<p>The memorandum &amp;quot;Understand &amp;ndash; Evaluate &amp;ndash; Shape. Transdisciplinary knowledge for a sustainable society&amp;quot; has been presented by leading actors in the field of transdisciplinary sustainability research. They hope to ensure that social-ecological research can be deepened and expanded in the coming years &amp;ndash; regarding content, organization, and institutions. Ecologic Institute welcomes this memorandum and calls for others to sign it. The memorandum was submitted to the German Federal Minister of Research Annette Schavan for consideration, but the opportunity to sign it and show your support for social-ecological research still exists. The Director of Ecologic Institute, R. Andreas Kraemer, wrote the memorandum as part of an expert group.</p>&#13;

After three years, the evaluation team for the National Climate Protection Initiative (Nationale Klimaschutzinitiative, NKI) has drawn a positive balance across all government-funded areas: economy, consumers and communities. All analysed criteria (impact of climate protection, relevance, broad effect, and economic impact) were rated positively overall. In its October issue, the journal "Umwelt" published an article about the final conference of the NKI-project with the title: "A positive result".

As a contribution to the ongoing discussion on the reform of the international in-vestment regime, members of the Ecologic legal team submitted two briefs to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). UNCTAD is a UN organisation dealing with developing countries and their role in international trade and investment. Both briefs are available for download.

On 9 May 2011, the Bureau of National Affairs (BNA) reported on Germany's plans to further invest and expand upon smart grid technology and infrastructure. This requires smart demand management, or the roll-out of smart meters. Economist and Fellow at Ecologic Institute Berlin, Max Grünig was interviewed on the issue of smart grids and smart meters in Germany and comments on the problems of privacy smart metering brings about and the related social resistance to the rollout of smart meters.

The US National Commission on Energy Policy (NCEP) presented its bipartisan strategy to meet America’s energy challenges in December 2004. Entitled "Ending the Stalemate", it recommends inter alia a cap on greenhouse gas emissions and trading of allowances with an upper limit of $7 per ton. The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) and NCEP brought together experts from the US and the EU to discuss the NCEP strategy in Washington, DC, on 3 and 4 April 2005.