Srebotnjak, Dr. Tanja; Dr. Renee Y. Hsia; Abbas H. Kothari and Judy Maselli 2012: "Health Care as a "Marekt Good"? Appendicitis as a Case Study". Archives of Internal Medicine, Vol. 172, 5.

Agriculture provides substantial ecosystem services which lead to several benefits that humans derive from nature. This report examines the quantitative connection between provisioning agro-ecosystem services in terms of food, feed, fibers, and fuel supply and the ecological demands of these ecosystems. Energy balances of agro-ecosystems as well as different biophysical structures and processes were applied to quantify the relationship between these different services. Moreover, trade-offs between provisioning and other ecosystem services such as regulating and cultural services are discussed.

Considerably larger male than female populations in some countries in Asia as well as in Europe have led to concerns in the European Parliament about the discrimination against young girls that could lead to sex selective practices such as neglect, sex selective abortions, or even infanticide. This study by the Overseas Development Institute, UK (project lead) and Ecologic Institute provides the European Parliament with an overview of the causes, current trends, consequences, and policy challenges of sex selective practices, focusing particularly on China and India. It provides some recommendations for the European Parliament as to how these challenges can be addressed. The study is available for download.

This study by Ecologic Institute develops an organizing framework to summarize scientific findings concerning a wide selection of indicators and assesses their potential applicability for tracking sustainable industries and sustainable industrial development.

Ecologic Institute coordinated the work for the new 2012 Indicators Report for a Sustainable San Mateo County (SSMC), Ecologic Institute in San Mateo took on the role of Report Coordinator and Editor. Supported by more than 40 volunteers, among them students from Mills High School in Millbrae and students of urban and regional planning at San José State University, the report was developed and produced in a six month timeframe and can be downloaded free of charge from the website of Sustainable San Mateo County.

In the international negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), Parties are discussing new market mechanisms that expand the concept of crediting emission reduction efforts with tradable units beyond the existing Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) to include a broader group of mitigation opportunities that could involve entire economic sectors of advanced developing countries.

The international architecture for financing environmental protection and institutions has become quite confusing, spread out across an increasing number of bilateral and multilateral actors, funds and financing mechanisms. This study, commissioned by the German Federal Environment Agency, investigates the current system and provides recommendations on how to improve it. The study is available for download.

How do relevant stakeholders on the Baltic Sea Coast perceive climate change in their region? What adaptation measures are well known and which should be implemented? Additionally, who are the relevant stakeholders? These and other questions are answered in the first part of the RADOST stakeholder analysis, which was written by staff members of Ecologic Institute. The report is available for download.

With this study, researchers from Südwind Institute (project lead) and Ecologic Institute inform the European Parliament about how the five emerging economies known collectively as the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) are emerging as development assistance donors and potential partners in the developing world. The authors discuss how South-South cooperation is becoming more significant and what challenges it poses to the EU's ODA agenda. Finally, the study provides a series of recommendations for European policy makers.

The objective of the present study is to analyze the relationship between the performance of the waste management systems in the EU Member States (MS) and their use of economic instruments (EI). On the basis of this analysis, the opportunity to move towards a European common approach for the use of EIs in relation to waste management is explored. The results show that landfill charges and product responsibility schemes are implemented in most MS. Pay-as-you-throw (PAYT) systems have only been introduced in half of the MS.

Werner, Beate; Robert Collins et. al. 2012: Towards efficient use of water resources in Europe. EEA Report | No 1/2012, European Environment Agency, Copenhagen.

In this paper, researchers from the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and Ecologic Institute propose that a more decentralized governance structure is one possible solution for dealing with complex problems. The authors argue that highly complex problems, such as achieving sustainable development, are better solved by networks of diverse actors interacting and collaborating both inside and outside of government - what the authors call "governance networks". Such collaboration would make solutions more effective at the implementation stage. The report is available for download.

Binda Zane, Edoardo; R. Brückmann, D. Bauknecht, F. Jirouš, R. Piria, N. Trennepohl, J. Bracker, R, Frank and J. Herling (2012): Integration of electricity from renewables to the electricity grid and to the electricity market – RES-INTEGRATION. Öko-Institut & eclareon, Freiburg/Berlin.

In order to meet its renewable energy targets by 2020, the EU is likely to increase its demand for biomass, not only for biofuel crops but also for woody biomass. A significant portion of this biomass will likely come from developing countries, particularly those in West and Central Africa, as well as Latin American countries. This demand can have significant negative impacts in these developing regions, including environmental degradation and threats to food security. In this brief for the European Parliament, researchers at Ecologic Institute (Stefanie Wunder, Timo Kaphengst, Krista Timeus and Kristine Berzins) analyze some of those main impacts, focusing particularly on woody biomass. The study is available for download.

The Committee of the Regions is engaged in the monitoring of the implementation of the Europe 2020 Strategy from the perspective of regional development and cohesion. This short survey by the Committee of the Regions serves the collection of opinion and feedback regarding the Europe 2020 initiatives for social change and innovation in the regions and EU Member States. Ecologic Institute and RIMAS are analysing the results in a ten-page report. The report is available for download.