The majority of ESF activities in the natural sciences are coordinated and reviewed by the Standing Committee of the European Science Research Councils (ESRC).
Following the ESF strategic reappraisal, the Life and Environmental Sciences Committee (LESC) and the Physical and Engineering Sciences Committee (PESC) are set up in 1995 to succeed the former ESRC.

The LESC is responsible for a broad area of environmental sciences together with all the non-medical life sciences. That includes biology, agriculture, earth sciences, glaciology, oceanography, meteorology and other life and environmental sciences.
In 1999 the LESC is renamed Life, Earth and Environment (LEE).