Book Section

Can urban living labs support social and governance innovations and therewith contribute to sustainable urban planning? Can they serve as a tool to assist cities in adapting to new emerging challenges? This chapter of the Urban Planet book address these questions. The chapter introduces a brief history of urban living labs and the governance challenges they intend to address, and subsequently explores whether urban living labs hold potential as a new forum for urban governance innovation experiments to support positive transformative change. The open access chapter and book are available for download.Read more

This book chapter explores how policies and policy-making perform to support climate change adaptation. It is part of the book: Adapting to Climate Change in Europe: Exploring Sustainable Pathways - From Local Measures to Wider Policies which is a scientific synthesis of a four-year project on adaptation activities in Europe (BASE). This book aims at ensuring sustainable solutions in adaptation to climate change. This chapter reflects on different tools which can support decision making for climate adaptation and that have been presented in other chapters of the book. It also discusses how current adaptation measures operate to enhance the capacity to respond to climate change impacts in a coherent manner across sectors. Ecologic Institute's Jenny Tröltzsch and Katriona McGlade contributed to this chapter.Read more

In this chapter Ecologic Institute's Dr. Ralph Bodle analyses the legal instruments and regulatory approaches in German law for achieving land degradation neutrality (LDN). Section 1 outlines the conceptual components of LDN that the law has to address: preventing degradation, restoring degraded land, offsetting degradation at project level and land-use planning and management. Section 2 analyses which legal mechanisms German law provides to address all conceptual components of LDN. The assessment and conclusion in Sect. 3 argue that despite a range of legal provisions and instruments in German law that protect soil, the absence of an overarching holistic concept is a fundamental shortcoming also with regard to LDN.Read more

This book, edited by Ecologic Institute's Brendan O’Donnell, Max Gruenig, and Arne Riedel, highlights both the diversity of perspectives and approaches to Arctic research and the inherent interdisciplinary nature of studying and understanding this incomparable region. The chapters are divided into four liberally-defined sections to provide space for dynamic interpretation and dialogue in search of sustainable solutions to the issues facing the Arctic. From governance to technology, scientific research to social systems, human health to economic development, the authors discuss fundamental questions while looking toward the Arctic’s future. Whether the reader is well-versed in the history and complexity of Arctic policy or looking for an insightful introduction to the vast world of Arctic research, everyone will find answers that lead to new questions and even more discoveries in these pages, laying the foundation for tomorrow’s discussion on the future of the Arctic.Read more