About us

ÖKOBÜRO is the alliance of the
Austrian Environmental Movement.

It consists of 17 Austrian organizations engaged in environmental, nature, and animal protection like GLOBAL 2000 (Friends of the Earth Austria), FOUR PAWS, GREENPEACE CEE, and WWF Austria.

ÖKOBÜRO works politically and legally for environmental protection and the alliance of the environmental movement. We provide our members and other environmental practitioners with our expertise in environmental law, public participation and in solving political problems.

ÖKOBÜRO applies its competences mainly in four main topics:

1. We strengthen environmental law.

We develop solutions as to how the law must be designed to protect the environment effectively. We pay particular attention to ensuring that environmental procedures such as EIA work well, that environmental organisations can participate in these procedures and that breaches of environmental law can be brought to justice.

2. We solve usage conflicts on a strategic level.

Our environment is a habitat for people, animals and plants, we use it for recreation, for agriculture, we embed our entire infrastructures such as settlements or roads in it and much more.

The protection of the environment can come into conflict with various types of use. ÖKOBÜRO organizes stakeholder processes in such cases: We work at a strategic level with the various interest groups to find a consensus that both protects the environment and enables other benefits. An example of this are measures we have developed to minimise the environmental impact of the expansion of renewable energies.

3. We demand a sustainable society from politics.

ÖKOBÜRO co-founded the SDG Watch Austria platform in order to act as a united voice of civil society and to advance the course for a sustainable society. There is already an internationally agreed compass into an ecologically, socially and economically sustainable world: Agenda 2030 and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations (UN) contained therein.

All UN member states have pledged to follow this path towards a sustainable future. In order for Austria to achieve these 17 goals, the government and parliament must set the course accordingly.

4. We stand up for the rights of civil society.

The environmental movement can only successfully pursue its goals if it can develop freely. To this end, it uses fundamental rights such as freedom of the media and freedom of assembly. On the other hand, it contributes its knowledge and proposals to legislation. ÖKOBÜRO is therefore committed to ensuring that civil society can participate effectively in legislation, that state information is as freely accessible as possible and that the freedom of civil society is preserved.

For this purpose...

• we represent the interests of the environmental movement vis-à-vis politics.
• we enter into alliances far beyond the environmental sphere.
• we publish analyses, specialist articles, studies and opinions on draft laws and environmental problems.
• we address important environmental issues at our conferences.
• in our workshops for environmental protection organizations, administration and other stakeholders, we solve concrete problems together or pass on our knowledge in a targeted manner.
• we inform the public through our newsletters and brochures.
• our environmental law team advises environmental protection organisations, citizens' initiatives and individuals free of charge.