This hands-on guidance document supports regional actors in designing viable business models for the bioeconomy. Based on practical experiences from five Open Innovation Platforms (OIPs) across Europe, it outlines how to analyse regional market conditions, engage diverse stakeholders and translate promising bio-based product ideas into actionable business strategies. The result: a modular toolkit to unlock local biomass potential and drive sustainable rural development.

The new EU climate architecture should include a separate CDR target that builds primarily on restoring degraded ecosystems. This target should be legally binding and quantified – for the EU and Member States. It should not be a combined target which treats reductions and CDRs equally. This EU's CDR target should be enshrined in the European Climate Law.

Sina, Stephan, 2020: Schriftliche Stellungnahme des Sachverständigen Dr. Stephan Sina, Ecologic Institute, zum Gesetzentwurf der Staatsregierung für ein Bayerisches Klimaschutzgesetz (Bayklimag) (Drs. 18/7898). München: Bayerischer Landtag.

In July 2020, the European Council agreed on an unprecedented EU recovery package – dubbed Next Generation EU. This agreement contains elements that will advance EU climate policies. However, if it is to pave the way to climate neutrality by 2050, it needs to improve.

This commentary contributes to the discussion on the recently released Draft Guidelines on Uniform Framework for Extended Producers Responsibility (EPR) by India's Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. The authors argue that the draft guidelines fall short of fulfilling its purpose for three reasons. Basing their recommendations on learnings from experiences of developed countries with mature EPR ecosystems and contextualizing the same for ground realities of India, authors provide a 6-point agenda to address the issues raised.

This paper aims to explain to the failure of six carbon capture and storage (CCS) demonstration projects installed at coal power plants within the European Union. The projects were funded across six different members with varying suitability to coal-based CCS, which raises the question of whether common domestic factors can be identified that explain the failure of all projects. The perspective of Europeanisation is adopted to examine this question.

The Corona crisis offers three important lessons for climate policies and Europe's economic recovery. First, systemic shocks – like the Corona pandemic or climate change – affect the foundations of modern societies. Second, resiliency, preparedness and time are existential factors in addressing systemic crises. Third, the world’s economic recovery must help build efficient, innovative and climate neutral economies. In turn, calls to delay climate policies draw the wrong lessons from the current crisis and undermine Europe's economic recovery. All countries, including the EU, must accelerate their emission reductions drastically.

On 20 May 2020, the European Commission launched its long-awaited Farm to Fork Strategy. The strategy is a first attempt to define long-term objectives for a healthy, just and sustainable EU food system that addresses both food production and consumption. The strategy is part of the EU Green Deal and was published against the background of the Corona crisis that has critically highlighted the dependence of the EU food system on global supply chains and the need to increase resilience against shocks – be it a pandemic or other crises such as climate change. To achieve the objectives of the Farm to Fork Strategy (F2F) it is now crucial, that its targets will be ambitiously implemented. The Ecologic Institute's initial assessment "The EU Farm to Fork Strategy: What needs to come next?" highlights five important steps for an ambitious implementation of the EU Farm to Fork Strategy – on EU, national and regional level.

The guidance for policy makers included in the brief is intended to help orient decision-makers in navigating the various project outputs by comparing and contrasting the BE-Rural and POWER4BIO deliverables, with the aim of guiding the reader towards the most relevant project outputs for their given context. Based on this guidance, the final section of the document provides detailed summaries of the six deliverables for further reference.

Meyer-Ohlendorf, Nils 2020: Proposal for a European Climate Law – Suggestions for Amendments. Ecologic Institute: Berlin.

Meyer-Ohlendorf, Nils 2020: A European Climate Law. Analysis of the European Commission proposal. Ecologic Institute: Berlin.

In this position paper the Ecologic Institute, the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP), the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI) submitted a contribution to the EU Commission's roadmap consultation on the Farm to Fork strategy. The strategy is expected to be finalized until 29 April 2020 and will have an impact on the future Common agricultural policy. The position paper identifies the needs for the strategy and gives policy recommendations.

The European Commission will propose a European Climate Law in early March 2020. This 'Law' is a critical step to make Europe climate neutral. It can close gaps in existing EU climate rules. These gaps will impede the EU from becoming climate neutral before 2050. A new Ecologic paper presents a draft European Climate Law. The paper is available for download.

Kemper, Melanie, Christian Bruhn 2019: Kurzkonzept für den Relaunch der Internetplattform Meeresmüll – www.muell-im-meer.de. Berlin, unpublished.

With the recent update of its Bioeconomy Strategy, the guidance of its advisory bodies and the engagement of regional groups and representatives, Europe has found a new track towards a sustainable bioeconomy, building on the notion that regions are the most appropriate territorial level at which to implement bioeconomy strategies. The BE-Rural project incorporates this regional focus into its core vision, putting its regional Open Innovation Platforms (OIPs) front and center in the process of studying the potential for regional bioeconomies, and articulating and implementing strategies to make them a reality.