ECOFORCE - Project on the Environmental Crime Directive

Client: EU LIFE Funded Project

May 2026 – October 2028

What ECOFORCE does

The LIFE ECOFORCE project, short for Environmental Crime Directive — Operational Framework for Optimised Response and Compliance Enforcement supports the effective and harmonised implementation of the EU Environmental Crime Directive by bridging the distance between legal requirements and enforcement practice. The project is co-funded by the European Union’s LIFE Programme.

The project works along four connected lines:

Evidence
Comparative legal and operational research establishing what the Directive’s thresholds mean in practice, how administrative and criminal enforcement interact across Member States, what data systems exist, and which investigative tools and technologies are actually in use.
Capacity
A joint training programme for the full enforcement chain (environmental inspectors, law enforcement officers, prosecutors and judges) built on that evidence, delivered online and at European events, and designed to complement rather than duplicate existing Europol, Interpol, CEPOL and UNODC resources.
Tools
Operational instruments that answer specific obligations under the Directive: a template for the national strategies required by Article 21, guidance on the classification of offences under Articles 3(6)–(8), a toolkit for the statistical reporting required by Article 22, investigative resources aligned with Article 13, guidance on Earth Observation and artificial intelligence, and an information exchange mechanism for practitioners.
Legacy
A public repository of results, a replication roadmap for national authorities and European networks, and the transfer of the project’s outputs to EnviCrimeNet for maintenance beyond the project’s lifetime.

Turning the EU’s new environmental criminal law into enforcement practice.

The Challenge

Environmental crime is among the most profitable forms of serious and organised criminality, and among the least prosecuted. Waste trafficking, illegal mining, pollution offences, chemical crime and wildlife trafficking cause damage that is diffuse, cumulative and frequently transboundary and that rarely fits the categories of ordinary criminal procedure.

Directive (EU) 2024/1203 on the protection of the environment through criminal law, the Environmental Crime Directive (ECD), was designed to close that gap. It replaces Directives 2008/99/EC and 2009/123/EC, expands the catalogue of environmental offences from nine to twenty categories of criminal offences, introduces qualified offences for conduct causing destruction or widespread and substantial damage to ecosystems, and imposes new obligations on Member States regarding national strategies, statistical data, investigative tools, training and specialisation. Member States were required to transpose the Directive by 21 May 2026.

However, the Directive’s central operative concepts “substantial damage”, “conduct likely to cause damage”, “non-negligible quantities” are not self-executing. They must be applied by inspectors at the roadside, by police officers building a case file, by prosecutors deciding whether to charge, and by judges assessing gravity. Without shared assessment criteria, comparable data and common tools, the same conduct will be treated as an administrative infringement in one Member State and as a qualified criminal offence in another. Deterrence, and the level playing field the Directive is meant to create, both suffer.

ECOFORCE Objectives

Translate the Directive’s key legal thresholds into operational, testable assessment criteria that inspectors, investigators, prosecutors and judges can apply consistently.
Design a methodological framework for the collection of comparable environmental crime statistics, in line with Article 22 ECD.
Map existing enforcement tools, national strategies and emerging technologies, and identify the gaps that matter operationally.
Clarify the interface between administrative and criminal enforcement across Member States, and the coordination mechanisms that make it work.
Strengthen the operational, investigative and judicial capacity of practitioners across the enforcement chain.
Deliver practical, adaptable and multilingual guidance and tools that Member States can use directly.
Facilitate cross-border cooperation and information exchange between enforcement actors.
Secure the uptake and durability of results through integration into European networks and institutional frameworks.

Activities

LIFE ECOFORCE is structured in five work packages. The sequence is deliberate: research (WP2) produces the evidence base; training (WP3) and guidance and tools (WP4) build on it; sustainability and exploitation (WP5) carries the results beyond the project; and coordination (WP1) runs throughout.

	Work package	Lead
WP1	Project management and coordination	LPL-ICJP
WP2	Research	EcoJust
WP3	Training and capacity building	ECA
WP4	Guidance and tools	Ambiendura
WP5	Sustainability, replication and exploitation	EnviCrimeNet

Expected output and results

ECOFORCE will turn the requirements of the Environmental Crime Directive into practical knowledge, training, guidance and tools that can be used across the EU enforcement chain.

