Daniel Montalvo (EEA): "Solid and comprehensible data is needed to accelerate the socio-economic transition towards more sustainable models"

09/09/2025

The expert from the European Environment Agency participated in the School of Advanced Environmental Measurement organised by Ihobe and Eustat as part of the UPV/EHU summer course programme. 

The conference brought together specialists in environmental statistics at Miramar Palace in San Sebastian to explore how advanced indicators can guide territorial and urban action to combat climate change. 

The School of Advanced Environmental Measurement, organised by Ihobe -the Basque Government’s Public Company for Environmental Management and Eustat - Basque Institute of Statistics, brought professionals from the scientific, institutional and technical fields together on Thursday 4th September at Miramar Palace in San Sebastian to discuss the advances and challenges in the measurement of environmental indicators and the importance of environmental data and statistics in decision-making to combat climate challenges.  

The conference was opened by Alexander Boto Bastegieta, General Manager of Ihobe, and Belén Muñiz Villanueva, General Manager of Eustat, who highlighted the need for rigorous and accessible environmental information to steer public policies and bring the real state of the environment in the Basque Country closer to citizens. 

The keynote address 'From Data to Solutions' was given by Daniel Montalvo, Director of the Circular Economy, Finance and Indicators area of the European Environment Agency (EEA). In his speech, Montalvo highlighted that "solid and comprehensible data is needed to accelerate the socio-economic transition towards more sustainable models, and collaboration between science, administrations and society is key to achieving this goal". 

Furthermore, the specialist pointed out that "in barely two generations there has been a radical change in the relationship between society and the environment, reflected in the increase in the global temperature and the pressure on ecosystems", and in this respect, he defended that "the key is to break the relationship between economic progress and environmental deterioration. There are successes, such as o-zone depletion or the deployment of renewable energy, but change is slow in other areas”. 

Regarding the EEA's objectives, Montalvo highlighted that the agency's mission is to translate complex scientific data into useful information for decision-makers, and pointed out that, although "public data systems are slow, they provide harmonisation, comparability and transparency, something we must preserve in the digital age". In this respect, he highlighted the value of technology and artificial intelligence as allies to obtain faster and more accurate data, thanks, for example, to the use of satellites, biomonitoring or machine learning.  

The conference also featured a talk by Victoria García Olea, Deputy Director of statistical production and analysis at Eustat, who explained how the environmental accounts work in the Basque Country, a statistical system that connects the economy and the environment, and indicated that "environmental accounts are a pillar of environmental information because they enable us to measure the relationship between the economy and the natural environment". 

According to García Olea, the future lies in incorporating the ecosystems account, "which will enable key services to be measured, such as biodiversity or forest health through geo-spatial data". She also warned of the need to speed up the production and dissemination of data so that society and institutions can make better use of them. 

State of the Environment in the Basque Country 

Then, María García Flecha, Director of Strategy and Innovation at Ihobe, gave a preview of the state of the environment in the Basque Country in 2025 and addressed the challenges faced in the monitoring of environmental data. In her speech, she highlighted the inter-institutional collaboration between Ihobe, Eustat and the Vice-Ministry of the Environment, which "translates into robust and accessible reports". Reports such as the State of the Environment in the Basque Country, the Environmental Situation Report or the different monographic reports on the carbon footprint of the Basque Country, the state of the climate, or contaminated soils, among other topics. According to the expert, "the connection between science, politics and citizens is one of the great challenges: rather than data remaining in technical reports, it needs to be translated into effective decisions and changes in behaviour", she concluded. 

The morning ended with a round table in which representatives from Eustat, Euskalmet, AZTI and Tecnalia shared experiences and case studies on environmental statistics, information systems, digital twins, biometrics and meteo-climatic monitoring.