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Ecologic Institute is a think tank for applied environmental research, policy analysis and consultancy. Ecologic is dedicated to bringing fresh ideas to environmental policy and sustainable development. Established in 2001, the Ecologic Institute in Brussels analyses EU environmental policy, facilitates and contributes to relevant debates. Activities focus, in particular, on EU environmental governance, “horizontal” issues, and the external dimension of EU environmental policy-making.

Blueprint Germany - A strategy for a climate safe 2050

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In two events, addressing decision makers from the EU parliament and the German Bundestag, the WWF study "Blueprint Germany - A strategy for a climate safe 2050" was introduced and discussed. A thorough policy program based on concrete measures and instruments up to the year 2030 is the core of the study. It shows that the transformation from a high-carbon to a low-carbon economy is possible and affordable – and also indicates that Germany could become a model for other countries if the suggested path were to be followed. Read more ...

G20 wastes hundreds of billions on perverse fossil fuel subsidies, says global coalition

G20 governments should end their perverse fossil-fuel subsidies, which contribute directly to climate change, cost hundreds of billions of dollars each year, and create artificial barriers to sustainable development, urges to the Green Economy Coalition. Ecologic Institute is a coalition member. Read more ...

Welche Governance - Formen eignen sich?

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Environmental policy integration, i.e. the integration of environmental concerns into other policy fields, is becoming increasingly important. But how does environmental policy integration relate to different modes of governance? In their article, Ingmar von Homeyer and Doris Knoblauch present the results of the EPIGOV project. Read more ...

The Evolution of EU Environmental Governance

Ingmar von Homeyer22 April 2009, Washington DC - Ingmar von Homeyer
In this presentation Ecologic Senior Fellow Ingmar von Homeyer provided an analytical overview of EU environmental governance from the early 1970s up to the present. He argued that EU environmental governance can be described as an amalgam of four to five environmental governance regimes which have successively been layered on top of each other over the past 35 years. Read more ...

The evolution of EU environmental governance

CoverIn this book chapter Ecologic Senior Fellow Ingmar von Homeyer provides an analytical overview of EU environmental governance from the early 1970s up to the present. He argues that EU environmental governance can be described as an amalgam of four to five environmental governance regimes which have successively been layered on top of each other over the past 35 years.

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Horizontal Environmental EC Legislation – A Short Policy Guide

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Access to information on the environment is an indispensible precondition for effective environmental policies. If this access is denied, neither the public sector nor the private sector is capable of making environmentally sound decisions. Willing to complement the EU’s efforts to grant such access, the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) promotes environmental policy cooperation between the EU and its Eastern and Southern neighbours. To support the effort, the European Commission has issued a guide to EC horizontal environmental legislation for its European neighbours and Russia. Read more ...

Ecologic Institute 2009 Berlin - Brussels - Vienna - Washington DC

Ecologic Institute 2009This brochure provides a general survey and overview of the range of topics addressed by the Ecologic Institute. It includes examples of relevant events and projects, and key financial information. The brochure captures essence of the Ecologic Institute at a crucial time in our development. The past years have brought consistent growth, increasing diversification, strong management, and the establishment of a number of offices and subsidiaries.  Read more ...

The challenge of framework directives: are Member States ready for renegotiating?

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30 January 2009, Maastricht - Ingmar von Homeyer
Ecologic Senior Fellow Dr Ingmar von Homeyer gave a lecture on the challenges of implementing EU environmental framework directives. The lecture was part of an expert-workshop on recent developments in EU environmental policy. Ingmar von Homeyer explained the distinctive implementation requirements of different types of EU environmental framework directives. Read more ...

International Dialogue on Ecological Policy

The Multi-State Working Group on Environmental Performance (MSWG) in the United States held its annual workshop 2007 as "An International Dialogue on Ecological Policy" on 18-20 June 2007 in Madison, Wisconsin, and invited Ecologic Institute to contribute European perspectives. Peter Kessler spoke on environmental innovation in practice, Ingmar von Homeyer on innovative environmental governance and regulation in the EU, and R. Andreas Kraemer on sustainable water management infrastructure, and the infrastructure needed for transatlantic cooperation. Read more ...

The policy impacts of environmental valuations

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Valuing both the environment and the changes in the level of environmental quality is of central importance to environmental policy formulation, as it puts the costs of obtaining certain environmental goals into perspective. In this article, which was published in the December 2008 issue of “Ökologisches Wirtschaften”, Holger Gerdes and Anneke von Raggamby propose a methodology to assess the policy impacts of environmental valuations. Read more ...

