In this article, Ecologic Institute's Lena Donat and Ralph Bodle provide a structured approach for developing and evaluating options for a dynamic adjustment mechanism in the 2015 climate agreement. To ensure that the 2015 Agreement, that is currently being negotiated under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), provides an effective response to climate change over time, it needs to encorporate flexible and dynamic elements. This should include a possibility for Parties to regularly adjust their mitigation commitments so as to increase the level of ambition and to reflect changing circumstances.

This report, created as part of the CECILIA2050 project, gives an overview of climate policy approaches in Germany, Poland, the United Kingdom, as well as the European Union as a whole. After highlighting the different legal and institutional structures, it provides conclusions and recommendations regarding the regulatory approach.

This report reviews the methodology of the European Commission's competitiveness proofing guidelines. Especially, it assesses if this methodology provides sufficient information to evaluate the impact of policies on the competitiveness of the European economy. Another focus is set on the question if the information collected can support long-term structural change and innovation in the European Union.

A study of leading city and community-level energy transitions demonstrates behavioral changes across personal, social, and external dimensions. Giovanni Caiati (Laboratory of Citizenship Sciences) and Adam Pearson, Transatlantic Fellow at Ecologic Institute presented research that shows social and behavioral aspects contribute strongly to energy transition processes.

This report shows that much of the policy design "know-how" needed to achieve decoupling is present in terms of legislation, incentive systems, and institutional reform is also present. Many countries have tried these out with tangible results, encouraging others to study and where appropriate replicate and scale up such practices and successes.

Smart homes offer significant potential to enable new energy saving services and capabilities offered via smart grids. However, research reveals that consumer perception regarding reliability and data privacy risks, as well as high costs of technologies act as significant barriers to consumer acceptance of smart homes. In a paper, published in Energy Research and Social Science, Benjamin Boteler and co-authors investigated the differences and similarities in technical and economic drivers and barriers to smart home market development in the UK, Germany, and Italy. The paper European smart home market development: Public views on technical and economic aspects across the United Kingdom, Germany and Italy is available for download.

Between September and December 2014, the first group of students from the University Colorado Denver successfully participated in the newly established semester abroad program "Sustainability in Berlin." In addition to two courses on "Environmental Politics and Policy" taught by Prof. Christoph Stefes and a course on "The Global Ecological Crisis" taught by Stephanie Wunder from Ecologic Institute, the students experienced firsthand what sustainability means in practice. During field trips to Berlin, Dessau (Germany), and Copenhagen (Denmark) they learned about alternative concepts for transport, energy, food waste, diets, housing, and climate change adaptation.

An invited poster presentation to the 2014 BEHAVE Energy Conference. Caiati, Giovanni and Adam Pearson 2014: The Role of Behaviours in Energy Transition: The holistic approach of Human Energy. Poster: Laboratory of Citizenship Sciences, Ecologic Institute.

The aim of the study was to provide an initial scoping assessment of potential priorities and policy options to support the transition to a circular economy in the EU. The study reviewed existing literature, identified potential priority areas for action where accelerating the circular economy would be beneficial and where EU policy has a particular role to play, and developed policy options for consideration across a range of areas.

From late August to early September 2014, the 11th ICAP Summer School on Emissions Trading brought together experts from emerging economies and developing countries to learn about emissions trading as a tool for climate protection, and to discuss the options of implementing such systems in developing countries. 25 mid-career professionals from twelve countries attended the course, which was facilitated by Benjamin Görlach and Matthias Duwe.

The European Commission has tabled initial proposals for new targets and some changes to key instruments such as the Emissions Trading System (ETS) upon which the EU Heads of State and Government are to make decisions later in 2014. This study assesses the status quo of EU climate and energy policy and experience with the current set of targets and instruments – and distills from it concrete recommendations for a new package for the period until 2030. The study is available for download.

Under the title "Wellbeing and Equity within planetary boundaries" the biannual conference of the International Society of Ecological Economics (ISEE) took place in Reykjavik (Iceland) from 13 until 15 August 2014. Timo Kaphengst from Ecologic Institute presented a paper on "Green Infrastructure as a bridging concept between biodiversity protection and the green economy". In total, Ecologic Institute contributed three official inputs to the ISEE conference. The presentation slides are available for download.