Ecologic Institute is proud to be launching its 2012 Arctic Summer College, a virtual course and network aiming to strengthen Arctic communication and build a lasting, policy-oriented network of Arctic professionals. Policy briefs and videos of speaker presentations will be made publicly available on the Arctic Summer College website following each weekly seminar.

In times of financial crises and pressure to justify public spending, evaluation of projects, programs, and policies increases. Sustainability, which has become a socially and politically widely accepted concept throughout Europe, therefore ought to be included to a greater extent within evaluation practices to assess social and ecological impacts. Anneke von Raggamby of Ecologic Institute is one of the editors of this book.

This new handbook was developed as part of the project RADOST (Regional Adaptation Strategies for the German Baltic Sea Coast). It provides a concise overview of adaptation policies being planned and implemented at the national, regional, and European level, including the status of National Adaptation Strategies for all Baltic Sea EU Member States.

Industrialized countries have committed themselves to providing USD 100 billion of "new and additional" financing annually by the year 2020 to support developing countries in their efforts to mitigate climate change and adapt to its effects. But what does "new and additional" mean? Where do development projects end and where do climate change measures start? These questions are tackled by Irene Knoke (Südwind Institute) in a study for the European Parliament. Matthias Duwe (Ecologic Institute) provided his expert opinion in a peer review of the paper. The study is available for download.

This video is one out of four that were developed and produced within the project EU sustainable development indicators: video production, co-ordinated by the Ecologic Institute.

REFORM's communication objective was to increase awareness and appreciation for the need, potential and benefits of river restoration through active involvement of and dissemination of project outputs to policy-makers, practitioners and stakeholders.

EU progress towards sustainable development goes side by side with fostering green growth. Here resource productivity has an important role to play. Yet its measurement could have some interpretation pitfalls and it is important to be aware of them.

EU statistics depict poverty in a particular way, which goes beyond the income issues. At risk-of-poverty-or-social-exclusion indicator is an ample example of it. To understand why, one should know what is the rationale behind it and how important it is, that in the EU poverty and social exclusion go hand in hand.

The EU target to raise the share of biofuels in transport to 10 % by 2020 remains one of the most controversial environmental policy decisions in recent years. In this book chapter written by Timo Kaphengst and Katharina Umpfenbach of Ecologic Institute together with Bernd Hirschl and Anna Neumann, the authors examine the role of scientific evidence and impact assessments in the policy process leading up to the adoption of the Renewable Energy Directive.

In the early 2000s, biofuels were seen as a panacea for several environmental and economic challenges. In more recent years, however, their promotion has faded substantially. With the ongoing expansion of biofuel production worldwide, serious doubts have been raised about their sustainability and potential to reach environmental targets. This Ecologic Brief provides an assessment of the extent to which social aspects of biofuel production are addressed in current EU policies. It also explores possible ways of enhancing, reshaping, or extending existing policies in order to ensure the sustainable production of biofuels. The Ecologic Brief is available for download.

Statistical measurement of income poverty as a relative concept is very specific to the EU. Yet besides this classical case there are various factors that make us think further about the relative nature of poverty. Some of the examples refer to statistics on how national income is distributed throughout the society, how living expenses differ across the countries as well as rural and urban areas, and how differently Europeans feel about poverty in their cities.

The report aims to provide those working to improve senior health in San Mateo County with a wide variety of information on current and projected senior health. To achieve this, it relies on many sources of information, chief among them the San Mateo County Health System, specifically the Aging and Adult Services Division and the Health Policy and Planning Division. Their work is supplemented with statistics from the US Census Bureau, especially the American Community Survey, as well as a broad range of academic and policy studies, geospatial statistics and visualizations.

This video deals with the British family "Electron" who use Smart Home technologies for environmental protection reasons. The video illustrates the advantages of Smart Homes including among other features a detailed control over power consumption.

This video displays the experiences of British Jane. She moves into a flat with integrated Smart Home technology, which does not fit her lifestyle. The video illustrates potential challenges of Smart Homes.

Sustainability aspects are often insufficiently considered, if at all, within standards for evaluations or impact assessments. This book chapter points out the challenges raised by sustainability evaluations and the aspects which should be added to existing evaluation standards.