EU environmental regulation and the space sector: an overview

Much of the EU legislation directly impacts (or deliberately targets) specific industrial sectors, such as emission reduction in automotive industry. Some of the legislation affected several industrial sectors and markets in a general sense, like for the Space sector. An overview on the impacts of EU environmental legislation on the EU Space sector (upstream – industry, and midstream – operations) is provided here. The overview looks at the global and European space market, and the effects that environmental legislation may have on European industrial competitiveness, for example by anticipating global trends and promoting the developments of new products and processes within the space domain. The overview also looks specifically at the applicability to space activities of available environmental foot-printing procedures and tools.