This publication is the fourth of Eurostat’s regular reports monitoring progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in an EU context. The monitoring report provides a statistical presentation of trends relating to the SDGs in the EU over the past five years ('short-term') and, when sufficient data is available, over the past 15 years ('long-term'). Ecologic Institute's authors covered the chapters on SDG2 (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) and SDG 17 (Partnerships for the Goals). The publication is available for download.

This research report contains the results of the UBA-project "Environmental guidelines of a German Arctic policy". It highlights several starting points for the German environmental department to foster environmental protection in the Arctic, even from a non-Arctic state’s point of view. The report also describes the activities undertaken within the project to raise awareness with the general public on existing links between Germany and the Arctic. Those activities include inter alia an explanatory video and a public event.

With more than 1500 participants in the live stream and via YouTube, the online webinar "Saving the climate with knife and fork? How our eating habits affect the environment" on 18 May 2020 was a complete success. Together, Tanja Dräger de Teran (WWF) and Stephanie Wunder (Ecologic Institute), highlighted the links between daily nutritional routines and their impact on climate, land use and health.

In order to overcome the negative effects of conventional meat consumption, many alternatives are emerging that could offer solutions. But is that really the case? In the webinar "The future of meat: from trend analysis to policy action" Stephanie Wunder, Senior Fellow at the Ecologic Institute and Sylvia Veenhoff from the German Federal Environment Agency (UBA) presented and discussed the results of a trend study commissioned by the UBA describing three core trends: artificial meat, plant-based meat and insect food.

The objective of this preparatory study was to provide evidence upon which future policy developments in the field of green transition can be based, in particular for consumer products.

The ocean is a source of life for human beings. "Understanding human influence on the Ocean and the Ocean's influence on people" is at the core of ocean literacy. Supported by the European Commission, the EU4Ocean Coalition connects three large communities of organisations, projects, people and schools that contribute to ocean literacy and the sustainable management of the ocean: The EU4Ocean Platform is the hub for organisations and initiatives to connect, collaborate and mobilise efforts on ocean literacy.

The guidance for policy makers included in the brief is intended to help orient decision-makers in navigating the various project outputs by comparing and contrasting the BE-Rural and POWER4BIO deliverables, with the aim of guiding the reader towards the most relevant project outputs for their given context. Based on this guidance, the final section of the document provides detailed summaries of the six deliverables for further reference.

Alken, K., Smieszek, M., Riedel, A., Rachold, V., Grosfeld, L. 2020: Arctic Governance. Current Knowledge on the Theme. Fact Sheet by German Arctic Office at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar und Marine Research, Potsdam.

This paper aims to explain to the failure of six carbon capture and storage (CCS) demonstration projects installed at coal power plants within the European Union. The projects were funded across six different members with varying suitability to coal-based CCS, which raises the question of whether common domestic factors can be identified that explain the failure of all projects. The perspective of Europeanisation is adopted to examine this question.

Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety and National Climate Protection Initiative (ed.), 2020: Unternehmensbeiträge zum Klimaschutz. Ergebnisse der Arbeitsgruppen des Dialogforums "Wirtschaft macht Klimaschutz".

The Corona crisis offers three important lessons for climate policies and Europe's economic recovery. First, systemic shocks – like the Corona pandemic or climate change – affect the foundations of modern societies. Second, resiliency, preparedness and time are existential factors in addressing systemic crises. Third, the world’s economic recovery must help build efficient, innovative and climate neutral economies. In turn, calls to delay climate policies draw the wrong lessons from the current crisis and undermine Europe's economic recovery. All countries, including the EU, must accelerate their emission reductions drastically.

On 20 May 2020, the European Commission launched its long-awaited Farm to Fork Strategy. The strategy is a first attempt to define long-term objectives for a healthy, just and sustainable EU food system that addresses both food production and consumption. The strategy is part of the EU Green Deal and was published against the background of the Corona crisis that has critically highlighted the dependence of the EU food system on global supply chains and the need to increase resilience against shocks – be it a pandemic or other crises such as climate change. To achieve the objectives of the Farm to Fork Strategy (F2F) it is now crucial, that its targets will be ambitiously implemented. The Ecologic Institute's initial assessment "The EU Farm to Fork Strategy: What needs to come next?" highlights five important steps for an ambitious implementation of the EU Farm to Fork Strategy – on EU, national and regional level.

The global community of think tank leaders is coming together for assistance and learning during the corona virus pandemic. R. Andreas Kraemer, Founder of Ecologic Institute, summarizes operational experience and focuses on the changing agenda for think tanks in these times of corona. The blog entry is part of a growing collection curated by the Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program (TTCSP) of the University of Pennsylvania.

Faced with the COVID-19 crisis, there is great temptation for recovery plans to prop up yesterday’s economy. Instead, recovery plans and any economic stimulus must “build back better” and contribute to a resilient and sustainable future. In an EURACTIV op-ed, the directors of five leading think tanks and founders of the new Think Sustainable Europe network argue that any stimulus must be informed by science, strengthen resilience as well as solidarity, support the transformation towards low-carbon, sustainable societies and deal with the current challenges on an appropriate scale.

The current global pandemic presents both risks and opportunities for the transition to a more sustainable future in Europe. At the launch event for the newest report of the German Advisory Council on the Environment (SRU), Dr. Camilla Bausch discussed the importance of the European Green Deal at this moment of crisis with Prof. Dr. Christian Calliess.