Marius Hasenheit, Junior Researcher at Ecologic Institute, wrote an article for the German online magazine Wirtschaftswoche Green Economy about the interactive search engine für Green Economy Indicators "measuring-progress.eu". In his article, he also interviewed Katharina Stepping of the German Development Institute (DIE), who already tested the tool.

In this project for the ENVI Comittee of the European Parliament (EP), Grazia Maria Vagliasindi, University of Catania, and Christiane Gerstetter, Ecologic Institute, wrote a briefing on the ILVA steel plant Taranto, Italy and its environmental and health impacts. The steel plant is the largest one in the EU; the case illustrates the consequences of companies failing to comply with applicable permits and environmental legislation, and national authorities failing to enforce environmental standards.

Stefes, Christoph H. 2015: Atlantic Perspectives Interviews Report. Perspectives from Germany, Berlin.

Signatories to the Covenant of Mayors (CoM) and their Sustainable Energy Action Plans (SEAPs) play a major role in the task of designing and implementing policies for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions on the local level. The success of the CoM to win close over 6000 signatories required– and still requires – flexibility as well as guidance. The municipalities need at the same time flexibility for their SEAPs to adapt to local governance and financing frameworks, and guidance regarding their design and implementation.

Wildlife crime is no longer an emerging issue, but has established itself as a serious threat to biodiversity and sustainable development. In the period between 2010 and 2012 alone, for example, 100,000 elephants were killed in Africa for ivory. The EU is both one of the most important markets for illegal wildlife products and an important actor in the fight against wildlife crime. As such, Ecologic Institute coordinated a study on wildlife crime which was commissioned by the European Parliament. Further project partners were the Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP), the Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM), the University of South Wales (Jennifer Maher), Ragnild Sollund from the University of Oslo, Teresa Fajardo del Castillo from the University of Granada and Tanya Wyatt from Northumbria University.

The pending transformation of the German and European electricity system resulting from rising shares of renewable energy is triggering new technical requirements for both electricity producers and consumers. These requirements include "network codes", bodies of technical rules for the operation of electricity grids, which are developed by the European Transmission System Operators (TSOs) in their umbrella organization ENTSO-E before being implemented on the national level in the EU Member States.

Following 13 successful ICAP summer and training courses on emissions trading, the first ICAP Advanced Training Course (Masterclass) took place in July 2015. Taking place over a week, the course brought together experts from emerging economies and developing countries to deepen their knowledge of emissions trading as a tool for climate protection and to discuss the experiences with / options of implementing such schemes in developing countries. The course in London was the fourteenth of its kind and continues the tradition of previous ICAP Summer Schools and Training Courses, the most recent of which were held in Seoul, Mexico City and Paris. 31 mid-career professionals from 14 countries at-tended the course, which was led by Benjamin Görlach and Matthias Duwe.

In order to foster waste prevention, article 29 of the European Waste Framework Directive 2008/98/EG requires Member States to lay down national waste prevention programmes, specifying appropriate benchmarks for waste prevention measures. It enables Member States to make use of concrete quantitative and qualitative indicators (see also § 33 III 4 KrWG). In July 2013, the federal government adopted a national waste prevention programme. The government is now tasked to monitor the programme's implementation.

The European Council agreed that flexibility within the non-ETS sectors will be "significantly enhanced" after 2020. A new paper by the Ecologic Institute analyses options to enhance flexibility. The paper focusses on project-based mechanisms and is available for download.

The published OECD-report "Climate Change Risks and Adaptation: Linking Policy and Economics" sets out how the latest economic evidence and tools can enable better policy making for adaptation. Scientists from Ecologic Institute con-tributed to the chapter on the costs and benefits of adaptation on the national and regional scale.

In July 2015, the POLIMP Webinar Series kicked off with a discussion on the topic "Paris 2015: Lessons from the Copenhagen Experience" moderated by Matthias Duwe (Head, Climate Ecologic Institute). The audio recording is available for download.

On 7 July 2015, the POLIMP Webinar Series officially kicked off with a discussion on the topic: "Paris 2015: Lessons from the Copenhagen Experience. The webinar featured guest speakers Prof. Dr. Sebastian Oberthür (IES) and Wytze van der Gaast, PhD (JIN).

In the first week of July the European Society for Environmental History (ESEH) had invited to its 8th Biennial Conference to Versailles. Under the motto “Greening history: Studying the environment across disciplines: past, present, future” environmental historians from around the world met to exchange their empirical findings for a sustainable future and to discuss further applied research trends amongst the humanities.

Stephan Sina, Senior Fellow at Ecologic Institute, joined Bettina Kampman from CE Delft on 2 July 2015 to present and discuss a mid-term evaluation of the Renewable Energy Directive at Directorate-General for Energy (DG Energy) in Brussels (Belgium). The study had been carried out by a consortium of CE Delft, Ricardo-AEA, Ecologic Institute, E-Bridge and REKK, and been published recently on DG Energy's website. The presentation is available for download.

Together with other institutes, Ecologic Institute has a framework contract with the European Parliament to support the work of its Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI). Under this framework contract, the European Parliament regularly requests studies and briefing papers on EU environmental policies and issues of sustainable development.