Advancing environmental risk assessment (ERA) of plant protection products through a systems-based approach to strengthen biodiversity protection

In the European Union, regulated products such as plant protection products (PPPs) must undergo prospective environmental risk assessment (ERA) and obtain regulatory approval before use. ERA evaluates the potential adverse effects regulated products may pose to the environment, aiming to ensure that their use does not result in unacceptable effects. Despite ongoing improvements accumulated empirical evidence shows that current chemical ERA practices fall short of ensuring sufficient environmental protection, highlighting the need for better alignment with real-world ecological and agricultural conditions. Advancing ERA requires not only integrating a more realistic understanding of environmental contexts, but also fostering interdisciplinary collaboration and engaging stakeholders through knowledge-sharing platforms and partnerships. Within this context, the Partnership for the Assessment of Risks from Chemicals (PARC) is exploring new avenues to transform PPP ERA through six key actions: (1) clarifying regulatory needs to ensure regulatory relevance and facilitate regulatory uptake of project outcomes; (2) benchmarking ERA against real-world data for calibration and explore ways to simplify ERA processes; (3) improving ERA comparability to enable cross-substance comparison and ranking; (4) increasing ecological realism to deliver more realistic, context-dependent ERA predictions along with effective risk mitigation and sustainable use measures; (5) updating and modernising ERA approaches to reduce uncertainty, unnecessary complexity, and animal testing; and (6) fostering the transition toward a systems-based approach by interconnecting stakeholders and integrating data, knowledge and expertise across regulatory frameworks. In doing so, PARC aims to advance PPP ERA toward a holistic, systems-based ERA framework that supports the progressive phase-out of animal testing. Together, these efforts emphasise the urgent need for an interdisciplinary ERA platform that integrates scientific knowledge across domains, enhances biodiversity protection against chemical stressors, and drives the transition toward systems-based ERA for PPPs.