evaluations and to obtain an overview of policy evaluation practices in Europe, in the areas of environment and climate policy.
The policy evaluations included in the database have been documented according to a series of features, in order to obtain an overview of policy evaluation practices. The main categories of features include: basic information on the evaluation; policy areas and economic sectors that are covered; information on the geographic and timely scope; information on authors and commissioners; evaluation criteria used; evaluation methods and techniques applied; data used and results of the evaluation.
More information available in the methodology section and in the report (the final report can be downloaded here).
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1 | Evaluation of the EU's Strategy on Adaptation to Climate Change | EU Strategy on Adaptation to Climate Change | Climate adaptation | No information | European Commission - DG Climate Action | No information | Expected | No information | Specific strategy | No information | No information | No information | No information | No information | No information | No information | No information | No information | No information | No information |
2 | COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT REFIT evaluation of Regulation (EC) No 166/2006 concerning the establishment of a European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (E-PRTR) Accompanying the document Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on progress in implementing Regulation (EC) No 166/2006 concerning the establishment of a European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (E-PRTR) | The European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register (E-PRTR) | Air quality, air pollution | Industry | European Commission - DG Environment | No information | 2017 | EU27 | Specific policy (measure) | Ex-post | 2006 | 2013 | No information | Relevance; Effectiveness; Efficiency; Coherence; Added value | Qualitative; Quantitative | Literature review (qualitative); Targeted survey (qualitative); Public consultation survey (qualitative); Workshops, focus groups or similar (qualitative); Literature review (quantitative) | No information | No information | No | Very positive |
3 | Evaluation of Regulations 443/2009 and 510/2011 on CO2 emissions from light-duty vehicles | Regulation 443/2009 and 510/2011 on the reduction of CO2 emissions from light-duty vehicles | Climate mitigation | Transport | European Commission - DG Climate Action | Private company, independent consultancy | 2015 | EU28 | Suite of regulations | No information | 2009 | 2015 | Impact assessment | Relevance; Effectiveness; Efficiency; Coherence; Added value; Other: Impact on life cycle emissions, energy security, competitiveness and innovation, competitive distorsion and social equity, costs to manufacturers, lifetime fuel expenditure savings, fuel tax revenues | Qualitative; Quantitative | Literature review (qualitative); Targeted survey (qualitative); Interviews (qualitative); Literature review (quantitative); Other: Comparative analysis with a baseline/counterfactual scenario, regression analysis/empirical research | Fuel tax revenues | Costs to operators | Yes | Very positive |
4 | Trends and projections in the EU ETS in 2017. The EU Emissions Trading System in numbers | European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) | Climate mitigation | Energy; Transport; Industry | European Environment Agency (EEA) | European Environment Agency | 2017 | EU28 | Specific policy (measure) | Ex-ante; Ex-post | 2016 | 2030 | Progress-to-target evaluation | Effectiveness | Qualitative; Quantitative | Literature review (qualitative); Literature review (quantitative); Modelling (quantitative); Other: Own calculations/quantification, descriptive statistics | GHG emissions reduction | New Entrants Reserve allocations; Article 10c allowances | No | No impact / Mixed results |
5 | Ex post evaluation and policy implementation in the building sector | Energy Performance of Buildings Directive; EED the Ecodesign and Energy Labelling Directives, looking at the domain of heating and cooling | Climate mitigation | Buildings; Other: Heating and cooling | European Environment Agency (EEA) | Research institute | 2018 | EU28; With case studies | Suite of policy measures | Ex-post | No information | No information | No information | Effectiveness; Coherence | Qualitative; Quantitative | Literature review (qualitative); Literature review (quantitative); Other: Case studies | No information | No information | No | Mainly positive |
6 | Contribution of the information reported under the MMR to the evaluation of national PaMs | Climate mitigation policy actions and measures (PAMs) under the EU Monitoring Mechanism Regulation (MMR) | Climate mitigation | Energy; Transport; Buildings; Industry; Agriculture | European Environment Agency (EEA) | Research institute | 2016 | National; Belgium; Czechia; Denmark; Estonia; Finland; France; Germany; Ireland; Netherlands; Spain; United Kingdom | Suite of policy measures | Ex-post | No information | No information | No information | Relevance; Effectiveness; Efficiency; Coherence | Qualitative; Quantitative | Literature review (qualitative); Interviews (qualitative); Workshops, focus groups or similar (qualitative); Literature review (quantitative) | No information | No information | Yes | No impact / Mixed results |
