On 26 March 2021 the Climate Recon 2050 Platform hosted an online debate with the European Commission and national government experts, discussing the impact of the climate neutrality target on EU climate policy and national planning processes.

The report summarizes the key findings from the project, evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of the advisory system, and makes concrete suggestions for improving specific advisory measures.

Based on a stocktake, we present options to improve international soil governance in the short, medium and long term. The stocktake includes existing international instruments and institutions that are relevant for soil protection and its governance at the international level. It assesses the actual and potential steering effect of, inter alia, the Desertification Convention, the Biodiversity Convention, the Paris Agreement and climate regime, regional treaties, FAO, UNEP, IPBES and IPCC.

What characterizes a monitoring system that effectively considers aspects of precautionary environmental protection? The aim of this project is to answer this question with regard to the new German bioeconomy strategy. The German government aims at a transformation process towards a sustainable and bio-based economy.

The EU has raised its climate target for 2030 to at least -55 %. Agora Energiewende and Ecologic Institute sketch a "Fit for 55" package that can ensure both environmental integrity and solidarity. It investigates four options how to regulate heating and transport emissions, focusing in particular on the pros and cons of expanding emissions trading to these sectors. The paper makes the case for a smart mix of EU-level carbon pricing and companion polices.

The International Carbon Action Partnership (ICAP) in cooperation with the Asia Society Policy Institute convened an online Seminar from 22 to 26 March 2021, focusing on Southeast Asian countries. The Seminar was implemented by the Ecologic Institute and ICF as part of the ongoing programme for Training and Capacity Building on Emissions Trading. 35 participants from six Southeast Asian countries attended the seminar, which introduced them to the basic concepts and key elements of emissions trading. Drawing on examples and experiences from existing systems, the Seminar explained the main design choices for setting up an ETS and convey solutions for their implementation.

How can the overexploitation of groundwater resources by irrigated agriculture be better managed? Dr. Josselin Rouillard together with colleagues from California, Spain and France, addresses this question in a new scientific article published in Water Resources Research. The research focused on how users and public authorities can work collaboratively and adopt collective rules to regulate access to, and use of, groundwater in agriculture.

As a part of the COACCH project, Ecologic Institute, University of Graz and Deltares organized a workshop with stakeholders and interested parties on the topic of "Addressing climate change in European supply chains".

Tenant electricity systems generate solar power on apartment buildings and deliver it directly to the households in the building. In a new study, Katharina Umpfenbach and Ricarda Faber (Ecologic Institute) evaluate the effects of the existing tenant electricity systems in Berlin. The bottom line: Berlin's 74 tenant electricity projects have positive ecological and socio-economic effects, but these remain low compared to the technically available potential. Currently, only 1 % of the tenant electricity potential is used. The study is available for download.

The objective of transformative research is to find out, together with actors from the corporate sector, politics and civil society, how our economic and social system can be made more sustainable, and to jointly test possible solutions. Transformative research is thus also transdisciplinary - it involves actors beyond academia as equal partners. This kind of research involves certain methodological challenges and questions; some of these were discussed at the tF Symposium 2021: From Experiment to Mainstream. Martin Hirschnitz-Garbers and Christiane Gerstetter, both Senior Fellows at the Ecologic Institute, contributed to the online symposium, which was held in German language.

The Urban Agenda for the EU recognizes the importance of nature-based solutions as tools for sustainable recovery and development. Yet implementation and mainstreaming at city level remain limited. Can the European Green Deal support these efforts? What role can European research projects play? To answer these questions, McKenna Davis was invited as an expert to contribute to the European Urban Knowledge Network’s (EUKN) Policy Lab on 'The Urban Agenda for the EU, its 'green' actions and the European Green Deal'. The 18 March 2021 event aimed to unravel the 'green' actions of the Urban Agenda for the EU and develop concrete messages for the ministers under Slovenia's Presidency on how to support cities dealing with regulatory obstacles when trying to reach environmental goals.

The final online conference of the FIThydro project brought together over 280 participants from across the globe to explore the latest research developments on the topic of sustainable and fish friendly hydropower showcasing the final project’s results in addition to presentations by experts from outside the project on related topics. The online conference was hosted by Ecologic Institute and the Technical University of Munich.

As of March 2021 the EU Commission has set up an expert group to advise on a legislative framework for sustainable food systems. Stephanie Wunder, coordinator food systems at the Ecologic Institute has been appointed as a member of the expert group.

The project "Dialogue Forum Private Households – Reducing Food Waste", led by Ecologic Institute, calls on institutions, initiatives and companies that are already working on approaches to reduce food waste and sustainable nutrition to cooperate. Interested parties are asked to contact the project team via a short online questionnaire by 12 April 2021.

The Network of European Blue Schools initiates the Find the Blue challenge and invites schools and teachers to bring the ocean into the classroom. By taking up the Find the Blue challenge, teachers and students will improve their understanding of the ocean, develop a sense of responsibility for our ocean (so-called Ocean Literacy) and become more active and responsible European and global citizens.