Environment

How clean is my region? Which EU capital cities are the cleanest?

Published

2 months ago

March 7, 2025

Find out through the new Zero Pollution Dashboard. According to the EU Zero Pollution Dashboard published today, fifteen regions across Austria, Finland, France, Germany and Sweden show the lowest pollution levels in the EU.

Achieving clean air, clean water and clean soil improves citizens’ health, protects biodiversity and promotes overall wellbeing, becoming a competitive advantage in itself.

European regions have been investing in environmental protection, using EU funding to modernise and maintain water and wastewater infrastructure, promote sustainable mobility, tackle air and noise pollution, and adopt nature-based solutions through ecological restoration.

These actions, driven by EU environmental legislation, contribute to the zero pollution ambition and to global efforts on One Health, which links human, animal and plant health to the status of the environment.

The 2021 EU Zero Pollution Action Plan introduced flagship initiatives to achieve clean air, water and soil across the EU, including through a scoreboard on regional and urban environmental performance.

The dashboard, alongside the Zero Pollution Monitoring and Outlook report and the Fourth Clean Air Outlook, allows progress to be monitored over time and regions to be compared with each other and the EU average, and it is a first step towards a scoreboard. The comparison is based on several environmental pollution indicators that address health, ecosystem protection and biodiversity, as well as production and consumption.

This innovative tool answers some key questions, including:

Where are the cleanest regions in Europe?
Which regions have shown the most improvement in air quality?
How noisy are EU capitals and their surrounding areas?
Has my region made efforts to ensure excellent bathing water quality?
How polluted is the soil and groundwater in my region with nitrates?
How much does nitrogen in the air affect nature in my region?
How effective is wastewater sanitation in my region?
How clean is the industry in my region, considering the economic value it creates?

The data demonstrates significant progress achieved so far:

15 regions across five Member States have already achieved low pollution levels compared to EU averages based on the indicators available;
97% of regions have improved their air quality since 2016;
75% of regions reduced industrial emissions between 2017 and 2021.

However, pollution levels remain too high, and progress is often too slow to meet the targets and limit values set by the EU, as outlined in the Zero Pollution Monitoring and Outlook Report.

The dashboard can be expanded with additional data sets for a more comprehensive understanding of the situation. Your feedback will help with its further development and enhancement.