The 4^th Summit of Heads of State and Government, held in Reykjavík on 16-17 May 2023, adopted the Reykjavík Declaration including the Appendix V on "The Council of Europe and the environment", and underlined “the urgency of additional efforts to protect the environment, as well as to counter the impact of the triple planetary crisis of pollution, climate change and loss of biodiversity on human rights, democracy and the rule of law”, while committing the Council of Europe to strengthening its work “on the human rights aspects of the environment and initiate the Reykjavík process of focusing and strengthening the work of the Council of Europe in this field”.

The Reykjavík process gathered steam in 2023 throughout the organisation, culminating in the creation of a Department on the Reykjavík process and the Environment in the Directorate General on Human Rights and Rule of Law on 1 January 2024, as well as an Inter-Secretariat Task Force on the Environment.

On 14 May 2025 in Luxembourg, the Committee of Ministers adopted the Council of Europe Strategy for the Environment (2025–2030). The Strategy reflects the Council of Europe’s commitment to a forward-looking, holistic approach that aligns human rights, democracy, and the rule of law with environmental protection. Recognising that a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment is essential to the full enjoyment of human rights by present and future generations, it pursues five key objectives:

1. Integrating human rights considerations into environment-related strategies, instruments, legislation, policies, and actions, and vice versa.
2. Strengthening democratic governance in environmental matters.
3. Supporting and protecting environmental human rights defenders, environmental defenders, and whistleblowers.
4. Preventing and prosecuting environment-related crimes.
5. Protecting wildlife, ecosystems, habitats, and landscapes.

The Strategy promotes the mainstreaming of sustainable development and environmental objectives across the Council of Europe’s work and operations. Its Action Plan sets out ongoing and planned activities to ensure effective implementation and, in line with the Council of Europe’s commitment to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, identifies the most relevant Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for each strategic objective.

The Council of Europe Landscape Convention (ETS No. 176) expressly includes water areas such as inland waters and marine/coastal waters as part of landscape protection and management policies, these references are focused entirely on their ecological, cultural, and aesthetic value as landscape elements, though.

Recommendation CM/Rec(2021)9 directly cites SDG 6 as a covered area and discusses the sustainable management of natural resources, including water, through integrated landscape policies and addressing related environmental challenges. The appendix to the recommendation explicitly lists Goal 6 as one of the Sustainable Development Goals that the framework reference text seeks to support:

“Goal 6. Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all”. It recognises the importance of landscape in relation to crucial environmental issues, including water, by stating:

“the importance of the landscape with regard to health, food supply, town planning and energy, and the need to face the challenges resulting from climate change, water and air pollution, the degradation of agricultural and forest soils, the artificialisation of land, and the disappearance of living species;”.

On 3 September 2025, the Committee of Ministers adopted a reply CM/Cong(2025)Rec529-final to Recommendation 529 (2025) of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities on “Water resources under stress: towards better local and regional governance”. In this context, the Committee of Ministers reaffirmed the role of the Council of Europe Landscape Convention in addressing threats to landscapes, including water scarcity, climate-change-driven extreme weather events, and the impacts of industrialisation, while also highlighting opportunities such as urban water spaces, integrated water management policies, and cooperation on flood prevention and water pollution. It recalled that water management has been a priority of landscape policy since 2019 and was reaffirmed in Recommendation CM/Rec(2025)1 on Landscape and Health. A further recommendation, “Landscape, a living environment”, is under preparation, focusing on ecosystem services, flood reduction, and wetland restoration. The Committee also noted that tools such as the Landscape Award have highlighted exemplary water-related projects, including infrastructure development, freshwater restoration, and drought solutions.

The Council of Europe Development Bank (CEB), in the framework of its unique social mandate, co-finances social investment projects in its member countries. The Bank systematically applies the vulnerability lens to its lending activities to enhance their social cohesion value.

The Strategic Framework 2023-2027 identifies three cross-cutting themes that interact with the CEB’s core sectors of activity and are instrumental to achieving progress on social cohesion: (i) Climate action; (ii) Gender equality and (iii) Digitalisation.

Equal access to public services remains a challenge in many CEB Member States, with negative consequences for health, safety, environmental protection, social inclusion, and the capacity to face crises. Many Europeans still lack access to water and sanitation and this increases their vulnerability.

The Bank will continue investing in energy efficiency and modern connected infrastructure facilities, such as access to adequate and affordable water supply and wastewater systems and facilities, and solid waste treatment facilities.

This page reflects recent and ongoing developments in the activities of the Council of Europe towards the Sustainable Development Goals. The Council’s historical activities in this area have been archived.