The workshop "Regional Food Systems and Sustainable Land Use in the Rural Urban Nexus" on 11 April 2018 discussed the potential that food systems can play to improve rural urban linkages. The workshop aimed to discuss the available insights at international level about success factors of regional food policies and if these are also relevant in the German context. To do so, the workshop brought together local policy makers, federal policy makers as well as participants from research and civil society. Stephanie Wunder, Senior Fellow at the Ecologic Institute and project leader of the Rural Urban Nexus project, presented success factors known from international examples and studies that promote rural urban linkages through regional food systems.

On 27 March 2018, around 20 social scientists, all involved in a project of the research program "Plastic in the Environment", funded by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research, met to network and discuss future possibilities to increase the visibility of the social and political dimensions of plastics in the environment. The chair for science and technology policy at the Munich Center for Technology in Society organized the meeting together with Ecologic Institute.

Around 50 scientists from twelve collaborative projects of the research focus on plastics in the environment met for a first exchange on sampling, sample preparation and analysis of microplastics at the Water Technology Center (TZW) in Karlsruhe. The workshop, organized by TZW and the Ecologic Institute, aimed to coordinate and learn from each other the many difficulties in identifying and quantifying microplastics from water or soil samples.

The workshop "Car Sharing in Germany" took place on 8 March 2018, hosted in Berlin by Ecologic Institute. In the first part of the workshop experts addressed the current state of affairs of car sharing in Germany, confirming the dynamic nature of the industry and the difficulties involved in assessing its size and effects. In the second portion of the workshop they focused on future developments as well as the importance of policy for a societal transition away from privately owned vehicles. Ecologic Institute co-organized the workshop as part of the CIRCULAR IMPACTS project and in collaboration with Service Innovation Labs.

At the kick kick-off event for its six thematic working groups, the dialogue forum "Business Mitigates Climate Change" of around 200 leading German companies discussed how they could increase their climate change mitigation efforts and move forward on the way to a low carbon economy. Ecologic Institute organised the conference together with Ernst & Young and Wuppertal Institut.

As part of a project to structure the energy law, Ecologic Institute contributed to a discussion paper on conceptual considerations on the concept of plant in the Renewable Energy Act . Based on the functions of the term "plant", the authors recommend a new conceptualization, according to which the current abstract term "plant" is replaced by energy carrier-specific terms "plant", which are first combined in a catalog to form a uniform term "plant". The discussion paper is available for download.

This infographic provides a brief overview of soil values for Land Use Categories based on soil threats.

This infographic illustrates the basic principle of an extended indicator of land use and land-use change: worsening and improvements in land use are tracked and balanced against each other.

This infographic shows a procedure how to approach the operationalization of the LDN concept and which questions have to be answered in this way. It builds on the findings of 14 UNCCD pilot studies (Global Mechanism of the UNCCD 2016a) and interprets them further. It visualizes seven strategic steps.

This report presents the key concepts, definitions, and implementation approaches for SDG 15.3 on "Land Degradation Neutrality" (LDN). It discusses options for implementing LDN in Germany and suggests a proxy indicator based on land use changes. For this purpose, the core ideas, definitions and implementation approaches of the LDN concept are presented at the international level and a seven-stage procedure for national implementation is developed. This report by Ecologic Institute is available for download.

Imagine a ceiling panel offering lighting, efficient cooling and improved acoustics all in one. Or an app that calculates the energy use of single appliances in your home as well as the cost of their power consumption at any given moment. And how about an environmentally-friendly process to insulate buildings using digitalization and robotics? These were among the innovations in the running for the PERPETUUM Energy Efficiency Prize. Dr. Camilla Bausch of Ecologic Institute headed the jury to choose the winner of the competition.

The short analysis by Mandy Hinzmann gives an overview of the different positions on laboratory-produced artificial meat and shows the lines of argumentation of different stakeholder groups in Germany. The study is available for download.

Ecologic Institute has been ranked 7th among Top Environment Policy Think Tanks in the 2017 Global Think Tank Ranking of the University of Pennsylvania. Ecologic Institute is proud to be among the Top Ten for the 8th year in a row. The results and the respective report were released on 30 January 2018, with launch events worldwide in over 100 cities. The Berlin launch was hosted by Ecologic Institute and the European Council on Foreign Relations, with support by the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung.

Kemper, Melanie 2018: Website-Konzept für die Einbindung der Plastikpiraten in die Website der Fördermaßnahme "Plastik in der Umwelt" www.bmbf-plastik.de. Berlin, unpublished.