Key outputs and expected results include:

Practical indicators to support the assessment of environmental damage and other thresholds under the Directive.
Improved environmental crime data collection, including a common methodology, reporting templates and a prototype statistical dashboard.
Training and capacity building for at least 150 practitioners, supported by multilingual training materials, case studies and practical exercises.
A National Strategy Template to support Member States in developing and reviewing their national strategies against environmental crime.
Operational guidance and investigative tools covering crime classification, evidence gathering, specialised investigative techniques, cross-border cooperation and the interface between administrative and criminal enforcement.
Guidance on innovative technologies, including Earth Observation, artificial intelligence and other emerging tools for detecting and investigating environmental crime.
An information exchange tool enabling practitioners to exchange information and experience on environmental crime.
An open-access repository bringing together the project’s research, training materials, guidance and tools in one accessible location.
Stronger cooperation and exchange of good practices between environmental authorities, police, prosecutors, judges and European enforcement networks.

Publications

The ECOFORCE produces research reports, guidance documents, templates, toolkits and training materials, released progressively between 2026 and 2028. Public outputs are made freely available as they are completed on the coordinator’s website. Restricted outputs, chiefly investigative materials whose circulation must be limited, are made available to registered practitioners through the project repository.

Outputs are designed to be used, not only read: templates come in editable formats, guidance comes with flowcharts and worked examples, and core documents are translated into at least two additional EU languages.

Repository

All research outputs, guidance documents and training materials are hosted in the project repository, organised by ECD article, thematic area and intended user (inspector, investigator, prosecutor, judge, policy officer), with search and filter functions and an introductory summary for each resource explaining its purpose, scope and use. The repository is maintained by EnviCrimeNet and will remain available after the project’s conclusion.

Timeline

May 2026

Project launch

July 2026 – June 2027

Research and evidence base

December 2026 – April 2028

Guidance and tools

February 2027 – June 2028

Training and capacity building

October 2028

End of project

Consortium

LIFE ECOFORCE brings together eleven organisations from six countries: an academic research centre, a European law enforcement network, national environmental police forces, a specialised training academy, independent legal and environmental consultancies, and international NGOs working on wildlife trade and environmental forensics.

Coordinator

LPL-ICJP – Lisbon Public Law Research Centre
Portugal | Project Coordinator & WP1 Lead
Coordinates ECOFORCE and leads work on damage thresholds, enforcement approaches, innovative technologies and the training repository.
Website: lisbonpubliclaw.pt

Beneficiaries

Ambiendura
Portugal | WP4 Lead
Leads the development of practical guidance and tools for implementing and enforcing the Environmental Crime Directive.
Website: ambiendura.com

EnviCrime Academy (ECA)
Spain | WP3 Lead
Leads training and capacity building, including the training needs assessment, curriculum, training materials and delivery.
Website: envicrime.academy

EcoJust
Netherlands | WP2 Lead
Leads research on environmental crime, enforcement practices, crime categories, data collection and investigative tools.
Website: ecojust.eu

EnviCrimeNet
Belgium | WP5 Lead
Leads sustainability, replication and exploitation and connects ECOFORCE with environmental law-enforcement agencies across Europe.
Website: envicrimenet.eu

SEPRONA – Guardia Civil
Spain
Contributes operational expertise in environmental crime investigations, intelligence, international cooperation and EMPACT.
Website: guardiacivil.es

Source International
Italy
Contributes expertise in environmental forensics, technical assessment and innovative technologies for environmental crime investigations.
Website: source-international.org

TRAFFIC International Europe
Belgium
Contributes expertise on wildlife crime, enforcement data and information exchange and leads development of the project information-exchange tool.
Website: traffic.org

Associated partners

Belgian Federal Police (FPB)
Belgium
Provides operational law-enforcement expertise and supports dissemination through EnviCrimeNet.
Website: https://www.police.be/en

CESAN – Commandement pour l’environnement et la santé, Gendarmerie nationale
France
Contributes operational law-enforcement expertise, including experience with national environmental crime strategies and specialised investigation.
Website: gendarmerie.interieur.gouv.fr

SEPNA – Guarda Nacional Republicana
Portugal
Provides operational expertise in environmental inspection and investigation and cross-border environmental crime.
Website: gnr.pt

Advisory bodies

High-Level Advisory Board (HLAB)

Senior representatives of EU agencies and European enforcement networks, providing strategic oversight and promoting the institutional uptake of the project’s results. Invitations are being extended to EU agencies and networks active in environmental crime, judicial cooperation, law enforcement and training, complemented by individual senior experts.

Practitioner Sounding Board (PSB)

Operational-level practitioners (inspectors, law enforcement officers, prosecutors, judges and customs officers) from Member States inside and outside the consortium. Members contribute individually rather than as a collective body, responding to specific requests: review of draft documents, focus groups, and testing of tools in their own operational contexts.