Plastic pollution of the world's oceans is a quickly growing environmental problem. A number of international instruments and treaties are trying to address the problem, but the growing amount of plastic waste that is polluting our seas shows these are insufficient. On behalf of WWF, the project team from adelphi and Ecologic Institute thus compiled a report on gaps in global plastic governance and developed options for the design of a legally binding agreement to eliminate further marine plastic pollution.

Sustainable development is a long-term political goal of the European Union (EU), which has become even more important since the adoption of sustainable development goals (SDGs). Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Union, has been monitoring progress in the field of sustainable development for years with the help of indicator sets. Since 2008, the Ecologic Institute, together with the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, INFRAS and the Haymarket Media Group, has been producing monitoring reports on the subject, which will include SDG monitoring for the years 2019 to 2022, as well as monitoring on the Europe 2020 strategy and new political priorities of the European Commission after 2020.

On 9 and 10 April 2019, the status conference of the research focus "Plastics in the Environment – Sources • Sinks • Solutions" of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) took place in the Kalkscheune in Berlin. The coordinators of the 20 joint projects funded within the research focus presented their projects and explained first results as well as challenges of their projects. The conference proceedings, presenting the joint projects and cross-cutting topics, are available for download.

Plastic in the environment is a global problem that is particularly visible in a growing volume of plastic waste in the sea. The German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) has set up a major research focus to investigate the extent of the problem in more detail and to develop approaches to reducing it. Until 2021, a total of 18 joint projects with more than 100 institutions from science, industry, and practice will be funded with 35 million euros in one of the world's largest research programmes on plastics to date. In addition to the main areas of work, the authors of the Ecologic Institute examines the research projects in more detail.

Ecologic Institute's Arctic Summer College, supported by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, hosted a side event on sustainable development in the Arctic that welcomed over 50 participants in its first session during the Arctic Circle Assembly on 20 October 2018. A recording of the side event is available online.

On Saturday, 8 December 2018, Ecologic Institute hosted a side event in the EU Pavilion at the COP24 in Katowice (Poland), in cooperation with ICLEI Europe. Invited practitioners and experts discussed the role nature-based solutions (NBS) and multi-level governance play in facilitating the transition of cities and regions to carbon-neutrality.

As the institution in charge of the German government sponsored initiative "Scientific Coordination of the Support Measure for Sustainable Management" (NaWiKo), Ecologic Institute was involved with several of its working papers. These are available for download and summarise the results of various NaWiKo research projects on specific individual aspects of a sustainable economy, including policy recommendations for promoting sustainable food systems in Germany. The working papers are available for download.

This webinar presented findings from two projects on strategies to reach ambitiously low-emission levels in European industry. It looked at technological solutions, but also at strategies such as the reduction of demand and the increase rates of recycling. A recording of the webinar as well as the presentations are available online.

The Oekoworld Workshop on Sustainability Evaluation of Businesses in the Digital Economy in Berlin explored new ways to express ethical values in relation to complex technological and business-model innovations in the context of ethical and sustainable investment. The workshop was prepared and convened on 16 November 2018 by Ecologic Institute with sponsorship from Ökoworld AG, the asset management company behind the Oekovision investment fund.

On 7 November 2018, federal ministers Elisabeth Köstinger, Norbert Hofer and Heinz Faßmann kicked-off the process for the development of a national bioeconomy strategy in Austria. A conference entitled "Bioeconomy: Sustainable and Circular" was organised, which brought together relevant stakeholders as part of an intensified discourse about the future of the bioeconomy in Austria. Ecologic Institute's Holger Gerdes had been invited to take part in a panel discussion.

Triggered by Brexit, the EU began a process of reflection, soul-searching and possibly reform – the so-called "Bratislava process" or the "process on the Future of Europe". EU institutions, Member States and civil society have made a number of contributions to this process. This paper of the Ecologic Institute discusses how the EU reform process can help improve EU climate and energy policies.

Triggered by Brexit, the EU began a process of reflection, soul-searching and possibly reform – the so-called "Bratislava process" or the "process on the Future of Europe". EU institutions, Member States and civil society have made a number of contributions to this process. This paper of the Ecologic Institute discusses how EU climate and energy policies can support the EU reform process.

At the 2018 Global Think Tank Summit (GTTS2018) in Brussels, hosted by European think tank Bruegel and the Think Tank and Civil Societies Program (TTCSP) of the University of Pennsylvania, Ecologic Institute prepared and hosted a panel on the geopolitics of climate change. It covered the geopolitical dynamics of accelerating climate change as well as the geopolitical consequences of transformation in the energy and transport sectors.

"Strengthening Cooperation between Arctic and Non-Arctic Countries" was the theme of a meeting of Arctic Think Tanks at the Arctic Circle Assembly 2018 in Reykjavík, Iceland. The focus was on the role and functions of policy institutes – or think tanks – in addressing the specific challenges of the Circumpolar North and how its peoples and countries relate with the rest of the world. The meeting was convened by the Arctic Summer College.

Complex use conflicts such as those arising around the management of water resources require the coordination and cooperation of public authorities and stakeholders across very different thematic areas and geographic scales. The goal of STEER is to explore innovative mechanisms of coordination and cooperation on a river-basin level for the governance of water resources. The project is structured around a diagnostic approach, which supports the analysis of typical conflict situations between stakeholders (and/or public authorities) and allows for the identification of possible approaches to solving these by means of cooperation and/or coordination.