Projects

Project
 
Ecologic Institute is preparing an assessment report on “Technological options for reducing plastic waste in the oceans”. The report will provide a systematic overview of technologies designed to remove plastic waste from water bodies. The analysis will evaluate technical, ecological and economic aspects as well as risks and benefits. The report will present the current state of knowledge in a concise and scientifically robust manner, identify gaps in knowledge and provide a basis for informed decisions.

Technological options for reducing plastic waste in the oceans

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Re-use Logo
In the context of the political goal of strengthening the reuse of used goods, the project aimed at supporting and executing re-use measures in Berlin in order to foster structures and actors in Berlin that bring the used goods market out of its niche. To do so, the project draws on the experience of several predecessor projects including initial pilot tests, networking activities and the opening of the Re-Use Superstore.

Re-use Berlin Measures 2024-2025

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Project
 
Digital technologies have the potential to close economic loops, reduce CO2-emissions and increase resource efficiency. However, the possibilities of digitalisation for shaping a comprehensive circular economy are far from exhausted. This research project investigates how digital solutions can support consumers in aligning their consumption with sustainable and circular criteria.

Conceptualising and Planning Digital Solutions to Promote Sustainable Consumption for a Circular Economy

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This project will help identify cross-sectoral (climate action) policies, instruments, and programmes that contribute to a carbon-neutral circular economy in the EU. It aims to identify options to optimise the policy interplay in different regions in order to support the achievement of the European climate action targets and to accelerate ambition increases in this decade and the next.

Cross-sectoral Climate Policies

for sustainable waste management and circular economy in the EU and beyond

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Project
 
Despite Germany's Circular Economy and Waste Management Act "Kreislaufwirtschafts- und Abfallgesetz" of 1996, the country's economy remains essentially linear. To transition from this status quo and lead the way towards a genuinely circular and resource-efficient economy, the development of a National Circular Economy Strategy (Nationale Kreislaufwirtschaftsstrategie) (NKWS) is now in progress. The project provides scientific support to the development of this strategy, as much as to the related debate.

Scientific Support of the Development of a Strategy for a Circular Economy in Germany

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Project
 
In this research and dialogue project on behalf of the Climate Neutrality Foundation, Ecologic Institute analyzes the complex landscape of Germany's bilateral and plurilateral partnerships in the fields of energy, climate and raw materials, with a focus on partnerships with countries of the Global South.

Germany's Partnerships for Energy, Climate, Resources and Development

How to make their work more transformative towards climate neutrality

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Project:Horizon Europe
 
SCALE UP Logo
The overall goal of SCALE-UP is to support regional multi-actor partnerships, consisting of private businesses, governments and policymakers, civil society organisations, and researchers in identifying and scaling-up innovative and sustainable bio-based value chains that build on regional resources. Through its approach, SCALE-UP will adapt, implement and evaluate tools to help regional actors to overcome the apparent bottlenecks towards fully exploiting bioeconomy potentials in their region.

Concepts, Tools and Applications for Community-driven Bioeconomy Development in European Rural Areas (SCALE-UP)

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Project
 
Re-use Logo
In the context of the political goal of strengthening the reuse of used goods, the project aimed at supporting and executing re-use measures in Berlin in order to foster structures and actors in Berlin that bring the used goods market out of its niche. To do so, the project drew on the practical experience of initial pilot tests in 2018, networking activities since 2019 and the opening of the Re-Use Superstore in 2020.

Re-use Berlin Measures 2022-2023

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Project
 
Recycling and giving back
In view of a strong waste management sector with good separate waste collection rates and high recycling rates of over 80 %, Germany is generally well positioned to increase the use of recyclates. So far, however, this potential has only been partially exploited. Against this background, Ecologic Institute, together with the Policy Assessment Research Group of the Freie Universität Berlin, identifies and describes barriers to the use of recyclates and policy instruments to overcome these barriers. Options for action are shown on the basis of selected practical examples.

Policy Instruments to Increase the Use of Recycled Materials

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In light of recent experiences with supply shortages, Western democracies, and the EU in particular, are exploring new supply chains and strategies to reduce their dependence on third-country imports. Ecologic Institute provided an overview of possible options that the EU can currently use to counter growing dependence. Using a case study on rare earths from China, the focus was particularly on the possible contribution of the circular economy to security of raw material supply.

