On 1 September 2021, Dr. Stephan Sina, Senior Fellow at Ecologic Institute, participated as an expert in a hearing of the Hessian State Parliament's Committee for Environment, Climate Protection, Agriculture and Consumer Protection on the draft of the SPD parliamentary group for a law to protect people and nature from climate change and its consequences. Together with twelve associations and experts, he commented on the draft law and answered questions from members of parliament. The written statement of Stephan Sina is published on the website of the Hessian State Parliament (Part 1, page 39 ff.) and is available here separately as a download.

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 17 June 2021, representatives from Berlin's public administration, business and civil society discussed how to accelerate the expansion of tenant electricity in Berlin in the virtual expert workshop of the StromNachbarn project. Practical experience inputs enriched the discussion.

Ecologic Institute has launched its first crowdfunding campaign. We aim to bring a young, aspiring scientist to work with us in Berlin on the pressing issues of climate & health. We would be delighted if you were to support our crowdfunding campaign on the occasion of our 25th anniversary. The Stiftung Mercator has generously offered to match every Euro you donate – so each Euro counts double.

On 30 April 2021 at the online Berliner ENERGIETAGE, the research network Ecornet Berlin presented how tenants can benefit from the energy transition.

The 2021 annual conference of German Association of Dietitians has put a focus on sustainability and its relevance for the work for dietitians as well as policy makers. Stephanie Wunder gave a impulse presentation on this topic entitled "Effectively using synergies between health-promoting and environmentally friendly nutrition".

The six city partners of the INTERLACE project, Chemnitz in Germany, Corredor Biológico Interurbano Río María Aguilar-San José in Costa Rica, Envigado in Colombia, Granollers in Spain, Metropolia Krakowska in Poland and Portoviejo in Ecuador officially kicked-off the project's activities in their cities in a series of events conducted across March 2021.

The objective of transformative research is to find out, together with actors from the corporate sector, politics and civil society, how our economic and social system can be made more sustainable, and to jointly test possible solutions. Transformative research is thus also transdisciplinary - it involves actors beyond academia as equal partners. This kind of research involves certain methodological challenges and questions; some of these were discussed at the tF Symposium 2021: From Experiment to Mainstream. Martin Hirschnitz-Garbers and Christiane Gerstetter, both Senior Fellows at the Ecologic Institute, contributed to the online symposium, which was held in German language.

As of March 2021 the EU Commission has set up an expert group to advise on a legislative framework for sustainable food systems. Stephanie Wunder, coordinator food systems at the Ecologic Institute has been appointed as a member of the expert group.

The project "Dialogue Forum Private Households – Reducing Food Waste", led by Ecologic Institute, calls on institutions, initiatives and companies that are already working on approaches to reduce food waste and sustainable nutrition to cooperate. Interested parties are asked to contact the project team via a short online questionnaire by 12 April 2021.

The Network of European Blue Schools initiates the Find the Blue challenge and invites schools and teachers to bring the ocean into the classroom. By taking up the Find the Blue challenge, teachers and students will improve their understanding of the ocean, develop a sense of responsibility for our ocean (so-called Ocean Literacy) and become more active and responsible European and global citizens.

In March 2021, two new handbooks on Evidence‐based Improvements in the Birds and Habitats Directives Implementation (E-BIND) are being released. They have been the achievements of a systematic review of the Birds and Habitats Directives Implementation. The core objective of the E-Bind handbook(s) are to advise the Commission, Member State authorities, decision makers, spatial planners, conservationists and NGOs in more effective implementation of the Nature Directives.