7 | COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT Accompanying the document Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council on evaluating the implementation of Decision No. 406/2009/EC pursuant to its Article 14 {COM(2016) 483 final} | Effort Sharing Decision (ESD) | Climate mitigation | Energy; Transport; Buildings; Industry; Agriculture; Waste | European Commission | European Commission | 2016 | EU28 | Suite of policy measures | Mid-term / progress / interim | 2009 | 2015 | Progress-to-target evaluation | Relevance; Effectiveness; Efficiency; Coherence; Added value | Qualitative; Quantitative | Literature review (qualitative); Targeted survey (qualitative); Public consultation survey (qualitative); Interviews (qualitative); Literature review (quantitative); Other: Case studies | GHG emissions reduction | No information | No | Very positive |
8 | COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT IMPACT ASSESSMENT Accompanying the document Proposal for a REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL on binding annual greenhouse gas emission reductions by Member States from 2021 to 2030 for a resilient Energy Union and to meet commitments under the Paris Agreement and amending Regulation No 525/2013 of the European Parliament and the Council on a mechanism for monitoring and reporting greenhouse gas emissions and other information relevant to climate change | 2030 climate and energy policy framework | Climate mitigation | Energy; Transport; Buildings; Agriculture; Land use, land use change and forestry; Waste | European Commission | European Commission | 2016 | EU28 | Suite of policy measures | Ex-ante | 2021 | 2030 | Impact assessment | Effectiveness; Efficiency; Coherence; Other: Fairness (different economic capacities of Member States) | Qualitative; Quantitative | Targeted survey (qualitative); Public consultation survey (qualitative); Literature review (quantitative); Modelling (quantitative); Targeted survey (quantitative); Other: Gap analysis, static calculations; sensitivity analysis | Distributional effects; GHG emissions per capita; GDP per capita | No information | Yes | Very positive |
9 | COMMISSION STAFF WORKING DOCUMENT IMPACT ASSESSMENT Accompanying the document Proposal for a REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL on the inclusion of greenhouse gas emissions and removals from land use, land use change and forestry into the 2030 climate and energy framework and amending Regulation No 525/2013 of the European Parliament and the Council on a mechanism for monitoring and reporting greenhouse gas emissions and other information relevant to climate change | 2030 climate and energy policy framework | Climate mitigation | Energy; Transport; Buildings; Industry; Agriculture; Land use, land use change and forestry | European Commission | European Commission | 2016 | EU28 | Suite of policy measures | Ex-ante | 2021 | 2030 | Impact assessment | Effectiveness; Efficiency; Coherence; Other: Fairness (social and distributional effects of the measures) | Qualitative; Quantitative | Literature review (qualitative); Public consultation survey (qualitative); Literature review (quantitative); Modelling (quantitative); Targeted survey (quantitative); Indicator analysis (quantitative); Other: Sensitivity analysis, static calculations | Distributional effects; Employment effects | No information | Yes | No information |
10 | Implementation of the Energy Efficiency Directive (2012/27/EU): Energy Efficiency Obligation Schemes | Energy Efficiency Directive (2012/27/EU) | Energy efficiency | Energy | European Parliament | European Parliament | 2016 | EU28; With case studies | Specific regulation with focus on one aspect | Ex-post | 2012 | 2016 | No information | Relevance; Effectiveness; Efficiency; Other: Implementation, enforcement | Qualitative; Quantitative | Literature review (qualitative); Targeted survey (qualitative); Interviews (qualitative); Literature review (quantitative); Other: Case studies | No information | No information | Yes | Mainly positive |
Evaluation ID | Policy evaluation title | Evaluated policy | Policy area | Sector | Commissioner | Author type | Publication year | Geographical scope | Evaluation scope | Type | Period start | Period end | Technique | Criteria | Method | Method-type | Output data | Input data | Policy recommendation | Evaluation result |
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Methodology behind the catalogue
