The results of the research focus "Plastics in the Environment" will be presented in a webinar series. The participation in the webinars is free of charge; registration in advance is required.
What might social-ecological data governance look like that preserves individual rights and freedoms, ensures participation, and contributes to sustainable urban development? Is the data generated by daily mobility behaviour private or public in nature? What does this mean for data sharing or for targeted and sustainable use of the data? What roles can so-called intermediaries like a data trustee play? In the eleventh edition of Wandelwecker, our morning feature for a social and ecological metropolis, we discussed these questions with two renowned experts.
The two-day workshop, funded under the BMUV's Environmental Research Plan, will take place on 30 and 31 May 2022 at the Federal Environment Agency in Dessau (Germany) and will be dedicated to the topic of "Technical-Hydraulic Assessment of Fish Protection and Downstream Migration at Hydropower Plants".
From 16 to 26 May 2022, the International Carbon Action Partnership (ICAP) will convene a two-week ETS training course to provide basic training on emissions trading in Asian countries. Over two weeks consisting of eight course days, participants will learn the basic concepts and key elements of emissions trading through a mix of presentations from expert speakers and policy practitioners as well as interactive activities. Each session will draw on examples and experiences from existing ETS to explain the main design choices for setting up new ETS and to convey solutions for their implementation.
On 11 May 2022, the RECIPES project has held its dissemination conference "Precaution for Responsible Innovation: New Options to Move Forward". At the conference, the RECIPES project presented and discussed some ideas on how to improve the use of the precautionary principle that were developed in consultation with several stakeholders at various points during the project period (the RECIPES guidance). The conference brought together around 90 participants from a range of different actor groups, including several of those who had participated in one or more of the RECIPES workshops. The conference was carried out in hybrid format, so the participants joined it on-site or online.
At the theme day on plastics in the environment on 6 May, children, young people and adults could inform themselves at more than 20 interactive exhibition stands and talk to researchers from all over Germany. In addition to a photo exhibition, a science and poetry slam, improvisation theatre and discussion rounds, participants had the opportunity to get involved in exciting hands-on activities. For example, water samples will be taken directly from the Spree to test for microplastic contamination.
Berlin can look back on an eventful history of the New Social Movements. Numerous Berlin pioneering organizations from that time are still active: Kraut & Rüben, the Schokofabrik, Oktoberdruck, the Regenbogenfabrik and many more. At the same time, many new alternative-economy enterprises are currently emerging in Berlin - the city that is considered a melting pot of alternative economy. But what is new about today's ideas compared to the motives of over 40 years ago? What can those active today learn from the successes and failures of that time? What experiences can, and should they build on? And: What role do changed framework conditions play? What has become possible or impossible today compared to the past?
On the 4 April 2022 another online workshop on the socio-ecological transformation of the food system in Germany took place as part of the STErn project led by Ecologic Institute. The aim of the event was to discuss with 35 experts main behavioral drivers that are relevant for increasing diets that are more plant-based and declining the consumption of animal products. On this basis, policy options in Germany were evaluated and discussed.
At a lunch talk on Thursday, 24 March 2022, 2:00-3:00 p.m. (CET), one of the authors of the symposium, Sam Bookman from Harvard Law School, will speak about his latest research topic "What happens when you win? The constitutional dimensions of rights-based climate litigation". With him, we will draw the line to and discuss the first insights of the symposium.
The German government has set itself major goals for the expansion of solar energy. One important force in this is citizen energy. Does the draft amendment to the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) meet the high expectations for an acceleration in tenant electricity, community self-consumption and renewable energy communities?
The purpose of this webinar series is to discuss the challenges that power grid operators and electricity producers face in Germany and the United States with a changing climate and policy and investment measures for adaptation and resilience. The goal is to share knowledge and best practices, foster transatlantic dialogue and connections, and to think critically about how best to safeguard critical energy infrastructures.
Day 2 (Monday, 13 December 2021) will shift the perspective to policy and discuss the role of policymakers and policy solutions to facilitate adaptation in the electricity sector.
The purpose of this webinar series is to discuss the challenges that power grid operators and electricity producers face in Germany and the United States with a changing climate and policy and investment measures for adaptation and resilience. The goal is to share knowledge and best practices, foster transatlantic dialogue and connections, and to think critically about how best to safeguard critical energy infrastructures.
Day 1 (Thursday, 9 December 2021) will focus on the risks that climate change poses to the electricity sector and best practices for adaptation and resilience.
