In recent years, the debate on trade and the environment seemed to lose some of its earlier controversy: after a string of highly polarizing cases before the WTO, the Appellate Body’s Article 21.5 Implementation Report in the Shrimp/Turtle case appeared to finally herald a period of reconciliation between free trade and environmental concerns. Upon closer analysis, however, this assessment proves to be misleading: as a matter of substantive law, the chasm between both issue areas is still substantial.

Best, Aaron, Stefan Giljum, Craig Simmons, Daniel Blobel, Kevin Lewis, Mark Hammer, Sandra Cavalieri, Stephan Lutter and Cathy Maguire. 2008. Potential of the Ecological Footprint for monitoring environmental impacts from natural resource use: Analysis of the potential of the Ecological Footprint and related assessment tools for use in the EU's Thematic Strategy on the Sustainable Use of Natural Resources. Report to the European Commission, DG Environment.

Braat. L et al. 2008: The Cost of Policy Inaction (COPI): The case of not meeting the 2010 biodiversity target. Alterra Wageningen University and Research; Institute for European Environmental Policy (IIEP); Ecologic; Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM); GHK; Milieu en Natuurplanbureau; United Nations Environmental Programme - World Conservation Monitoring Centre; Witteveen en Bos, Wageningen / Brussels, commissioned. ISBN: ENV.G.1/ETU/2007/0044.

Transboundary river basin management, in itself a complex subject due to the variety of countries and stakeholders involved, is facing increasing challenges due to new social, economic and climate-change drivers. In this article, Tom Raadgever, Erik Mostert, Nicole Kranz, Eduard Interwies, and Jos Timmerman analyse the regime features that contribute to adaptive management of these basins.

Industrial production processes account for a considerable share of the overall pollution in Europe. To minimize harmful effects on the environment and push for environmentally sound technology, the EU’s Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control policy (IPPC) requires polluting operators to obtain environmental permits for running their industrial installations. By doing so, the policy aims at providing incentives for clean technologies and eventually excluding irresponsible polluters. Willing to complement the EU’s efforts to implement IPPC standards within the Union, the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) promotes cooperation between the EU and its Eastern and Southern neighbours. To support the effort, the European Commission has issued a guide to pollution prevention and control for its European neighbours and Russia.

Sascha Müller-Kraenner's book questions the security of the energy policies from global powers such as the United States, Russia, and China. It offers a geopolitical perspective on the importance of environmentally safe energy resources.

In "Environmental and Material Flow Costs Accounting", Christine M. Jasch, Ecologic Partner and Director of the Institute for Environmental Management and Economics (IÖW) in Vienna, explains and updates the approach developed for the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DSD/UNDESA) and the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC). The book also includes several case studies and recent developments regarding Environmental and Material Flow Cost Accounting (EMA and MFCA) in national statistics and ISO standardization.

This discussion paper outlines different options to design a standard-setting scheme that addresses these problems.

In a discussion paper for the recently launched Forum for Atlantic Climate and Energy Talks (FACET), Camilla Bausch and Michael Mehling look back on the recent negotiations at the U.N. climate conference in Bali, Indonesia, and analyse the implications of the "Bali Roadmap" for the future of the international climate regime.

Based on the first three years of experience with the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS), the European Commission has put forward its proposals for a review of the scheme on 23 January 2008. This article by Benjamin Görlach, Olaf Hölzer-Schopohl, and Hauke Hermann, a Fellow with Ecologic, summarises some of the main changes proposed by the Commission in response to identified deficits, and outlines some of the most contentious points expected to feature prominently in further debate.

More than any previous year, 2007 saw momentum build for concerted international action on climate change. With a lively public debate and several high-profile events, global warming enjoyed unprecedented media attention and also a prominent place on the political agenda as the year came to an end. In this article, Camilla Bausch, Head of Energy and Climate at Ecologic, and Michael Mehling, Head of the Ecologic office in Washington, D.C., review central developments in the area of international climate policy in the last quarter of 2007.

The aim of this paper, prepared by the Arctic Centre in September 2008 as part of the Arctic TRANSFORM project, is to present the situation of the Arctic indigenous peoples in relation to the changing marine environment. The Arctic region is home to several groups of indigenous peoples (including Inupiat, Yup’ik and Aleut in Alaska, Inuit in Greenland and Canada, Saami in Fennoscandia and Russia and, Yup’ik, Chukchi, Even, Evenk and Nenets in Russia). Out of the total population of 4 million people in the Arctic, 10 % are indigenous. Climate change significantly impacts the traditional harvesting and other activities of indigenous peoples.

Against the background of an increased number of flood events and the dependency of their impacts on how the surrounding land is used, it has become evident that technical solutions have only a limited effect.  New approaches to flood management, including the restoration of rivers’ natural flood zones, have become indispensable.  In this book section, Thomas Dworak, Head of Ecologic Vienna, analyses current EU policies and how they can be used for the restoration of floodplain areas.  He presents a detailed and systematic assessment of the opportunities and challenges arising from water and non-water related EU policies.

The Environmental Performance Index (EPI) identifies targets for several core environmental policy categories and measures how close countries come to meet them. Ecologic compiled and analysed the data sources of the EPI for Germany, and assessed the methodologies of the Index. Based on this assessment, both the scientific and political relevance of the index for German environmental policy performance were determined. The report was published by the German Federal Environment Agency in UBA-Texte 09/08.