The catalogue has been developed via extensive desk research and filtering of available literature. The first step of the search process was a systematic scan of organisations’ websites who are active in publishing policy evaluations and various publication portals. For national evaluations, the first source was the EEA’s Policies and Measures (PaMs) database http://pam.apps.eea.europa.eu/ where existing evaluations on climate mitigation policies should be reported. Further, on the national level, organisations such as national ministries that work in the field of environment and climate policy, environmental or energy agencies as well as NGOs were checked. Horizon 2020 projects were looked at as well. At EU level, the most important source for identifying relevant evaluations was the European Commission, notably the evaluation calendar of the Commission. In addition, websites of relevant Directorate-Generals have been screened separately (such as DG Climate Action, DG Environment, DG Mare or DG Energy). Furthermore, other European or international institutions were included in this search such as the OECD, the European Court of Auditors and other EU institutions (European Parliament, European Committee of the Regions and European Economic and Social Committee). This initial scanning of relevant websites was accompanied by a targeted Google search. Some key words that were used for this Google search include: ‘policy’, ‘evaluation’, ‘ex-post’, ‘ex-ante’, ‘mid-term’, ‘progress evaluation’, ‘cost-benefit analysis’ in combination with ‘environment’, ‘climate’, ‘Ministry’, ‘assessment’, ‘impact’, ‘water’, ‘waste’, etc.In total, more than 2 000 documents were identified as potential policy evaluations. Each of these documents went through a filtering exercise to distinguish which would be included in the catalogue. The basis of selection was a set of criteria:
- The document consists of an evaluation of a specific (or set of) policy measure(s) or regulation(s):
- ‘Policy’ has been defined as a law, regulation, procedure, administrative action, incentive, programme or strategy, implemented (or planned) by governments or institutions;
- ‘Policy evaluation’ has been defined as the exercise of evaluating the quality, benefits, worth and utility of a given policy, using various research methods and evaluation practices. This is achieved by investigating the content, outcome, implementation or impact of a policy;
- Consequently, for the purpose of this catalogue, all literature that was included in the list of policy evaluations had to include both an ‘evaluation’ and a ‘policy’ element. Evaluations that looked at multiple policies or regulations were also taken into account in the analysis;
- Impact assessments of specific projects, typically infrastructure (e.g. roads) were excluded.
The catalogue was established in 2018 under the EEA Framework contract (Specific contract No 3413/B2018/EEA.57336, implementing Framework service contract No EEA/IEA/14/006). The number of ‘selected’ policy evaluations that comply with the criteria was 495. The list of ‘reserve’ evaluations that did not fully comply with the criteria (but could be of interest for future research), came to 366. Along with the creation of the catalogue in 2018, a meta-assessment of the catalogue was performed , as well as practical recommendations for the maintenance of the catalogue.1,2
In 2020 the catalogue was updated under the EEA Framework contract (Specific contract No 3413/B2020/EEA.58177, implementing Framework service contract No EEA/ACC/18/001/LOT2). The same methodology was used to achieve consistency in the type and quality of data between the evaluations. The number of ‘selected’ new policy evaluations was 101 and the ‘reserved‘ list consisted of 53 new evaluations.
A meta-assessment of the full catalogue and further recommendations are available in the report ‘Update of the EEA catalogue of available evaluations of European environment and climate policies’ (the final report can be downloaded here). The full list of policy evaluations is also available (the final list of policy evaluations can be downloaded here).
The policy evaluations included in the database have been documented according to a series of features, in order to obtain an overview of policy evaluation practices. The main categories of features include:
- Basic information on the evaluation such as title, evaluated policy, publication year;
- Policy areas and economic sectors that are covered by the evaluated policy;
- Information on the geographic and timely scope of the evaluation;
- Information on authors and commissioners of the evaluation;
- Evaluation criteria used in the evaluation;
- Evaluation methods and techniques applied in the evaluation
- Data used in the evaluations and results of the evaluation
The data is entered through open fields and choice of dropdown menus, which contains predefined categories for certain variables. The data shown in the catalogue can be filtered by different parameters using the right-hand drop-down options. The catalogue can be downloaded as a CSV file via the button located below the database.
1 Rob Williams; Irati Artola (Trinomics, 2018): Assessment of the catalogue of European environment and climate policy evaluations. Specific Contract under Framework Contract No EEA/IEA/14/006 (unpublished).
2 Rob Williams; Irati Artola (Trinomics, 2018): Recommendations on the maintenance of the catalogue of European environment and climate policy evaluations Specific Contract under Framework. Contract No EEA/IEA/14/006 (unpublished).