The economies and populations that are the main contributors to the climate crisis are least affected by the consequences. People in the Global South are already exposed to drought, forest fires, flooding and water shortages. According to the UN, there were some 270 million migrants worldwide in 2020. Recent forecasts predict that the climate crisis will force up to 1.2 billion people to leave their home countries by 2050. On 1 December 2021; the issue of "Migration and Climate Crisis: Challenges and Perspectives" was discussed. The discussion based on inputs by Writer Parag Khanna and human rights and environmental activist Kumi Naidoo from South Africa. The full recording of the event is available online.
Berlin has set ambitious standards for the prevention of CO2 emissions with significantly stricter targets in the new Climate Protection Act (EWG Bln). What are the targets and opportunities, and what are still the major challenges and barriers? In order to become climate-neutral, it is imperative that the building sector be given greater consideration. The Climate Protection Act and the Berlin Energy and Climate Protection Program (BEK) 2030 emphasize the exemplary role of the public sector in this area. This means that public buildings such as school buildings are a key factor. In the districts' renovation roadmaps, schools sometimes account for more than 80 percent of the buildings that need to be renovated for energy efficiency in the next few years.
As part of the STErn project led by Ecologic Institute, an online-workshop on the socio-ecological transformation of the food system in Germany with a focus on the protein transition took place on 30 November 2021 together with 35 experts in that field. The aim of the event was to discuss possible indicators that can help to politically anchor and monitor the necessary change in dietary patterns towards more plant-based and less animal-based proteins.
In the coming years, the course must be set for the necessary transformation toward a society and economy that is in keeping with the needs for future generations. Science, and sustainability research in particular, has a responsibility to support this change with its resources. But what must science resemble in order to find practicable answers to the most urgent questions of the future? And what demands does this place on the research policy agenda?
This event is part of the "Knowledge for Change" series of events celebrating Ecornet's 10th anniversary.
Ten years ago, leading independent institutes of environmental and sustainability research in Germany joined forces to form the Ecological Research Network (Ecornet) in order to bring their combined knowledge to bear on the scientific landscape and society. With their practice-oriented, transdisciplinary research, the Ecornet institutes have been accompanying - and actively shaping - socio-ecological change for decades.
With the Fit for 55 package, the European Commission made far-reaching proposals in July 2021 to align the architecture of European climate policy with the goal of climate neutrality. These proposals include the strengthening of the existing emissions trading scheme, the introduction of new emissions trading for transport and buildings, a border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) to protect against carbon leakage and the tightening of regulatory instruments for transport and buildings. However, the proposals raise a number of questions – from distributional effects and acceptance to the consistency of the instruments. In the course of this two-day hybrid event, researchers from the Ariadne consortium discussed these issues with stakeholders and decision-makers at the European level.
On the 25 November 2021, more than 70 actors dealing with food waste reduction in Germany met for an exchange on how to plan and implement measures that create an impact. The event was part of the so-called "Dialogue Forum Private Households" that is part of the German Strategy for Food Waste Reduction.
This virtual conference shared ideas for advancing additional multilateral action in support of the goals of the Paris Agreement and discuss them with international experts.
The economies and populations that are the main contributors to the climate crisis are least affected by the consequences. With the European Green Deal, the EU claims for itself a pioneering role in climate protection, but does it have solutions ready that do justice to the structural inequality and unfair distribution of social, economic and political opportunities between the communities that populate the earth? In the online event on 24 November 2021 the discussion drew on Concepts for Climate Justice, featuring Maria Fernanda Espinosa, Ecuadorian diplomat, politician, academic and former president of the 73rd UN-General Assembly. We are looking forward to your registration. The full recording of the event is available online.
Climate change with the resulting global warming is the largest and most all-encompassing global crisis of our time. As an ecological crisis, it stands for the misuse of fossil fuels and the exploitation of natural life-support systems, which includes the destruction of biodiversity and also irreversible damaging impact on the geological sphere. Furthermore, climate change is a geopolitical problem. It is already stoking sociopolitical instability, creating migratory pressure, exacerbating global inequality, endangering human rights and putting peace in the world at risk.
The more stringent climate targets of the state of Berlin require that both the heat supply is converted to renewable energies in the next few years and that the building envelopes are ambitiously renovated to make them more energy efficient. This poses great challenges for the state and districts as well as the real estate industry. At the same time, due to the tense situation on the Berlin housing market, there is a need for regulations to protect tenants, which is why the number of milieu protection areas in Berlin's districts has risen sharply. In these areas, which already contain a relevant proportion of old buildings which are in need of refurbishment, there are additional obstacles to climate protection measures that are in line with the objectives.
