10 European Institutions, coordinated by MaREI, the SFI Centre for Energy Climate and Marine Research at University College Cork, will develop over the next four years a holistic, stakeholder-led framework for zero pollution, reflecting the EU's policy and regulatory framework for protecting our seas with focus on the zero environmental pollution agenda.

The Horizon Europe project will research questions around nature-based social therapies through a review of interventions globally, nine NbT Case Studies, and three Social Innovation Actions which will develop nature-based resilience hubs to demonstrate best-practice for scaling-up and scaling-out successful interventions. The project is led by the University of Vienna. Sabine with other psychologists of University of Vienna will support the integration of data from the various sub-projects from the participating countries.

PISCES is a collaborative, inclusive partnership that brings academic researchers together with business, industry, governments, NGOs, and civil society to understand and manage the risks posed by plastic pollution. It does this by addressing key knowledge gaps that are critical to unlocking a sustainable future for plastics in Indonesian societies. 

Protecting water from contamination with persistent, mobile substances is the goal of the Zero pollution of Persistent, Mobile substances (ZeroPM) project. The consortium of 15 institutions from the university, research and technology sectors began work on this in October 2021. September 2026, the project is scheduled to be completed. 

ZeroPM will be the pathfinding project enabling the ambitions of the European Union's Green Deal strategy of zero pollution of persistent and mobile substances to become an on-the-ground reality. ZeroPM will interlink and synergize three strategies to protect the environment and human health from persistent, mobile substances: Prevent, Prioritize and Remove.

The central task of Sabine Pahl in the project is to bring in an environmental psychology perspective, working on risk perception, risk communication and behaviour change.

‘Building capacity for sustainable interactions with marine ecosystems for the benefit of the health, well-being, food security and livelihoods of coastal communities in East and Southeast Asia’ was the goal of Blue Communities-project, financed by the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF). It had 12 Sub-Projects and Sabine led Project 12 which uses scenarios as tools to explore and communicate future outcomes in order to mobilise action.

By looking at the catchment from source to sea, the project will identify and target hotspots for plastic, embed behaviour change in local communities and businesses, and implement effective solutions and alternatives. Sabine is working with a team of environmental psychologists to develop a framework for evaluating behaviour change for the diverse initiatives and provide an overview of the academic literature on behaviour change relevant to different sectors such as tourism, education, agriculture.

Sabine and her team were tasked to lead a global stock take on actions contributing to the flow of plastic to the ocean, where actions included anything from policies, bans, education and behavior change programmes to technical and economic measures.