Economic instruments and marine litter control, published in Ocean and Coastal Management, provides a comprehensive up-to-date review of the literature on the economic instruments that can reduce marine litter. The paper, written by Frans Oosterhuis, Elissaios Papyrakis, and Ecologic Institute's Benjamin Boteler, assesses their cost of implementation, level of effectiveness as well as indirect environmental and socioeconomic effects (externalities) that may arise as a result of their implementation. The article is available for download.

Ecologic Institute, the Urania Berlin, and the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin present the event series "Biodiversity - local/global" to offer a better understanding of biological diversity and its socially-relevant facets.

In our brochure "Ecologic Institute: Science and Policy for a Sustainable World" (German: "Wissenschaft und Forschung für eine nachhaltige Welt“), we introduce Ecologic Institute as a transdisciplinary research organization. We focus on environmental research and address relevant sociopolitical questions of sustainability research. We bring new insights into environmental policy. Discover our research projects, academic collaborations, and teaching activities. Our new brochure is available for download.

In the transition to a post-carbon economy and sustainable societies, cities will be faced with unique challenges. POCACITO focused on uncovering how to improve the resilience of cities and regions in order to reduce existing and emerging conflicts over resources and their use in light of societal mega‐trends, environmental deterioration and climate change.

Both the Baltic Sea Action Plan and the EU Water Framework Directive require substantial further reductions of nutrient loads (N and P) to the Baltic Sea during the coming years. Achievements of these goals will only be possible by the implementation of fundamental changes in agricultural practices and land use. To this end, a team of researchers from eight institutions across the EU and Russia, will investigate the introduction of additional new and innovative measures to reduce nutrient loads.

The Ecologic Institute is responsible for concept, design, programming and content of the POCACITO project website. The website provides information on the project, the case studies and the project results. There is also a "marketplace of ideas", where users can search for specific information by filtering the topics, locations and population. An interactive map then shows the accompanying cities. Furthermore all news about the project can be found in the blog on the website.

The European Environment Agency's European Topic Centre on Inland, Coastal and Marine waters (ETC-ICM) aims to support the assessment, development, and implementation of EU policies through data analysis, data monitoring, and scientific knowledge sharing. European Topic Centres are important instruments of the European Environment Agency to monitor the environment in its member countries and analyse the current as well as the future state of the environment.

Urban water use is a major pressure impacting the ecological status of European rivers. The DESSIN project promotes more sustainable, adaptive, and cost-effective urban water management through the testing and promotion of innovations. The project aims to demonstrate the benefits of innovative solutions to deal with water challenges, with a focus on water quality and water scarcity. In addition, it develops a methodology for the valuation of ecosystem services, which will help catalyse for innovation uptake.

The goal of the European Environment Agency's European Topic Centre on Biological Diversity (ETC-BD) is to collect and monitor data on biodiversity as well as issues and ecological pressures related to biodiversity. This data is used to establish the state of Europe's ecosystems to support the assessment, development, and implementation of EU policies such as the Habitats Directive. Ecologic Institute is supporting the ETC-BD with data collection and assessment on ecosystem status and mapping, policy analysis, and monitoring. Ecologic Institute is also conducting multiple assessments to contribute to the European Environment Agency's assessment reports.

To support dissemination activities of the project "European Union Action to Fight Environmental Crime" (EFFACE), Ecologic Institute developed two roll-up banners to be used during project events. They are designed according to the project visual style and contain basic introductory information about the project, link to the website and illustratory photography. Text information on both banner is the same, and they differ in the used photography. On one banner a photography of famous artist Peter Beards was used, as a part of a cooperation between him and Ecologic Institute. Photos on the second banner illustrate a range of environmental crime, which is a main focus of the project.

Despite their successful application in other environmental domain (such as air quality and climate), the use of economic policy instruments (EPIs) to tackle water management issues has faced many challenges. This report, written by Ecologic Institute in collaboration with partners as part of the EU-funded FP7 EPI-Water project, provides practical guidance to policy-makers and interested parties on the formulation of economic policy instruments for water management. Economic policy instruments presented in the report include incentive pricing, pollution taxes, water and pollution trading schemes, payments for environmental services, and risk management schemes. The report is available for download.

In this study for the Heinrich Böll Foundation, Christiane Gerstetter and Nils Meyer-Ohlendorf of Ecologic Institute look at the "I" in TTIP, investment rules in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership under negotiation between the US and the EU. They assess the impact of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) rules on environmental regulation by analysing existing case law. The study is available for download.

Crivello, Silvia et al. 2013: Milesecure 2050 Deliverable 1.3 - Report on Main Trends in European Energy Policies Politecnico di Torino, Torino.

Riedel, Arne (2013): "Regulation of Fisheries in the Arctic High Seas - Going Forward with a Sidestep?", in: Timo Koivurova, Waliul Hasanat (Eds.): Current Developments in Arctic Law, 42-44.