On September 2021, EUROMIL decided to join the European Climate Pact by making a pledge to promote sustainability in the security and defence sector. Militaries across the world are huge emitters, greenhouse gas emissions should be reduced in the military in order to improve the efficiency of the operations and provide better conditions under which soldiers are operating. Hence, policies that move towards energy efficiency in the military are congruent with the objectives of the Green Deal and legally binding target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 under the European Climate Law.

In order to achieve our goals, we started taking a series of different actions to raise awareness in this issue:

  • We conducted an Internal Survey on Climate Change and the Defence Sector to gain a better overview of the national policies and the level of participation of military associations and/or trade unions in the discussions.
  • EUROMIL organised – with GMACCC- an online Panel discussion on Climate Change and the Role of the Military, organised on 25 February 2022.
  • Actively promoting sustainability in the military in the policy making procedures, and welcoming policy developments as the Strategic Compass  (March 2025) and the Strategic Concept (June 2022) which underline the importance of climate change in the defence sector.
  • After the adoption of the Strategic Compass, we started a series of podcasts to address questions directly related to military personnel, as the creation of the Rapid Deployment Capacity, but we did not fail to scrutinize the role of the climate change in this new roadmap.
  • On September 2022, EUROMIL joined CEOBS call for action for NATO to count its military emissions.

Overall, EUROMIL tries to raise awareness on the impact that climate change has on militaries and vice versa, at every possible occasion. Publication of articles, cooperation with partners and discussions with experts remain our priority to fulfil our commitment to the European Climate Pact.

November 2022

EUROMIL’s progress review on the Pledge is available here.