Raw Material Dependency of the EU from China

A Case Study on Rare Earths and how the Circular Economy Can Help Reducing the EU's Dependency

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Project
 
The project investigates the potential for greenhouse gas savings through resource efficiency and circular economy measures. Ecologic Institute supports the formulation of resource conservation measures as input for the modelling of GHG saving potentials (WP1 led by GWS). Furthermore, Ecologic Institute is responsible for the scientific support of the European Resource Forum in 2022 and 2024 including the development of background papers.

Scientific Accompanying Research on Current Discourses on Resource Conservation

National, European and International Level

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Project
 
Single-use plastics (SUPs) consumption is booming worldwide, with Asia being no exception. On the contrary: Asia is experiencing increasing levels of SUP consumption due to rapid economic growth, urbanization, and changing consumption and production patterns including the increase of E-commerce and rising sales of processed and packaged food. Last but not least, a "sachet economy" has been established with small portions of products (e.g., instant coffee, shampoo) being sold for convenience and to target especially the large population groups with lower purchasing power.

Asia's Opportunity to End Single-use Plastic Pollution

Global rules in a new global treaty

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Project
 
Location of Hesse in Germany
In this project, Ecologic Institute reviewed and analyzed 17 inspiring examples of how companies and researchers put the circular economy into practice: from the recycling of construction materials and metals, the improvement of sorting and recycling plastics, to new business models that help turn waste into raw materials or keep materials longer in the loop through services.

Material Cycles in Hesse

Practical examples and potentials

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Project
 
Many strong economies have developed strategies to foster the circular economy. But what do we know about how these plans impact developing and emerging countries? Do the strategies itself take the effects on developing and emerging countries into account? Which risks and opportunities arise from a shift to a circular economy in industrialised countries to developing and emerging countries? This project analysed some of these effects. The project's key recommendations and highlights are published in the project report.

Global Policy Initiatives for the Circular Economy and their Impact on Developing and Emerging Countries

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Project
 
Re-Use
In its last coalition agreement (2016-2021), the State of Berlin committed itself to the "Zero Waste" model in order to transform its waste management towards a circular economy. Re-using goods takes centre stage in this transformation. In the context of the political goal of strengthening the reuse of used goods, the project aims at supporting and executing re-use measures in Berlin in order to foster structures and actors in Berlin that bring the used goods market out of its niche. The Ecologic Institute supports the project for the Berlin Senate Administration by designing and conducting three virtual expert dialogues in Berlin.

Supporting and Executing Re-use Measures in Berlin 2021 - 2022

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Project
 
The transition towards sustainability entails addressing systemic and interrelated resource challenges. Via the project "Assessment of resource nexus-related challenges and opportunities in the context of the European Green Deal", Ecologic Institute supports the European Environment Agency (EEA) in its objective to foster a better understanding on these topics for the European policy community and stakeholders. The project serves as background to an EEA briefing on the topic.

Assessment of Resource Nexus-related Challenges and Opportunities of the European Green Deal

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Project
 
Ecomodulation of fees can play a crucial role in incentivizing upstream design changes by reducing the fees for products or packaging designed for circular economy. Products or packaging with circular design (e.g., a minimum percentage of recycled content, high reparability index, reduction in weight of material, shift from low to easily recyclable material(s)) could benefit from reduced fees, while those with design barriers, which are also often exported to developing countries for end-of-life treatment, could incur higher fees. Thus, ecomodulation of fees can play a vital role in prioritizing design as waste prevention, reusability, reparability and recyclability. Against this background, this project run by Ecologic Institute focused on the product streams batteries, plastic/packaging, textiles and waste electric and electronic equipment (WEEE).

Extended Producer Responsibility and Ecomodulation of Fees

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In current environmental policy debates on resource conservation, the Netherlands are often cited as a good-practice example because of these absolute reduction targets. In this project, Susanne Langsdorf and Laurens Duin explored the Dutch targets and the vision for a circular economy. They shed light on the development, structure and implementation of the Dutch Circular Economy Program and related policy processes, including the established monitoring program.

Absolute Reduction of Resource Use

The Netherlands – a role model for Germany?

