The RE4GREEN guidelines are based on three comprehensive reviews conducted during the project’s first year and have been developed through an iterative stakeholder engagement process involving RE4GREEN’s social labs. The result is three guidance documents aimed at a variety of stakeholders, providing practical advice on incorporating environmental ethics into research and innovation funding, planning and processes.
In the ‘Guidance report on incorporating the objectives of the “do no significant harm” principle in R&I’, Ferrari et al. discuss the normative dimensions of the ‘do no significant harm’ principle. After making valuable additions from the perspectives of environmental humanities, ecology, and transcultural studies, they suggest specific ways to operationalise it.
The documents compiled by Tzouvaras et al. in ‘Research ethics and integrity guidelines for R&I in the green transition’ include an environmental and ethical reinterpretation of the key principles of the European code of conduct; a toolkit for ethical considerations that go beyond significant harm; and guidelines for extending the mandate of research ethics councils. There are also two documents for working with and as citizen scientists.
In ‘Recommendations on Environmental and Climate Ethics Amendment of Risk Assessment Strategies’, Mehlich and Fischbach specify how environmental risk assessment can become more ethically oriented, providing a knowledge transfer aid that builds on the non-ethical expertise of researchers and helps them reflect on relevant issues before and during their research.
In its first policy brief, RE4GREEN focuses on institutional aspects of research ethics and integrity, presenting six recommendations for incorporating environmental ethical principles. Three more policy briefs are expected by autumn 2026.