Ecologic Institute

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 ...

Water resource licensing is increasingly becoming a cornerstone of integrated water resources management (IWRM). Licensing and other allocation mechanisms are important because they determine who gets access to water and provide a means of managing water fairly, efficiently and sustainably. As water grows scarce in an increasing number of countries, there is a significantly greater risk of corruption in the water licensing process. These risks, and their underlying factors, are not well understood. The authors of the report explore the nature of the risk of corruption using a 2007 field study, with Chile and Kazakhstan as case studies. Read more ...

This working paper affirms that emissions trading systems currently under development in the US raise certain challenges for an operational market link, but are not generally incompatible. Specifically, certain design elements of trading systems may give rise to concern, such as cost containment provisions and borrowing and offset provisions. Read more ...

Documenting the results of a NATO Advanced Research Workshop held in Budapest on 21 to 23 January 1999, the book "Responding to Environmental Conflicts: Implications for Theory and Practice" provides an overview of environment and security challenges, addresses methods for assessing environmental security and their application in case studies, and presents views on the role of international and environmental institutions in preventing and dealing with environmental conflicts. Read more ...

Non-timber forest products (NTFPs) can be an important source of income for rural inhabitants of Laos. One such NTFP, which has been promoted by the government of Laos, is the paper mulberry tree (Broussonetia papyrifera (L) Vent). This study was performed to understand the factors influencing the commercialisation of paper mulberry bark in Oudomxay province (Northern Laos) and to investigate the potential of the paper mulberry tree as a source of steady income. Read more ...

Linking emissions trading schemes has attracted much interest as a means of reducing compliance costs, expanding market size and liquidity, and reducing volatility in the carbon market. It also offers a channel for climate cooperation across jurisdictions to complement the international negotiating process on a future climate regime. But linking also faces a number of barriers and poses potential risks if inadequately designed. In a series of peer-reviewed publications on this issue, Michael Mehling discusses institutional and legal implications, formulates design recommendations, and assesses prospects of a market link over the short term and medium term. Read more ...

An unprecedented donation by media mogul Ted Turner in 1997 resulted in the creation of a non-profit charity devoted to helping the United Nations achieve its objectives. The evolution, key activities and figures of the U.N. Foundation are briefly described in this article. Read more ...

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 Yearbook Ecology 2010 has been published at the beginning of September 2009. Ecologic Institute is one of the institutes supporting the yearbook and contributed three chapters on ecological transformation, water and oil to this year’s edition. Read more ...

Does water provide occasions for conflicts or does water become the conflict material when social control mechanisms fail or are developed insufficiently or badly? Are water conflicts perhaps provoked to conceal this weakness? How does good Water Governance look and which positive effects can it bring? Read more ...

This article explores options for linking emissions trading systems. Combining markets could have many positive benefits (including reducing the costs of compliance), but there are drawbacks. In the short term, however, direct bilateral linkages will be difficult, and achieving the EU-objective of OECD-wide emissions trading by 2015 is therefore ambitious. International negotiations will overcome some of the barriers to linkages and expedite the integration of carbon markets. Michael Mehling of the Ecologic Institute in Washington DC co-authored this article. Read more ...

The sharing of benefits from the use of genetic resources between the traditional users and cultivators of such resources and those that wish to use them for commercial or research purposes is a major issue under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The debate has a clear North-South dimension as most institutions interested in using genetic resources are based in the developed countries, whereas the biodiversity hotspots are mostly located in the global South where biodiversity has been cultivated and preserved by indigenous and small farmers’ communities. In this book chapter Christiane Gerstetter of Ecologic Legal develops recommendations for provider countries on how to implement the CBD requirement that benefits should be shared fairly and equitably. Read more ...

Twenty-one countries share the Mediterranean's coastline with no single country responsible for its environmental deterioration or its protection. They are collectively responsible for both. Over four decades, the environmental dimension of Europe's policy toward its Mediterranean neighbours has become increasingly prominent. This article by Pamela Lesser, Fellow with Ecologic Institute, Washington DC, published in the Mediterranean Quarterly, Volume 20, Issue 2, deals with Europe's environmental policy toward its Mediterranean neighbours and the newly launched Union for the Mediterranean. Read more ...