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Thuringia is one of the first German states to draft its own resource conservation strategy. This requires a solid data basis on the resource flows of the state. In the ThüRess project, Ecologic Institute and the Institute of Economic Structures Research (GWS) are developing this database as well as measures for such a resource conservation strategy.

Resource Flows in Thuringia, Germany (ThueRess)

supporting regional Ministry of Environment in resource and circular economy policy

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Project
 
In this project, three sufficiency projects are to be implemented, which the contractors had developed together with UBA employees in the previous project.

More Quality of Life, Less Environmental Usage

Development of user-oriented sufficiency policy project drafts in the Environment Department (sub-project 2)

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Project
 
Network of icons showing various climate-related indicators
In this project, Climact and Ecologic Institute analysed the impact assessment for the new EU climate target proposed by the Commission in September 2020. After examining policy options and modelling results, they were compared with recent studies, in particular with Climact's modelling results for 2030. A policy brief highlights key points where the Commission differs from other studies and identifies climate change potentials that deserve more attention in future analyses.

Assessing the Impact Assessment for Raising the EU's 2030 Climate Target

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Project
 
Textiles, including clothing, are a priority product category for the circular economy and one of the focus sectors of the new Circular Economy Action Plan. The textiles sector is a relevant economic sector in the EU, both in terms of job and value creation, as well as regarding environmental and social footprint. Environmental pressures from the sector through the use of resources, water, land and chemicals are significant. The impacts occur in every phase of the life cycle: from production of fibers and products to distribution, the use of clothing, collection, sorting and recycling, and the final management of waste.

Technical, Regulatory, Economic and Environmental Effectiveness of Textile Fibres Recycling

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Project
 
Green Earth around which a green arrow leads. Several plants / leaves sprout from the top of the arrow.
Global extraction of primary raw materials has been growing continuously for decades, and absolute decoupling between economic growth and resource consumption, let alone environmental impacts associated with the use of natural resources, has not yet been achieved. Although political attention for the issues of resource efficiency, resource conservation and the circular economy has been high for some years at on the international, European and national level, scientific studies call for more ambitious policy approaches in order to achieve global sustainability goals and respecting planetary boundaries in the long term. It therefore appears necessary to further develop resource policies at international and national level.

Resource Efficiency and Natural Resources in an International Context

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This research project explored whether strengthening the concept of extended product responsibility in international law has the potential of noticeably improving waste management in the Global South. The concept of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) aimed at taking into account waste management issues during the entire life cycle of a product (cradle-to-grave approach). Its main purpose was to reduce the costs of waste management for local authorities and taxpayers, while at the same time providing incentives for producers to design their products so that they are easier to recycle and dispose of in an environmentally sound manner, generating less waste overall.

Anchoring Extended Producer Responsibility in International Law

Potential and Options

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Project
 
This project as part of the National Food Waste Reduction Strategy aims to reduce food waste in private households. A core area of the project is the identification of promising approaches and interventions. These will be implemented in cooperation with practitioners and evaluated for their effectiveness using a standardized method developed within the project.

Reduction of Food Waste in Private Households in Germany

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The project "Circular City Berlin – from potential towards implementation (CiBER 1)" analysed and promoted innovative approaches to the circular economy in various sectors in Berlin. In view of the expected further growth, urban densification and increased economic prosperity of the metropolitan region of Berlin, a long-term sustainable design of urban resource flows is increasingly coming into focus. The corona situation complemented the focus on resilient regional and local economic processes. Local and regional circular value creation is more sustainable, increases the resilience of societies in times of crisis and strengthens social justice and inclusiveness.

Circular City Berlin – From potential towards implementation (CiBER 1)

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In the project "Knowledge. Transformation. Berlin.", the Ecornet Berlin research network pursued the goal of expanding Berlin's pioneering role in innovative approaches for a liveable, climate-neutral and resource-efficient city. Therefore, the research network focused on the existing strengths and diversity of Berlin, but also on the existing ecological and social challenges. The goal was to expand Berlin's pioneering role in the development of innovative approaches in an innovatively way. To this end, the associated institutes worked on several projects in the thematic fields of social climate transformation, sustainable economies and digitalization.

Knowledge. Transformation. Berlin – Transdisciplinary research for a social and ecological metropolis

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