This brochure is a 'light' version of Eurostat's publication 'Sustainable development in the European Union – 2019 monitoring report on progress towards the SDGs in an EU context', conveying its main messages in a visual and concise way. The brochure provides an updated snapshot of the current situation concerning 100 indicators related to the 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs). It thus provides a snapshot of the key trends related to sustainable development in the European Union. Ecologic Institute's authors covered the chapters on SDG 2 (Zero Hunger), SDG 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation), SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy), SDG 13 (Climate Action), SDG 14 (Life Below Water), SDG 15 (Life on Land) SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals). The publication is available for download.

The circumstances under which different ecosystem service benefits can be realized differ. The benefits tend to be coproduced and to be enabled by multiple interacting social, ecological, and technological factors, which is particularly evident in cities. As many cities are undergoing rapid change, these factors need to be better understood and accounted for, especially for those most in need of benefits. We propose a framework of three systemic filters that affect the flow of ecosystem service benefits: the interactions among green, blue, and built infrastructures; the regulatory power and governance of institutions; and people's individual and shared perceptions and values. We argue that more fully connecting green and blue infrastructure to its urban systems context and highlighting dynamic interactions among the three filters are key to understanding how and why ecosystem services have variable distribution, continuing inequities in who benefits, and the long-term resilience of the flows of benefits.

This EFEX webinar explored the success of stakeholder participation in the National Energy and Climate Plans (NECP) preparation process as well as its scope, best practice examples and value added for EU climate policy. A panel of expert speakers – Elisa Martellucci and Agnese Ruggiero of Carbon Market Watch and David Donnerer of Energy Cities – drew on their experiences with the PlanUp project to discuss the EU perspective as well as the dialogues it organized between stakeholders and ministry officials. The online panel was moderated by Matthias Duwe, Head Climate at Ecologic Institute.

Environmental journalism has always been a cross-cutting topic. There are journalists in many countries who specialise in environmental topics. However, environmental topics mostly do not have their own department at media outlets. Hence, publishing such media pieces often highly depends on current political processes and above all on current, public discussions. Ecologic Institute's Marius Hasenheit discussed the role of media, especially social media, in communicating environmental issues in Egypt, at the 61st Cairo Climate Talks.

The RECIPES website (REconciling sCience, Innovation and Precaution through the Engagement of Stakeholders) provides an overview of the project objectives, structure and partners as well as events and news related to relevant project results. Reports, policy briefs, factsheets, recommendations and newly developed tools for policy makers will be regularly promoted on the website. Ecologic Institute is responsible for the concept, design, programming and update of the website. User can directly subscribe for the mailing list.

In a study for DG FISMA, Ecologic Institute and its partners supported the Technical Expert Group on Sustainable Finance in the development of screening criteria for agriculture activities. The criteria are presented in the Technical Report on EU Sustainable Finance Taxonomy. The report is available for download and the call for feedback is open until 13 September 2019. Following this consultation, the TEG will issue recommendations to support the development of future legislation on EU Sustainable Finance Taxonomy.

The aim of this EUSEW 2019 session was to launch the EEA report 'Adaptation challenges and opportunities for the European energy system: Ensuring a climate-resilient clean energy transition' and to discuss its key findings with relevant stakeholders. The report was presented by Eva Jensen (Head of Programme, Climate Change, Energy and Transport, EEA). Her presentation followed reflections from senior stakeholders from the European Commission (DG CLIMA and DG ENERGY), the International Energy Agency and a sector organisation (ENTSO-E), and a discussion with the audience. Matthias Duwe (Head, Climate, Ecologic Institute) moderated the session.

This report arises from the European Commission's Environmental Implementation Review process, a biennial assessment of Member State performance on implementation of EU environmental law and policy. It addresses an issue identified in the 2017 review as a root cause of implementation weaknesses; poor environmental governance. The authors from IEEP, Ecologic Institute and the Central European University outline the development of, and the rationale for, a standard assessment template, the Environmental Governance Assessment (EGA).

The EU adopts essential climate issues – such as carbon taxation – by special legislative procedures. This means that the European Parliament is not an equal co-legislator and the Council decides by unanimous vote, providing each Member State with a veto. This is a problem because the urgency of climate action requires swift and bold EU action. EU climate action cannot afford a governance structure that allows one Member State to hold all others hostage in essential areas of climate action. A new Ecologic paper explores how to address this problem.

The Baltic Sea Action Plan and the EU Water Framework Directive both require substantial additional reductions of nutrient loads (N and P) to the marine environment. Focusing on nitrogen, we present a widely applicable concept for spatially differentiated regulation, exploiting the large spatial variations in the natural removal of nitrate in groundwater and surface water. By targeting mitigation measures towards areas where nature’s own capacity for removal is low, spatially differentiated regulation can be more cost-effective than the traditional uniform regulation. We present a methodology for upscaling local modelling results on targeted measures at field scale to Baltic Sea drainage basin scale. The paper assesses the potential gain and discusses key challenges related to implementation of spatially differentiated regulation, including the need for more scientific knowledge, handling of uncertainties, practical constraints related to agricultural practice and introduction of co-governance regimes.

This study, commissioned by Greenpeace, analyses a range of existing measures that have a direct impact on the increased uptake of electric passenger cars with respect to 1) the measures’ overall effectiveness in incentivising electric vehicles (EV purchases); 2) the ease of administering them; 3) affordability for governments; and 4) the consistency with other goals, mainly with the goal of reducing traffic. The study is available for download.

The objective of this project is to provide clarity on the legal nature of the allowances of the EU Emission Trading System (EU ETS) excluding the international carbon units (e.g. assigned amount units (AAUs), certified emission reductions (CERs), emission reduction units (ERUs)) pursuant to the Kyoto Protocol to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

In June 2019, the joint statement of the Expert Commission on the second progress report of the German government was published. Ecologic Institute provides scientific support to the work of the Expert Commission with a focus on the key topics that the Expert Commission selected for their joint statement.

On 4 June 2019 was a workshop at the Federal Ministery for Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) to discuss a proposal for a new guidance standard (ISO 14002-2) for managing water with ISO 14001. The workshop served as a platform for information and discussion on the planned standard, bringing together interested experts from water management, water stewardship and environmental management, in and outside of the ISO community. The aim of the workshop was to refine the draft of the proposal for a new guidance standard concerning the scope, structure, conceptual approach and outline of ISO 14002-2. The results of the workshop will be used to update the draft of the proposal before it will be submitted to ISO for an international approval process.

This infographic compares the environmental effects of meat and soy products. It visualises that, with the same protein content, considerably more land, water and fossil energy is used for the production of meat than for the production of soy-based vegetable products. The infographic is licensed under a Creative Commons license CC BY-ND 4.0, i. e. it can be used without any changes, if the author is mentioned.