In December 2017 the publication "Creative Environment – a guide to art and sustainability initiatives in Berlin" was published by Ecologic Institute. The guide is the result of Ecologic Institute's inaugural Writer-in-Residence program. Curator Yasmine Ostendorf spent two months conducting interviews and researching initiatives in Berlin that are working in the shared spaces between art and sustainability.

On 8 December 2017, Dr. Stephan Sina, Senior Fellow at Ecologic Institute, presented a comparative overview of climate change laws at state level in Germany at a workshop on the further development of the Climate Change Act for Baden-Württemberg. He focused on common features and differences in the existing climate change acts, and highlighted elements of interest for the amendment of the Climate Change Act for Baden-Württemberg.

Donald Trump's announcement that the USA will pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement triggered the German Federal Agency for Civic Education to put American climate policy on stage in its popular series "What's Up America". Dr. Camilla Bausch of Ecologic Institute, Prof. Dr. Ottmar Edenhofer of PIK Potsdam and the New York Times Berlin correspondent Melissa Eddy addressed the reasoning behind this controversial decision and possible consequences.

With this contribution Doris Knoblauch and Susanne Langsdorf from Ecologic Institute offer an easy-to-use three-step process that allows for a meaningful assessment of projects' sustainability. The process has already been tested by two digitization projects. The article is available online in the "Monitor Nachhaltige Kommune. Report 2017" published by the Bertelsmann Stiftung.

Engaging the public on science and sustainable consumption: the how-to guide published in the pilot report "A Taste of the Future of the Seas" explains how to organize fun and impactful popular-scientific events, with a special focus on sustainable food. The guide, published by Ecologic Institute, is part of the Science Year 2016*17 – Seas and Oceans and is available for download in German.

This commentary on the SchadRegProtAG is primarily intended as a legal working aid for practice and is aimed at the enforcement authorities and the operators of potentially reportable operating facilities.

Looking back with a view to the future: Celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Environmental Ministry in Baden-Wurttemberg, Minister President Kretschmann and Minister for Environment Untersteller together with keynote speakers Prof. Schneidewind (Wuppertal Institute) and Dr. Bausch (Ecologic Institute) highlighted achievements of the past as well as challenges for the future. While past efforts delivered some important results, current and future trends show the need for far-reaching changes in the way we live and do business.

With a big conference in Berlin on the 17 and 18 Oktober 2017, the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, BMBF) launched its new comprehensive research programme "Plastic in the Environment – Sources • Sinks • Solutions." In this research programme, 18 research projects with around 100 partners from science, industry, associations and municipalities are exploring the following questions: What is the extent of plastic pollution globally, what are its causes and its effects? For the kickoff, representatives from all collaborative projects met in the "Umweltforum" in Berlin to present the individual projects, identify common challenges and develop cross-cutting themes for an exchange across consortia.

Ecologic Institute supported the German Environment Agency in hosting the workshop "Decarbonisation – 100 % Renewable Energy and more: Transformation pathways to a greenhouse gas neutral and resource efficient society," which took place on 17 October 2017 in Berlin.

The EU is currently negotiating a comprehensive reorientation of energy and climate policy for the decade 2020-2030. In this strategy brief, Katharina Umpfenbach discusses how the next German federal government can shape the EU negotiations so as to create an EU electricity market regulation that is conducive to the German energy transition. Four central elements are identified: raising the ambition of energy targets and introducing long-term targets, developing effective oversight instruments to ensure compliance, adjusting the electricity market to the needs of wind and solar power, and initiating an exit strategy for coal firing. The strategy brief is available for download.

Lehmann, Karl, Melanie Kemper 2017: Website-Konzept für die Fördermaßnahme "Plastik in der Umwelt" www.bmbf-plastik.de. Berlin, unpublished.

Kemper, Melanie, Georg Lamberty, Falko Wagner 2017: Informationsplattform Gewässerrenaturierung – Website Konzept, Berlin, September 2017, unpublished.

'Protecting the natural environment is part of our responsibility for future generations' – this is the environmental policy guiding principle of the coalition agreement of Merkel's third cabinet. Has the Federal Government made environmental protection its guiding principle in the last four years? The answer: there is light and shadow. More light in international environmental policy and more shade at home. There have been some important achievements, but in the last four years none of the negative environmental trends have been stopped or even reversed. All in all far too little – as Nils Meyer-Ohlendorf finds in this opinion paper.

On 5 September 2017, Stephanie Wunder, Senior Fellow at Ecologic Institute, gave a short presentation at the Federal Environment Agency's "Forum 2017 - Effectively reducing food waste - achieving more together". She reported on interim results from the European project REFRESH, which deals with the prevention of food waste and the recycling of surplus food.

Cross-border trade and the rules governing it impact consumers. Trade has benefits for consumers, such as access to goods not available domestically. Yet it also has certain risks, such as exposure to traded goods that may be dangerous. Against this background, consumer organisations on both sides of the Atlantic have been discussing what a consumer-friendly trade policy could look like. Christiane Gerstetter and Lena Donat of Ecologic Institute's Legal Team have compiled a study examining what complaint mechanisms for consumer organisations concerning international trade agreements could look like.