Making agriculture sustainable is a global challenge. In the European Union (EU), the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is failing with respect to biodiversity, climate, soil, land degradation as well as socio‐economic challenges. The European Commission's proposal for a CAP post‐2020 provides a scope for enhanced sustainability. However, it also allows Member States to choose low‐ambition implementation pathways. It therefore remains essential to address citizens' demands for sustainable agriculture and rectify systemic weaknesses in the CAP, using the full breadth of available scientific evidence and knowledge. Concerned about current attempts to dilute the environmental ambition of the future CAP, and the lack of concrete proposals for improving the CAP in the draft of the European Green Deal, we call on the European Parliament, Council and Commission to adopt 10 urgent action points for delivering sustainable food production, biodiversity conservation and climate mitigation. Knowledge is available to help moving towards evidence‐based, sustainable European agriculture that can benefit people, nature and their joint futures. The statements made in this article have the broad support of the scientific community, as expressed by above 3,600 signatories to the preprint version of this manuscript. The list can be found here (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3685632). A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

It's time for sustainable, environmental performance

• Review of conceptual frameworks, e.g. the ‘cascade’ in ecosystem service assessments. • The cascade model provided a common reference for a diverse set of place-based studies • Cascade can help organise work, re-frame perspectives & design analytical strategies. • Graphical image of the cascade needs to be supported by other types of material.

The concept of ecosystem services has gained a strong political profile during the last 15 years. However, there is no specific EU policy devoted to governing ecosystem services. This article shows that the ecosystem services concept is already embedded in recent EU (environmentally-related) policies, such as the Biodiversity Strategy 2020 and the Invasive Alien Species Regulation. Our review of 12 policies shows that, overall, the coherence between existing policies and the ecosystem services concept is moderate. Policies showing very high coherence are confined to the policy arenas that address natural ecosystems, forestry, or agriculture. Given the sectoral nature of most EU policies and the limited options for revision in the near future, opportunities for improving coherence are most apparent in furthering the integration of the ecosystem services concept in the implementation of existing EU policies at national and regional levels

Ecological Focus Areas (EFAs) are one of the three new greening measures of the European Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). We used an interdisciplinary and European‐scale approach to evaluate ecological effectiveness and farmers’ perception of the different EFA options. We assessed potential benefits of EFA options for biodiversity using a survey among 88 ecologists from 17 European countries. We further analyzed data on EFA uptake at the EU level and in eight EU Member States, and reviewed socio‐economic factors influencing farmers’ decisions. We then identified possible ways to improve EFAs. Ecologists scored field margins, buffer strips, fallow land, and landscape features as most beneficial whereas farmers mostly implemented “catch crops and green cover,” nitrogen‐fixing crops, and fallow land. Based on the expert inputs and a review of the factors influencing farmers’ decisions, we suggest that EFA implementation could be improved by (a) prioritizing EFA options that promote biodiversity (e.g., reducing the weight or even excluding ineffective options); (b) reducing administrative constraints; (c) setting stricter management requirements (e.g., limiting agrochemical use); and (d) offering further incentives for expanding options like landscape features and buffer strips. We finally propose further improvements at the next CAP reform, to improve ecological effectiveness and cost‐effectiveness.

The promise that ecosystem service assessments will contribute to better decision-making is not yet proven. We analyse how knowledge on ecosystem services is actually used to inform land and water management in 22 case studies covering different social-ecological systems in European and Latin American countries. None of the case studies reported instrumental use of knowledge in a sense that ecosystem service knowledge would have served as an impartial arbiter between policy options. Yet, in most cases, there was some evidence of conceptual learning as a result of close interaction between researchers, practitioners and stakeholders. We observed several factors that constrained knowledge uptake, including competing interests and political agendas, scientific disputes, professional norms and competencies, and lack of vertical and horizontal integration. Ecosystem knowledge played a small role particularly in those planning and policy-making situations where it challenged established interests and the current distribution of benefits from ecosystems. The factors that facilitated knowledge use included application of transparent participatory methods, social capital, policy champions and clear synergies between ecosystem services and human well-being. The results are aligned with previous studies which have emphasized the importance of building local capacity, ownership and trust for the long-term success of ecosystem service research