Ecologic Institute

At  the end of this year in Cancún, Mexico, a Roadmap for a binding climate agreement should be in place. After finding themselves at the sidelines of what was a disappointing Copenhagen summit, it is even more important that Europeans now inject new life into the negotiations. Read more ...

The financial and economic crisis that Germany has been going through since 2008 has shed a new light on the pros and cons of economic growth and the methods of measuring welfare. Whereas some indicators indicate that the worst effects of the crisis are behind us, others reveal that we may not have seen the end of the crisis just yet. In the 2/2010 edition of “Berliner Republik”, Benjamin Görlach, Senior Fellow at the Ecologic Institute, discussed how the crisis has played out in different economic indicators, why politics still resort to GDP as the main indicator for economic welfare and what the perspectives are for establishing alternative indicators. Read more ...

The German national Sustainable Development Strategy (SDS) has the potential to set the pace for Germany’s development towards a more sustainable society. Unfortunately, the strategy fails to define overarching strategic objectives. Isolated measures, indicators and time plans need to be bundled in an integrated strategy for the future. The authors of the policy brief “Sustainability needs Strategy” recommend that the German Government includes four new areas of action in its current SDS: sustainable wealth; sustainable labour policy; sustainable engagement policy and culture of sustainability. These areas are decisive to successfully embed sustainability in Germany’s government, economy and society and will determine whether Germany remains a leader in sustainability. Anneke von Raggamby, Senior Fellow and Head of European Integration at Ecologic Institute is Associate 2009/2010 at the stiftung neue verantwortung (snv) and was one of the authors of this policy brief. The policy brief “Sustainability needs Strategy” can be downloaded. Read more ...

At the EU level, there is great need for legal reforms concerning the liability of enterprises for violations of human rights and environmental norms abroad. This is the result of a study co-authored by Christiane Gerstetter, Fellow Ecologic Legal and pro-bono lawyer for the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights. Read more ...

This article, which is co-authored by Senior Fellow Ingmar von Homeyer of the Ecologic Institute, introduces a special issue of the journal International Environmental Agreements on environmental policy integration (EPI) at the international level. Referring to the integration of environmental concerns into other, non-environmental policies, the concept of EPI has been applied at national and EU-level but has rarely been analysed in relation to the global arena. Read more ...

Current Arctic marine shipping is mainly intra-Arctic. Since 2000, there have only been a small number of trans-Arctic voyages in summer for science and tourism across the Northwest Passage and the Northern Sea Route. The main consequence of climate change for Arctic marine shipping is contained in the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA)’s key finding that “reduced sea ice is very likely to increase marine transport and access to resources”. This background paper, prepared by Erik J. Molenaar and Robert Corell for the Arctic TRANSFORM project, focuses on intra-Arctic and trans-Arctic marine shipping in the Arctic marine area. Read more ...

Today, the loss of biological diversity has already reached alarming proportions, proportions which climate change is not expected to reach for several decades. Despite this, climate change continues to dominate political debates, whereas biodiversity is still seen as an issue of secondary importance. In this publication, Sascha Müller-Kraenner, Senior Policy Advisor of Ecologic Institute, summarizes why a political and institutional reassessment of biodiversity is so necessary. Read more ...

This policy brief draws upon a series of background papers, expert meetings, and interviews to provide an overview of the international and EU governance options for addressing the rapid changes underway in the region. While reflecting the opinions of its authors, this policy brief benefits from the opinions and insights of the experts participating in the five thematic working groups of Arctic TRANSFORM. Read more ...

The aim of this paper, prepared by the Arctic Centre in September 2008 as part of the Arctic TRANSFORM project, is to present the situation of the Arctic indigenous peoples in relation to the changing marine environment. Read more ...

This article by Christiane Gerstetter, Dominic Marcellino, and Elena von Sperber explores the state of the climate technology transfer negotiations following the COP 15 meeting in Copenhagen in December 2009. The article appears in the Spring 2010 edition of the journal Carbon and Climate Law Review. Read more ...

Researchers and the international community today are essentially in agreement: global warming cannot surpass an increase of two degrees Celsius if dangerous, irreversible and uncontrollable consequences for the environment and society are to be avoided. Protection measures taken by the international community are also pursuing this goal, and yet they leave out adequate mandates for the minimisation of green house gas emission. However, international law is not powerless in this respect. Many far reaching climate protection mandates can be developed out of the customary law prohibition of transboundary environmental disturbances and from the area of human rights. To what extent these obligations can be effective in practice is yet to be known. Read more ...

Illegal fishing and logging, and the international trade in illegally sourced fish and wood products cause enormous environmental and economic damage. Consumer countries contribute to the problem by importing fish and timber without ensuring legality – a problem the EU tries to address with two new regulations. In this briefing paper, Duncan Brack, Heike Baumüller and Katharina Umpfenbach compare the recently adopted EU regulations on illegal fish and timber products. The authors contrast the very different approaches and highlight areas that might need further strengthening. Read more ...

Sustainability of biofuel policies is a largely debated issue, particularly with regards to environmental impacts. To address these issues, European and national legislative initiatives have been designed that aim to ensure the sustainability of biofuels. Germany has been among the top runners in trying to implement sustainability criteria for biofuels. In August 2009 the German government set up the Biomass-electricity-sustainability ordinance (“Biomassestrom-Nachhaltigkeitsverordnung”, abbreviated “BioSt-NachV”). The background paper written by the Ecologic Institute in October 2009 provides an overview for plant operators who will need to proof their compliance with the new ordinance. Read more ...

The German Packaging Ordinance of 1991 marked one of the first attempts to introduce the concept of producer responsibility into environmental policy.  In this article, Tilman Eichstädt, Alexander Carius, and R. Andreas Kraemer of Ecologic Institute use policy network analysis to assess policy outcomes as well as the environmental and economic efficiency of the German packaging policy.  Read more ...