Europa its on its way towards a circular economy and has set itself an extremely ambitious plan to this end in the form of the Circular Economy Action Plan; among other things, non-recyclable residual waste is to be halved by 2030. But how is it being put into practice? And what does it take to gain more speed here – for example in the textile sector, which is virtually exemplary for the linear thinking of a throwaway culture.
Infrastructure development in Germany must be increasingly geared towards increased climate targets and the need for decarbonization. At the same time, public participation is still needed to involve the population in the upcoming change processes and to ensure democratic achievements. Thus, leveraging efficiency potentials in planning processes is considered key to manage infrastructure development in a more targeted manner in the years to come. What are the possibilities, limits and sensible approaches to accelerating planning?
Join us on 6 November 2021 at 17:45 CET for this online COP26 Side Event that explores the role of long-term climate strategies in sustainability governance, raising short-term ambition on climate action, ecosystem stewardship and adaptation. The event will be live streamed on YouTube.
Nature-based solutions (NbS) are crucial for cities to jointly address the climate and biodiversity crises, while creating quality green jobs and wellbeing for local communities. This COP26 EU Side Event featured different sector practitioners (policy makers, entrepreneurs, international organizations) delivering inspiring presentations and engaging in a panel discussion highlighting a variety of perspectives on key challenges, opportunities, and pathways to mainstream urban NbS and boost local economies.
In the Ecornet Berlin research partnership, five Berlin institutes of transdisciplinary sustainability research are jointly providing impetus for Berlin's transformation. Their annual conference "Knowledge. Change. Berlin. 2021" brought current research findings into dialogue with experiences from other cities and the voices of Berlin's practitioners and civil society – for a social and ecological capital.
In this COP26 side event, we discussed priorities for the further development of long-term strategies, lessons from strategy formulation and implementation processes in the EU and ASEAN, and prospects for international cooperation. We draw on recent analyses by the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU), the German Development Institute (DIE / GDI), the EU, including the EU-funded Enhanced Regional EU-ASEAN Dialogue Instrument (E-READI) study on the development of LTS in ASEAN and the Climate Recon 2050 platform (CR2050) experiences.
Germany wants to become climate-neutral by 2045, the EU by 2050. Both targets became legally binding in 2021, an important breakthrough on the way to structural transformation to a climate-friendly economy. What further breakthroughs are needed to anchor this transformation in society and enable its implementation? How can the responsibility of individuals as well as economic actors for climate protection be realized?
In Berlin, a variety of initiatives show how the economy can be different: with more solidarity, more democracy, more ecological and better for all. We discuss why this is not easy, but can be promising. In the sixth edition of Wandelwecker, our morning impulse for a social and ecological metropolis, we discussed these questions with two experts.
The expert dialogue aims at informing and discussing the implementation of Re-Use and recycling measures for insulation materials. The Berlin Senate Department for the Environment, Transport and Climate Protection, the "Verband für Dämmsysteme, Putz und Mörtel" (Association for Insulation Systems, Plaster and Mortar) and the "Gesamtverband Deutscher Holzhandel" (German Timber Trade Association) invite you to attend – alongside around 250 expected participants – the Webinar, taking place on 6 October 2021. Ecologic Institute supports organising and implementing the event logistically and technically.
The digital, or perhaps in this case "intelligent" technologies that are to shape all areas of society in the future, especially our cities, need regulation. After all, these kinds of technologies inform, decide and control — but in whose interest and with which objectives in mind? Recently, there has been increasing thought and debate about the possibilities of democratic data governance "from below". Citizens should (also) be able to decide what intelligent, data-driven machines are used for by consciously sharing their data. Can such approaches be a model for the sustainable digitalization of cities and municipalities and provide a counterweight to the data monopolies of large corporations? What could democratic data governance in Berlin look like?
On September 2021 at the online Future Forum, the research network Ecornet Berlin discuss the future of cities and their relationship to the surrounding areas with an expert panel
As a part of its co-design process, the COACCH project organized a series of interactive stakeholder workshops to discuss research objectives, activities, and outputs. The first three co-design workshops between 2018 and 2020 produced key insights to guide the COACCH project. In this fourth and final workshop, held on 9 and 10 September 2021, the project team presented their concluding research findings and together reviewed the final outputs to be produced. More than 40 participants from eight European countries joined the workshop.
