Publications – Ecologic Institute EU

Despite numerous efforts to promote and implement more integrated approaches, coordination problems persist and impede sustainable water governance and management. This paper introduces a framework for guiding a transdisciplinary diagnostic approach (i.e. a context-sensitive assessment of multi-level water governance, which is combined with a change management process) to address such coordination problems. The approach aims at addressing some of the challenges identified in scientific scholarship and water governance practice by combining context-specific participatory assessments of individual cases with comparative case analysis guided by a generic conceptual framework. Read more

The German article "Seven at one blow! Regional Food Strategies as key to more sustainable Urban-Rural cooperations" deals with the role of regional food strategies as a promising approach for an integrated, sustainable development of urban and rural areas. The article, written by Stephanie Wunder, Coordinator Food Systems at the Ecologic Institute and Franziska Wolff, Head of Environmental Law & Governance at Öko-Institut summarizes the results of the UBA project "Rural Urban Nexus", led by Ecologic Institute. The text is part of "The Critical Agricultural Report". Since 1993 "Der kritische Agrarbericht" is an annually published flagship book, that critically reflects about agriculture in Germany in the context of the EU Common Agricultural Policy. The 2020 edition focused on the changing relationship between rural and urban areas. Read more

This research report of the Ecologic Institute addresses how Germany can contribute, through international governance, to reduce the environmental impacts of mining activities outside its territory. It provides a stocktake of existing governance approaches at the international level or with transboundary effect. It then develops specific policy options and recommendations for the German federal government to strengthen international governance for an environmentally sound supply of raw materials.Read more

Certain opinions, people or parties should not be made "socially acceptable". This is a problematic notion, writes Nils Meyer-Ohlendorf in the Süddeutsche Zeitung.Read more

Public opinion seems to have settled on the conviction that the climate crisis is Europe's latest political divide - after migration, the Euro and conflicts over the rule of law. But there is another story that needs to be told. Climate policies have always been contentious. They are bound to be. But contrary to the growing perception of climate policies as Europe's new political divide, climate is a policy field where Europe works together, writes Nils Meyer-Ohlendorf in the Tagesspiegel.Read more

This working paper identifies the main overarching trends affecting the food supply system, sets out the environmental and socio-economic implications of spatial decoupling of food production, consumption and disposal, and addresses the particular role of urbanisation in changing supply systems. The effects in industrialised and developing countries are considered in equal measure. Read more

The report "Integrated approaches for sustainable urban-rural development" published by the German Federal Environment Agency at the end of 2019 summarizes the results of the three-year research project "Rural Urban Nexus – Global Land Use and Urbanization" (RUN). The findings of the project, that was led by Ecologic Institute, show that there is already a wide range of strategic approaches, instruments and institutional forms for better collaboration between cities and their surrounding areas. Rather than establishing new instruments, administrations and policy makers should make greater use of existing possibilities – especially informal instruments of regional planning – and to integrate sustainable urban and peri-urban development into existing policies. In particular, the development of regional food strategies can be an important entry point and catalyst for achieving sustainable urban rural development.Read more