This report discusses the question of what degree of importance German environmental policy should attach to the regionalization of value chains and the role this approach might play in a socio-ecological transformation of the food system.

European cities are to implement the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 with ambitious urban nature plans. Geisenheim University and Ecologic Institute are looking for municipalities that want to find out to what extent their open space concepts, biodiversity strategies, climate adaptation concepts, etc. can be considered an Urban Greening Plan, or how they can develop an Urban Greening Plan. What we offer is to provide advice and guidance to help you develop lessons that can be shared with other municipalities. Please register by the end of July 2023.

We are holding an online survey for the European Commission to gather both evidence and the views of relevant stakeholders. Contributions are particularly sought from farmers, business and trade organisations' representatives along the agricultural value chain, foresters, national / regional / local authorities in the Member States, civil society organisations, academia and researchers in relevant fields.

In cooperation with the Oeko-Institut, the Ecologic Institute assessed whether the Commission's proposal on a Carbon Removal Certification Framework (CRCF) is compatible with the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU. The paper is published as a fact sheet by the German Environment Agency. It argues that the CRCF violates Article 290 of the Treaty, as it would delegate essential elements of the Regulation to the Commission. The legislative process can address this problem.

On 14 June 2023, Aaron Scheid presented policy models for linking a reward system for carbon removals in the land sector with the AgETS. Five models were presented as part of the study "Pricing Agricultural Emissions and Rewarding Climate Action in the Agri-food Value Chain", which was developed for DG CLIMA at the time and formed the basis for the panel discussion.

Two Teams of Ecologic Institute took part in the 2023 Berliner Wasserbetriebe 5x5 km relay, finishing 625th and 1760th place, respectively. An Ecologic cheerleader team, equipped with blue pom poms, inspired the runners near the finish line.

This report analyses how a circular economy can contribute to halting biodiversity loss. It concludes that while circular economy measures (directly and indirectly) contribute to meeting biodiversity and climate strategic objectives, the combination with biodiversity-friendly sourcing is crucial in order to halt biodiversity loss.

At the NetworkNature Annual Event held on 8 June 2023 at the Flagey Building in Brussels (Belgium) participants gathered to explore the transformative potential of Nature-based Solutions (NBS) across sectors and communities. One noteworthy panel discussion included Natalia Burgos, representing the INTERLACE project, alongside representatives from the European Commission, the European Environmental Bureau, and the German Environment Agency.

Doris Knoblauch moderated the networking meeting of innovative climate protection projects in the framework of the National Climate Initiative (NKI) for Ecologic Institute on 7 and 8 June 2023.

The global crisis of the oceans, which has been a tangible and palpable problem in other parts of the world for many years, is increasingly becoming an issue in this country as well. The natural and technical sciences, in particular, have contributed to raising societal awareness about the state of the world's oceans in large-scale research initiatives. Against the backdrop of the ongoing UN Decade of Oceans (2021-2030), an interdisciplinary marine "scoping workshop" took place in Hannover from 7 until 9 June 2023. Dr. Grit Martinez represented Ecologic Institute in this exchange and presented her experiences from interdisciplinary marine collaboration in the EU research project RISC-KIT.

On 7 June 2023, Malek Al Jebaie presented the findings of a joint research investigation conducted by Ecologic Institute, supervised by McKenna Davis, and the International Institute of Industrial Environmental Economics at Lund University at the Ecocity World Summit in London at the Barbican Centre. The presentation primarily focused on the key trends and patterns observed in 151 European cases from the Urban Governance Atlas, whose development was coordinated by Ecologic Institute within the INTERLACE project.

In the webinar "Fit for the summer: How can nature-based solutions make municipalities more resilient?", the opportunities that nature-based solutions offer municipalities were discussed.

The Berlin Senate Department for Mobility, Transport, Climate Protection and the Environment (SenMVKU) organised an online expert dialogue on the topic of "Promoting repair through networks and repair bonuses" on 6 June 2023. Good practice examples were presented and potentials, challenges and measures to promote repair were discussed with the participation of experts from business, civil society and politics.

Ecologic Legal is supporting the German Federal Foreign Office in the international climate negotiations, particularly on the identification and analysis of German, EU and international negotiation positions. This project builds on previous work conducted in the projects on "Scientific and Legal and Support of the Climate Negotiations".

Newly published research from SPRINT explores the extent to which public consultations likely contribute to democratic decision-making surrounding agricultural pesticide use. Through a critical discourse analysis of submissions to the public consultation concerning the European Union’s Farm to Fork Strategy, the authors, among them Ecologic Institute's Dr. Ana Frelih-Larsen, examine the role of public consultations as a democratic process and the extent to which their non-deliberative nature advances solutions to contentious and complex challenges.