The study provides a basic analysis of the practical implementation of the requirements of the End-of-Life Vehicle (ELV) Directive in several EU Member States. It names the most important challenges encountered by the Member States in implementing the Directive, and refers to good practice examples in the implementation of the directive.

While Germany has introduced a comprehensive ecological tax reform (ETR) in 1999, Poland has taken only first steps into this direction. In order to intensify the exchange between German and Polish experts from politics, research and NGOs, the Polish Ministry of the Environment together with the German Ministry of the Environment organised a workshop in Warsaw during which the design of the German ecological tax reform and its implications were discussed. Helen Lückge, Fellow at Ecologic, presented the economic implications of the German ETR.

In March 2006, the German government cabinet adopted the "Modernisation Report for the German Water Sector". The report does not yet contain a specific modernisation strategy, but formed the basis for discussions at the 7th Congress of Municipal Utilities of the German Association of Municipal Utilities on 29 November 2006. R. Andreas Kraemer of Ecologic moderated the debate about the question, how the traditional form of urban utility management can remain a successful model for the provision of good conditions for environmental, social and economic development in towns and cities.

The second transnational conference of the WaterCost project as part of the Intereg North Sea Region focused on the issue of cost-effectiveness analysis and how it to apply it to groundwater and water supply issues. Benjamin Görlach gave a presentation on the role of cost- benefit considerations in the implementation process of the Water Framework Directive. He concluded that since there is only patchy data on costs and benefits, and elaborated on the role of the AquaMoney project in addressing this gap.

The capacity of planet Earth has reached its limits. Our environmental impact increases due to the depletion of resources, population growth, emissions of pollutants and soil erosion. Only if governments, leaders in industry and finance, and civil society pull together, can a global disaster be prevented. On 22 November 2006 the Club of Rome and the SPD-Denkfabrik will present this discussion at the German Bundestag. Host-speaker will be Prof. Dr. Dennis Meadows, co-author of "Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update".

Between 1990 and 2000 alone, more than 800,000 hectares were built on in Europe. This phenomenon is due to changing lifestyles more than increased population. The amount of space consumed per person has more than doubled over the past 50 years. Today, more than a quarter of the EU's territory has been directly affected by urban sprawl, according to a study by the European Environment Agency, which also suggests potential policies to combat the trend. R. Andreas Kraemer, Director Ecologic, was consulted as an external expert throughout the development of the report.

How can the effectiveness of environmental policies be assessed in retrospect? Have the stated targets of environmental policies been achieved, and if so, was it because of the policies or because of other factors? Have targets been achieved at proportionate costs, or could there have been cheaper options of reaching them? These and other questions on ex-post policy evaluation were discussed at an expert workshop convened by the European Environment Agency and the Environment Agencies of Denmark, the Netherlands and the UK. Benjamin Görlach gave an introduction to cost-effectiveness analysis as an evaluation tool, and presented experiences with ex-post cost-effectiveness analyses of environmental policies in Europe.

The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Directive entered into force in 1985. Over its more than 20 year long existence, numerous projects in the EU Member States have been subject to the EIA procedure. To what extent the benefits of the EIA Directive outweigh its costs is largely unknown. Up to now, there has been no systematic evaluation of the costs and benefits of the EU’s EIA legislation and its implementation in the Member States. The projects aims therefore at calculating and systematically evaluating  the costs and benefits of the EIA Directive.

This OECD-report analyses selected public expenditure programmes supporting environmental investments in water supply and sanitation in four OECD countries (Austria, Belgium, France and the German New Länder) with the goal of illustrating a variety of possible institutional arrangements for the management of water sector public expenditure programmes in transition economies.

The Ecological Footprint is one of the most successful indicators worldwide for conveying the concept of the ecological sustainability and the biophysical limits of the Earth. This project for the German Federal Environmental Agency consisted of a comprehensive analysis and evaluation of the "Ecological Footprint" indicator regarding its possible application as an indicator of sustainability for Germany.

Lucha, Christine 2006: Optimisation of the share of renewable energies in electricity systems in the European Union. Cornerstones of an alternative political and institutional scenario. Fachbereich 3: Mathematik / Naturwissenschaften, Universität Koblenz-Landau, Koblenz.

The seminar on "Energy and Climate Policy for the Future" served to identify the regulatory framework and conditions of energy supply and energy policy that the industry requires, and to discuss the interaction between energy policy and climate protection. R. Andreas Kraemer of Ecologic Institute was invited to set the tone for the seminar with an opening dinner lecture, and to add reflections on energy supply security and the security policy implications of energy policy in the European neighbour states.

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region belongs to the most water-scarce areas in the world. The problems associated with natural resource scarcity have been aggravated over the last years by the increase in water demands and resource pollution as a result of population growth, urbanisation and industrialisation. An integrated concept to manage the available water resources is required to respond to this situation. Against this background, the World Bank Institute (WBI) and InWent – Capacity Building International, Germany, acting on behalf of the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), and in cooperation with the Regional Center for Training and Water Studies (RCTWS), organised the capacity-building workshop “Integrated Water Resources Management: MENA Regional Course”. The workshop took place from October, 29 to November, 2, 2006, in Cairo, Egypt.