Greece ranks 25th in the overall global rankings of the environmental performer index. Greece performed average in air quality, fish stocks, and greenhouse gas emissions. The average air quality comes from difficulties with emissions from transport and electric power stations. Greece also overexploits its water resources and lost some biodiversity in marine ecosystems.

In 2020, Greece was only 7 points away from scoring. the EU average in terms of eco-innovation performance. Greece is in the lower half of the scores for counties in the EU. The eco-innovation index has 5 different components. These components include Eco-innovation input, eco-innovation activities, eco-innovation outputs, resource-efficiency outcomes, and socio-economic outcomes. Greece ranks below average in all of the categories except eco-innovation outputs. In the eco-innovation outputs, Greece actually ranks significantly above average which I found interesting. Although they are strong in the eco-innovation outputs, they still struggle in terms of eco-innovation-related patents.

Greece has shown progress in areas of solar energy, photovoltaics, and energy-related research. Kafireas is EGP investing in sustainable energy for Greece. They have been implementing solar parks and wind forms into the country for energy. We saw some of these wind farms while we were in Greece. In 2018, Greece began constructing the largest wind facility in the country. This project is made of seven wind farms on the island of Evia. This facility is able to generate 480 GWh per year. EGP invested nearly 300 million into this project, but it is responsible for the downward trends we see in Greece’s emissions from energy. Although the country is doing well in these environmental aspects, they are struggling in implementing eco-innovations into the construction center.

As stated before, Greece is lacking in eco-industries. Greece has an eco-industry action plan in place for the Implementation of the National Strategy for Research, Technological Development, and Innovation. This plan pushes efforts towards industrial waste management, anti-pollution technologies, industrial symbiosis, climate change mitigation, and access to environmental information and mitigation of natural disasters. Despite this, the country still struggled economically. Greece struggles internally with funding and the funding of the eco-innovation plan has been lacking causing the country to struggle with eco-industries.