In this article, Camilla Bausch and Julia Rufin provide an overview of the content of the German energy law, as adopted by the German Parliament in 2005. The new energy law is based on European Directives. The authors focus their contributing article on the essential new provisions. A description of the future regulation of the energy market is provided, and the new rules concerning the unbundling of the energy sector are exposed. Furthermore, provisions that extend the requirements of European law are described.

"Investing in Ecology and Peace: Perspectives of Transatlantic Cooperation" was the theme of a conference at the Protestant Academy of Loccum, Germany, organised in cooperation with the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation, the Heinrich Boell Foundation, and the UNEP Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) of the United Nations Environment Programme. R. Andreas Kraemer prepared the discussion on "How to Prevent Wars over Natural Resources?", thereby responding to the Worldwatch Institute's "State of the World 2005" summary presented by Michael Renner.

Oberthür, Sebastian 2005: Fortentwicklung und weitere Ausgestaltung des Kyoto-Protokolls. Insbesondere Querbezüge zwischen dem System der Erfüllungskontrolle, den flexiblen Mechanismen und den Berichts- und Inventarisierungspflichten. Ecologic, Berlin.

The Austrian Water and Waste Management Association (ÖWAV) organised the ÖWAV-Forum 2005 on "Water Sector and Politics – Structures, Controls and Financing". The aim of the conference was to discuss the future of the Austrian water sector, in particular the new legal, economic and environmental regulations. R. Andreas Kraemer presented the trends at European level and their potential effects on the municipal water sector.

The German people responded generously to the tsunami catastrophe and proved their willingness to provide spontaneous help to the victims. Many water suppliers and municipalities have also offered their own proposals. The German Federal Environment Ministry wishes to build on this willingness and launched a project to investigate the opportunities available for a long term, professional commitment of the German civil society in the area of water provision and sanitation. The project team conducted interviews of experts and stakeholders from the water sector, the area of development policy and of academia, who then met in a workshop to discuss the results. The workshop documentation is available for download.

The challenge of developing robust methodologies to undertake ex ante and/or ex post sustainability assessments of trade policies remains largely unmet. In cooperation with further members of the CAT-E network Ecologic analyses and develops methodological approaches for sustainable impact assessments for specific trade areas.

The printed edition of the handbook "Learning together to manage together – improving participation in water management" was published in January 2006. Ecologic actively contributed to the development of the handbook, which is one of the main outputs of the European project Harmonising Collaborative Planning (HarmoniCOP).

In order to meet reporting requirements linked to environmental legislation, policy makers are increasingly in need of accurate and timely information on water quality. This paper explores how and to what extent new monitoring devices can help European Union members meet the special requirements of the Water Framework Directive (WFD).

During the summer semester of 2005, Dr. Norbert Kopytziok is directing the course "Ecology and Design" at the College of Architecture, Media and Design of the Berlin University of the Arts. The course focuses on the debate around ecological efficiency which has entered, over the last few years, the area of ecological product construction and Eco-design.

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the Water Framework Directive (WFD) are two of the most influential European policies in the area of environmental issues. Within this sixth Framework Programme (FP6) project, Ecologic and the Warsaw Agricultural University (WAU) are analysing the legal and organisational interlinkages between both policies in order to elaborate future synergies while implementing, planning, financing and controlling the various requirements of the WFD and the CAP.

After years of political debate, the Kyoto Protocol came into force on 16 February 2005. Against this background, the fourth Climate Talk posed questions regarding what climate politics and economic effects the Kyoto Protocol in its present form will have and which (further) steps for the path to a "Carbon Constrained Economy" (Tony Blair) are necessary. Presentations were given by Dr. Hermann Ott (Head of the Wuppertal Institute Berlin Office) and by Dr. Hans-Joachim Ziesing (Senior Executive of the German Institute for Economic Research).