This is what the PBL concludes in the Monitor national environmental vision 2022in which the bureau makes an inventory every two years of what will become of the objectives set by the government in the National Environmental Vision (Novi).
Too many buildings in risky places
The government determined that when expanding urbanized areas, locations where the soil subsides should be avoided, as well as places that are important for water management, such as deep polders or peat meadow areas. The PBL has now established that since 2000 the number of homes in such areas has increased by more than a quarter. Along the beds of major rivers, in the winter reservoirs for excess water, the number of homes has doubled in the past ten years.
Renewable energy must be faster
The Netherlands has the lowest share of renewable energy in Europe, concludes the PBL. The Netherlands only achieved the target of 14 percent in 2020 imposed by the EU through an exchange with Denmark. Although solar panels should preferably be placed on roofs and not in meadows, the total capacity of solar panels on fields grew by 280 percent faster than that of panels on roofs.
Air quality and noise levels do not meet WHO standard
Particulate matter threatens air quality. The maximum values that the WHO has drawn up for this were not yet achieved anywhere in the Netherlands in 2020, according to the PBL. In addition, more than six million inhabitants are exposed to noise levels from road traffic that are above the WHO standard (53 decibels). ‘The number of people who suffered from serious noise nuisance around Schiphol in 2018 is about 60 percent higher than in 2004’, the report states. That was only temporarily less in 2020, but that was due to the corona pandemic.
Nature ambitions not achieved
The Netherlands also lags behind its own ambitions in the field of nature. The goal of creating 80 thousand hectares of ‘new nature’ between 2011 and 2027 has not yet been achieved. The ambition to achieve that goal in 2018 has failed. At the rate of the last four years, it will not be achieved until 2030, according to the PBL. Meanwhile, the state of Dutch nature is still ‘moderate or bad’ for the survival of species and ecosystems. About 90 percent of the habitat types from the Habitats Directive have a moderate to very unfavorable conservation status.
All in all, between 2000 and 2018, the ‘petrification’ for living, working and infrastructure in the Netherlands increased more sharply than in all other EU countries, measured by the share in the total land area. The PBL points out that progressive hardening of the soil in Europe is increasingly seen as an environmental problem that needs to be tackled. The PBL concludes that ‘it is still a big job to get the environmental quality in order in the Netherlands’. According to the researchers, the greatest challenges for the ‘persistent problems’ lie in reducing CO2 emissions in industrial areas near Amsterdam and the North Sea Canal, Chemelot and the port areas of Rotterdam, Zeeland, Delfzijl and Eemshaven.
The good news: the business climate has improved
According to the PBL, there is also good news: the business climate has improved. The Netherlands is at number 4 of the most competitive economies in the world. The accessibility of living and working has also improved: between 1996 and 2020 the proximity of living and working increased by 5.4 percent, according to the PBL. New residential and work locations are largely constructed within built-up areas, entirely in accordance with the policy objectives. On the other hand, in 2020 the number of inhabitants in existing built-up areas decreased again for the first time in many years, while that continued to increase outside it.