The ESA Green Agenda

Monitoring and understanding our constantly changing Earth is crucial for ESA. So is preserving it – as a public intergovernmental European organisation, ESA has a duty to tackle global challenges such as the climate emergency head-on.  

Our planet is experiencing record-breaking temperatures, driven by human-induced greenhouse gas emissions. These changes pose significant risks to ecosystems, biodiversity and the availability of vital resources, impacting the overall wellbeing of life on Earth. The Paris Climate Agreement signed in 2015 sets worldwide standards to hold the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and addresses the impacts of climate change.  

ESA's mission is to shape the development of Europe's space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to benefit the citizens of Europe and the world. To make our future activity better contribute to the sustainable development of society and follow our corporate social responsibility principles, we established the ESA Green Agenda. 

Together with ESA Member States and all its stakeholders, ESA is working on five key action areas to improve the sustainability of the agency:  

• Create and apply coherent sustainability strategies in all ESA activities  

• Reduce the environmental impact of ESA facilities and assets 

• Reduce the environmental impact of space systems  

• Encourage responsible procurement and supply chain 

• Promote environmental awareness and cultural change 

What is the ESA Green Agenda?

 

Launched in January 2023, the ESA Green Agenda (EGA) is an agency-wide programme that seeks to achieve two main objectives:  

1. Maximise sustainability benefits by increasing the agency’s contribution to the sustainable development of society by ensuring that ESA and its space programmes build towards the objectives of the Paris Agreement and the European Green Deal 

1. Minimise environmental impacts through the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Using 2019 emissions as a baseline, ESA has pledged to reduce 46% of its GHG emissions for operational activities and 28% of the emissions caused by the activities of suppliers by the year 2030 

Embed sustainability in all ESA activities

The goal of this area is to ensure the systematic assessment of sustainability objectives in the preparation and implementation of ESA space activities. This area of work focuses on:  

• Establishing sustainability objectives in support of the preparation and execution of all future ESA projects  

• Developing a sustainability maturity assessment tool for early-stage qualitative assessment of a project 

• Designing a methodology to carry out socioeconomic and sustainability impact assessments on missions  

These resources are designed to give programme managers a toolkit to increase the positive impact to the sustainable development of the society of their projects (their handprint), while reducing their environmental impact (their footprint). 

Reduce the environmental impact of ESA’s facilities and assets

This area focuses on the reduction of the environmental footprint of ESA assets. Key projects strive to optimise resources (energy and water) used at the main ESA sites, Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana and its ground stations. Projects are often replacing inefficient infrastructure and increasing the onsite energy production from renewable sources. To learn about some completed projects, visit the article “Seven ways ESA has reduced its environmental footprint”. 

Reduce the environmental impact of space systems

This area works to reduce space systems’ environmental impacts, which account for 69% of ESA’s GHG emissions. The agency is implementing an ecodesign approach, considering impacts at all stages of a programme’s life – from design and manufacturing to disposal – with the objective of addressing significant environmental concerns. As a pioneer in the space sector, the agency has been using life-cycle assessment (LCA) to quantify various impacts such as GHG emissions, ozone layer depletion, and use of resources at every stage of a programme’s life cycle. In the space sector, this encompasses all aspects of space activities, from the extraction of raw materials needed to build a satellite to emissions during launch and re-entry. ESA will systematically implement an ecodesign approach in its space programmes, including both simplified tools and full LCAs. Applied early in the design phase, the approach helps to identify key issues and implement effective solutions. It ensures the adoption of technologies, materials and processes that optimise resources and reduce environmental impacts while maintaining the programme’s quality and performance.  

Encourage responsible procurement and supply chain

What we buy and who we buy it from are important. This area implements a socially and environmentally responsible supply chain by gradually incorporating relevant clauses and conditions into contracts with suppliers, ensuring responsible procurement. It encompasses the purchase and development of both space and non-space products and services. Two fundamental aspects are central to this area: the sustainability of the supplier and their practices, and the environmental impact of the products themselves. 

Promote environmental awareness and culture change

Realising the ambitious objectives of the ESA Green Agenda requires the strong engagement and support of many stakeholders inside and outside the agency. The team behind the ESA Green Agenda employs a structured change management approach to propel the behavioural changes needed to foster environmental awareness, drive a culture of sustainability throughout the agency and align the different Directorates of ESA around a common understanding of the stakes.   

This approach includes building awareness of the need for change, fostering a desire to contribute, providing opportunities for individuals to develop and apply new environmental knowledge and skills, managing resistance and reinforcing the behaviours needed for success.