The evolution of EU environmental governance

The book chapter "The evolution of EU environmental governance" by Ecologic Senior Fellow Dr. Ingmar von Homeyer was commissioned by the Academy of European Law/European University Institute, Florence, and provides an analytical overview of EU environmental policy from its beginnings in the early 1970s up to the present. The author argues that EU environmental governance today is best understood as an amalgam of four to five environmental governance regimes which have successively been layered on top of each other over the past 35 years. Read more ...

EU Environmental Policy and Governance

The conference "EU Environmental Policy and Governance: The Challenge of Climate Change and beyond" was held on 20 - 21 June 2008 at the European University Institute (EUI), Florence. Organised by the EUI Alumni Association in co-operation with Ecologic Senior Fellow Dr. Ingmar von Homeyer and the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies (RSCAS), the conference focused on emerging trends in EU environmental policy and governance, including interactions with energy policy and EU economic competitiveness, in particular the goal of a competitive low-carbon economy. Read more ...

A Framework for Tool Selection and Use in Integrated Assessment for Sustainable Development

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Integrated assessment is rapidly spreading as a practice at different levels of governance. However, the choice of using certain tools in an assessment is often not well founded. In this paper, Wouter de Ridder, John Turnpenny, Måns Nilsson and Anneke von Raggamby present a framework that scientifically underpins the role of, and thus choice of, tools within an integrated assessment. Read more ...

Identifying Tools for Sustainability Assessment

Presentation in

14 January 2008, Amsterdam - Anneke von Raggamby
Integrated sustainability assessment is a key element for advancing sustainable development by assessing the economic, environmental and social impacts of policy proposals. While the EU Commission has committed to producing high quality impact assessment, Anneke von Raggamby evaluates the availability and actual use in EU Commission Impact Assessment practice at the OECD workshop on Sustainable Assessment Methodologies. Read more ...

EU governance: towards a new architecture?

Widespread characterizations of EU governance as multi-level and networked overlook the emergent architecture of the Union’s public rule making. In this architecture, framework goals (such as full employment, social inclusion, “good water status”, a unified energy grid) and measures for gauging their achievement are established by joint action of the member states and EU institutions. Lower-level units (such as national ministries or regulatory authorities and the actors with whom they collaborate) are given the freedom to advance these ends as they see fit. Read more ...

EU Environmental Governance and Regulation

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19 June 2007, Madison - Ingmar von Homeyer
This presentation provided an analytical overview of EU environmental policy from its beginnings in the early 1970s up to the present. He showed that EU environmental governance today must be understood as an amalgam of four environmental governance regimes that have successively been layered on top of each other over the past 35 years. The evolution of EU environmental governance began with the “environmental regime” which was later followed by the “Internal Market regime”, the “Integration regime”, and the “Sustainable development regime”. The four regimes can be distinguished analytically in terms of their overall political priorities, legal foundations, decision-making methods, types of justification, underlying political dynamics, environmental objectives, and instruments. Each of the regimes is still present in the system of EU environmental governance today. Read more ...

Participatory governance in the European Union

In his contribution Ingmar von Homeyer examines the level of participatory governance in three issue areas: biotechnology regulation/the revision of the Deliberate Release Directive, European political values/the ‘sanctions’ against Austria/revision of Article 7 TEU, and employment policy/the European Employment Strategy. Read more ...

European Neighbourhood Policy – Challenges for the Environment and Energy Policy

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cover_enp_enBy way of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and following the enlargement process of 2004, the EU would like to redefine its own geopolitical interests and relationship to the new neighbours. Furthermore, the new neighbouring countries of the EU should receive an offer to co-operate and build a privileged relationship with the EU. Read more ...

Environmental policy integration and multi-level governance (EPIGOV)

Epigov-logoThere is a rapidly growing body of literature analysing and discussing measures to achieve the integration of environmental concerns into other policy areas (environmental policy integration, EPI). The project aims to structure these findings and to identify avenues for future research.

The project focuses on two main themes: Read more ...

Techniques for Evaluation of Sustainability Assessment Tools (Sustainability A-Test)

In the course of the 6th Framework Programme, Ecologic participated in the "Sustainability A-Test" project. Coordinated by our Dutch network partner IVM, 18 research institutes from 9 different countries compared different policy appraisal and evaluation tools, in order to assess the contribution of policy initiatives to a sustainable development. In this project, Ecologic focused on monetary assessment tools as well as on Sustainability Impact Assessments. Read more ...

 
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