The Compliance of Lithuanian Environmental NGO’s Objectives with European Green Deal

Abstract

European Commission in 2019 has developed an ambitious strategy for sustainable economic growth - the European Green Deal. It sets out two key objectives: to make Europe the first climate-neutral continent, with zero net greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and to decouple economic growth from resource use. While the responsible authorities will be taking the relevant decisions, citizens must also do their part by changing their habits, protecting the environment and conserving natural resources. The Green Deal implementation’s success requires the participation and commitment of the public. There are eight main Green Deal initiatives / policy areas, which need to be transferred to Lithuanian law (Increasing the EU’s climate ambition for 2030 and 2050; Building and renovating in an energy and recourse efficient way; From “Farm to Fork”: a fair, healthy and environmentally friendly food system; Accelerating the shift for sustainable and smart mobility; Supplying clean, affordable and sustainable energy; Mobilizing industry for a clean and circular economy; Preserving and restoring ecosystems and biodiversity; A zero pollution ambition for a toxic free environment). The main tasks of this article were to identify the main goals and initiatives of the European Green Deal, to perform a content analysis of Lithuanian environmental NGOs and their activity goals and present conclusions. Primary methods used: content analysis of Lithuanian environmental NGOs objectives, data comparison with main policy areas of the European Green Deal (EGD), survey to check if organizations aligned their objectives with the EGD purposefully. The key results. After comparing the main Green Deal initiatives with Lithuanian environmental NGO’s performance objectives, we can see, that most of them work in preserving and restoring ecosystems and biodiversity, also in mobilizing industry for a clean and circular economy. There’s only one NGO which act in clean, affordable and sustainable energy field and two NGOs which act in building and renovating in an energy and recourse efficient way. Estimating the size of Lithuanian population, there is a large number of environmental NGOs, but unfortunately, they are not very well known for society. That’s why their performance is not very much influential on political decisions. The key barriers for the development of green initiatives should be identified and the attraction of new members with specific knowledge and with understanding the purpose for working at NGO. Keywords: environmental NGOs, green deal, green deal initiatives, environmental protection, political decisions.