Herbke, Nadine; Thomas Dworak and Zbigniew M. Karaczun 2005: Deliverable 2.2 - WFD and Agriculture - Analysis of the pressures and impacts. Broaden the problem's scope. Ecologic/Warsaw Agricultural University, Berlin/Warsaw.

Brink, Patrick ten; Andrew Farmer; David Wilkinson et. al. 2005: Exploration of Options for the Implementation of the Open Method of Coordination (OMC) for Environmental Policy.

U.S. and European views on a number of environmental issues, such as climate change or genetically modified organisms, are frequently viewed as irreconcilable. Interestingly, there seems to be more mutual understanding and agreement on the sub-national level. In recent years, a number of transatlantic partnerships between regional and local institutions have evolved in order to exchange information and best practices in the environmental policy area. Senior Fellow Markus Knigge presented his research on the role, functioning and the effectiveness of transatlantic environmental partnerships at an AICGS workshop on 19 October 2005 in Washington, D.C.

The G8 climate change outcomes, recent action in the U.S. Senate and developments on the subnational levels within the U.S. constitute a potential crossroad for transatlantic climate change policy. In light of these developments, Senior Fellow Markus Knigge participated in an expert policy maker seminar on subnational strategies for clean energy investment, technology deployment and innovation.

2005: Literature Review on Ex-post Assessment of Costs to Business of Environmental Policies and Legislation. Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM)/Ecologic Institute, Amsterdam/Berlin.

During an international capacity-building workshop for participants from Central and Eastern Europe which was convened from 29 September to 1 October 2005, Nicole Kranz discussed the application of a valuation of ecosystem services for the implementation of the requirements of the EU Water Framework Directive (WFD).

Ecologic Institute 2005: On the Road to Sustainable Production in the Enlarged EU Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) – Conference Proceedings, Berlin.

The event will be directed towards stakeholders in new and old Member States and will focus on the implementation of Directive 96/61/EC on integrated pollution prevention and control (IPPC). It will provide a forum for an exchange of experiences and views on the implementation of the Directive, the use of the reference documents on best available techniques (BREFs) and the future development of the Directive.

Recent reports on Europe's biological resources prove that the loss of biodiversity has not yet been halted despite efforts in this field. One reason for this is that the instruments used to address conservation issues do not always serve their purpose. The presentation given by Rainer Müssner at the International Association of Landscape Ecologists meeting in Northampton (IALE-UK) therefore dealt with procedural aspects of how to improve landscape planning (LP) and the codes of good farming practice (GFP).

After the catastrophic impact of Hurricane Katrina on the Gulf Coast of the United States and the City of New Orleans, a number of questions should be asked. Some of them have an important environmental policy dimension that might well reach beyond the immediate impact of the actual natural catastrophe and should cause a rethinking of established policies. Sascha Müller-Kraenner discusses the link between climate change and extreme weather events, rising oil prices, the role of government and whether New Orleans should be rebuilt.

In recent years, the Open Method of Co-ordination (OMC) has emerged as an increasingly important instrument of EU governance. Rather than relying on legally binding rules, the OMC works through the diffusion and evaluation of information. On 2 September 2005 Ingmar von Homeyer, Senior Fellow at Ecologic, gave a presentation on the application of the OMC in EU environmental policy at a workshop organised by the German Federal Office for Building and Spatial Planning (BBR) in Bonn.

The rise in the number of environmental institutions at the international level can be seen as a source of inconsistency within the implementation, enforcement, and rule-making processes of the environmental governance system. In this discussion paper, Ecologic Institute provides background information and several detailed maps to illustrate the spatial dispersion of the various institutions. The publication is available for download.

At the 45th Congress of the European Regional Science Association (ERSA), Benjamin Görlach and Eduard Interwies presented some research results on the valuation of environmental and resource costs in Germany. The lecture took place as part of a special session on water and economics in the frame of the 45th ERSA Congress, held at the Free University of Amsterdam. The special session was organised with support by the Dutch RIZA, and was chaired by Eduard Interwies.

The worldwide emergence of public policy research organizations has occurred only recently. Compared to the US, the concept of "think tanks" is relatively new in Germany, and there are only a very limited number of institutions active in policy research and policy consulting. On 12 August 2005 Markus Knigge, Fellow at Ecologic, gave a presentation at the Bucerius Summer School on how Ecologic – one of the few German think tanks – contributes to environmental policy making on the German, European and international level.