Industrial air pollution costs in the European Union 2012-2021
The annual cost of air pollution from the largest industrial plants in the European Union (EU-27) averaged between 268 and 428 billion euros per year from 2012 to 2021. Although costs decreased in 2021, damages from industrial air pollution still represented roughly two percent of the EU's GDP that year. Approximately half of these costs were attributable to just one percent of the most polluting industrial facilities studied, the majority of which were coal power plants. Nevertheless, the economic damages caused by polluting industrial facilities have fallen by roughly 33 percent since 2012, owing to factors such as to better technologies, less polluting fuels, and the rollout of renewable energies.