The Berlin Energy and Climate Protection Program 2030 gives solar energy a central role, as it is the most important renewable energy source that can be developed locally. The state government wants to cover 25 percent of Berlin's electricity supply from solar energy as quickly as possible. In the densely populated city, this also requires the roofs of apartment buildings to be used. In the discussion format Wandelwecker on 8 September 2021, Fabian Zuber from the Reiner Lemoine Foundation and Ecologic Institute's Katharina Umpfenbach discussed options transforming the regulation of tenant electricity and local solar power supply. The event was moderated by Valentin Tappeser from IÖW. It became clear that solar expansion can only be achieved at the required speed with a fundamentally new regulatory approach centered around joint self-supply that intelligently links on-site power generation via solar systems with charging of electric vehicles and heat generation.
In EU policy, the textile value chain is currently in the focus of efforts to build a circular economy. Textile recycling in the EU is still in its infancy, although promising innovative technologies are about to enter the market. How can policy support the industrial uptake of textile recycling? This was topic of a webinar held on 31 August 2021. Members of Ecologic Institute's Circular Economy Team presented policy recommendations to the European Commission to enhance systems for the collection, sorting and recycling of textile waste - and to create a market for recycled textiles.
How circular economy approaches in the construction sector can be strengthened is discussed in this episode of Wandelwecker together with two proven experts in circular construction.
From 16 August to 10 September 2021, the International Carbon Action Partnership (ICAP) convened the first ICAP Online ETS Academy. The Academy consisted of four modules (ETS basics, ETS implementation, policy & politics of emissions trading, global & regional action on emissions trading) of one week each. These modules were designed as self-contained learning units, focusing on different aspects of ETS design and implementation, and progressing from basic to intermediate to advanced. Applicants could apply for one, two or three modules. 40-45 carefully selected professionals from the public, nongovernmental, academic and private sectors participated in each module. Participants came from 35 different countries from Latin America, Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe. The course offered participants an opportunity to deepen their understanding of ETS design and implementation and provided illustration through hands-on examples, practical experience and case studies.
Re-using goods and products offers numerous economic, ecological and social potentials. An exciting case example for the reuse of building components and furnishings was presented on 15 July 2021 at the online expert dialogue "Re-use of building components and furnishings in the construction project of the church community of Staaken".
On 7 July 2021, Ecologic Institute organized an online event to discuss insights on Sustainable Adaptation Pathways gained in the project "Joint implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the Paris Agreement". The panel discussion was moderated by Camilla Bausch, Director of Ecologic Institute and took place as a virtual event parallel to the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development 2021 of the United Nations.
Across Europe, national climate advisory bodies exist in many shapes and forms. Most countries have one or more such institutions. While many of the existing advisory bodies bring together a range of stakeholders and cover a broad range of sustainability issues, over the past five years there has been a surge in the creation of independent scientific councils, dedicated to climate policy.
How well is the EU doing in its pursuit of climate neutrality by 2050? Are national long-term strategies and national energy and climate plans up to the task? Are the recovery efforts in line with this goal? Across EU policy, a range of processes are in the process of developing methods to assess progress towards climate neutrality – but there is no integrated set of "net zero indicators" being developed to do the job. And simple greenhouse gas emission data is not enough to judge whether the necessary transition is happening "under the hood" of Europe's economic sectors.
The Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world. Lead by German research institutions, international researchers from 20 countries are now engaged in the largest Arctic exploration of all times: the MOSAiC Expedition. Research approaches, findings and the impact of the Federal Arctic Guidelines were presented and discussed in a packed high-level evening event at the Bremen State House in Berlin. Dr. Camilla Bausch of Ecologic Institute moderated the event.
Whether and how to pursue “geo-engineering” as part of climate policy is a controversial and complex issue. The generic term describes a range of concepts that spans decreasing radiative forcing to removing CO2 from the atmosphere. Dr. Camilla Bausch moderated a two-day international workshop on the governance of geo-engineering in Brussels during which Dr. Ralph Bodle outlined the structure and criteria for addressing governance.
Climate change and artificial intelligence (AI) are two intensely debated topics, but mostly treated by separate communities. While climate change is one of the most urgent and pressing challenges the world is facing, AI is creating new opportunities for all sectors, including science. On the occasion of European Climate Diplomacy Week 2019, the German Federal Foreign Office, the British Embassy in Germany and the French Embassy in Germany would like to discuss the conceivable potentials and synergies. Ecologic Institute's Matthias Duwe moderates the discussion.