# Council Decision of 6 October 2006 on Community strategic guidelines on cohesion (2006/702/EC), Division 1.1.2: Strengthen the synergies between environmental protection and growth

Extent: E+W+S+N.I.

Environmental investments can contribute to the economy in three ways: they can ensure the long-term sustainability of economic growth, they decrease external environmental costs to the economy (e.g. health costs, clean-up costs or damage recovery) and they stimulate innovation and job creation. Future cohesion programmes should seek to strengthen potential synergies between environmental protection and growth. The provision of environmental services such as clean water supplies, waste and waste-water treatment infrastructures, management of natural resources, the decontamination of land to prepare it for new economic activities, and protection against certain environmental risks (e.g. desertification, droughts, fires and floods), should all have high priority in this context.
In order to maximise economic benefits and minimise costs, priority should be given to tackling environmental pollution at its sources. In the waste management sector, this implies focusing on waste prevention, recycling and biodegradation of waste which are cost-effective and help to create jobs.
Development strategies should be based on a prior evaluation of needs and specific issues faced by regions, where possible using appropriate indicators. Efforts should be made to promote the internalisation of external environmental costs, with support for the setting up and development of market-based instruments (see, for example, instruments proposed in the Environmental Technologies Action Plan). Attention is drawn in this context to the initiative Global Monitoring for Environment and Security, which from 2008 will provide Europe-wide, up-to-date information on land-cover/land-use and ocean properties as well as incident maps in case of disasters and accidents.
Accordingly, the recommended guidelines for action are the following:
Addressing the significant needs for investment in infrastructure, particularly in the Convergence regions and especially in the new Member States, to comply with environmental legislation in the fields of water, waste, air, nature and species protection and bio-diversity.
Ensuring that attractive conditions exist for businesses and their highly skilled staff. This can be ensured by promoting land-use planning which reduces urban sprawl, and by rehabilitating the physical environment, including the development of natural and cultural assets. Investments in this area should be clearly linked to the development of innovative and job-creating businesses on the sites concerned.
Promoting, in addition to the investments in sustainable energy and transport covered elsewhere, investments that contribute to the EU-Kyoto commitments.
Undertaking risk prevention measures through improved management of natural resources, more targeted research and better use of ICTs, and more innovative public management policies including, for example, preventive monitoring.
Where Member States receive support from both the Cohesion Fund and the Structural Funds, a clear distinction should be made in the programmes between the types of actions funded by each of the Funds, respectively.

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Source: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eudn/2006/702/annex/division/1/division/1.1/division/1.1.2 (the official version)
Page: https://openlegislation.uk/eu-decision-2006-702/annex/division-1/division-1.1/division-1.1.2
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Source: legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives.