On Tuesday, 27 September 2011, Ecologic Institute celebrated this important milestone with a special event held at the Académie royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique in Brussels. Dr. Achim Steiner, Dr. Jaqueline McGlade, Prof. Klaus Töpfer and others congratulated the Ecologic Institute to its work in video messages and testimonials. The evening programme also featured a panel discussion with Paul Ekins, Sebastian Winkler and Christian Averous on GDP and Indicators of Sustainable Development, with a focus on the challenge to foster the use of sustainability indicators in policy making.  Video messages and pictures of the event can be downloaded.

Ecologic Institute was pleased to welcome Paul Ekins, Professor of Energy and Environment Policy at the UCL Energy Institute, University College London; Sebastian Winkler, Senior Advisor Europe at the Global Footprint Network; and Christian Avérous, Consultant for the OECD to the panel discussion. R. Andreas Kraemer, Director of Ecologic Institute, Berlin, moderated the event.

The panelists highlighted the ongoing work of constructing robust sustainability indicators and debated the use and challenges of composite indicators in this context. The discussion showed that policy making requires sustainability indicators which are timely available, instinctively comprehensible but also robust enough to withstand intensive public scrutiny. Controversially discussed examples of such policy relevant indicator like the Ecological Footprint, showed the size of that challenge but also the intensity of the work currently conducted to rise to that challenge.

A cocktail reception with guests from the European Commission, the European Parliament and environmental associations in addition to  key actors from other fields took place around 8:00 p.m. in the beautiful surroundings of the Académie royale de Belgique.

Ecologic Institute was also pleased to screen outstanding contributions in the form of video messages on behalf of Dr. Achim Steiner, UNEP Executive Director and Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations; Dr. Jacqueline McGlade, Executive Director of the European Environment Agency; and Prof. Klaus Töpfer, founding Director and current Executive Director of the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) based in Potsdam, Germany.

Further links:

• Video messages and testimonials from:
  • Janez Potočnik, European Commissioner for the Environment
  • Jo Leinen, Chairman of the Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Security
  • Paul Ekins, Professor of Energy and Environment Policy at the UCL Energy Institute, University College London;
  • Sebastian Winkler, Senior Advisor Europe at the Global Footprint Network; and
  • Christian Avérous, Consultant for the OECD
• Pictures of the anniversary event
• more about the speaker of the panel discussion