Despite their successful application in other environmental domain (such as air quality and climate), the use of economic policy instruments (EPIs) to tackle water management issues has faced many challenges. This report, written by Ecologic Institute in collaboration with partners as part of the EU-funded FP7 EPI-Water project, provides practical guidance to policy-makers and interested parties on the formulation of economic policy instruments for water management. Economic policy instruments presented in the report include incentive pricing, pollution taxes, water and pollution trading schemes, payments for environmental services, and risk management schemes. The report is available for download.

On 21 September 2015, Dr. Eleftheria Kampa, Senior Fellow at Ecologic, gave a lecture on EU water and river basin management policy at the Potsdam Summer School on Facing Natural Hazards (14 - 23 September 2015). The presentation slides are available for download.

In the "Oslo Principles on Global Climate Change Obligations," a group of high-level lawyers and philosophers addresses obligations of States and enterprises to avert the critical level of climate change – irrespective of already existing obligations resulting from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change or a (potential) follow-up agreement to the Kyoto Protocol. The group argues that existing legal sources including human rights law, environmental law and tort law oblige states to take measures leading to drastic emissions reductions that ensure that the global temperature increase does not exceed pre-industrial temperatures by more than 2°C.

Between 1 and 3 September 2015, experts from eleven countries in Europe, North and South America met at São Paulo Research Foundation (FAPESP) in São Paulo (Brazil) to discuss how the interactions between social science and humanities (SSH) and environmental science (ES) researchers are opening new pathways to transformative research in the environment, providing innovative solutions to global problems. As research initiatives are taking an increasingly interdisciplinary perspective, involving studies that require analysis of the world at multiple space- and timescales, these new visions of research are affecting the way theories are formulated, analyses are per-formed, and research is conducted. Consequently, strengthening these research interactions is essential. Dr. Grit Martinez participated in the event by invitation from the German Ministry of Research and Education (BMBF).

The second webinar in our POLIMP Webinar Series took place on Wednesday, 16 September 2015 from 16:00 until 17:00 CEST. The webinar featured a discussion on the topic: "Reform of the EU ETS: Making it fit for 2030" feature guest speakers Anja Kollmuss (CAN Europe) and Andrei Marcu (CEPS).

Marius Hasenheit, Junior Researcher at Ecologic Institute, wrote an article about the interactive search engine "measuring-progress.eu" for Green Economy Indictors for the online magazine RESET. To draw interest of people who are not often dealing with Green Economy Indicators, on this topic, he described the project in a vivid and way. In this context he depicted the relevance of indicators in most of the fields of environmental policy and furthermore invited the readers to try out the tool and provide feedback.

On 15 October 2015, the final conference of the Network for Green Economy Indicators (NETGREEN) project, which is led by Ecologic Institute, will take place. There, national and regional green economy strategies, including best practices, will be discussed. Furthermore, the "measuring-progress.eu" web tool, the final output of the NETGREEN project, which makes green economy indicators accessible, will be presented. Registration is open and the event is free of charge.

This report explores the possibility of linking Water Framework Directive (WFD) and Habitats Directive (HD) information by using WISE WFD information on types, ecological status, pressures and measures (EEA, 2012) and HD infor-mation on habitat types, conservation status and threats (EC, 2007). Among the authors are Ecologic Institute's Eleftheria Kampa and Ulf Stein. The report is available for download.

The third expert workshop of the discussion series "Improving climate protection – for Paris and beyond" dealt with the topic "Conditional INDCs – A new and unknown element of the Paris-System." The event took place on 9 September 2015 in Berlin.

Several recent regional trade agreements (RTAs) include provisions on clean energy and on climate action. They may take the form of concrete commitments of reductions of tariffs or non-tariff barriers, or of commitments on institutional collaboration. Many RTAs also contain institutional provisions which are also of relevance to the implementation of existing environmental, including climate-related, commitments. As such, they constitute important opportunities for trade policy to contribute concretely and positively to a scale-up of clean energy and foster climate action.

The EU is currently discussing two overlapping policy frameworks: The Climate and Energy Framework for 2020 to 2030 and the Energy Union strategy. As a key element of the reformed system, the EU intends to reduce administrative burden for member states by streamlining planning and reporting requirements. As a contribution to this debate, a new Ecologic Institute study assesses risks and opportunities of four concrete streamlining options. The study is available for download.

On 7 September 2015, Dr. Martin Hirschnitz-Garbers presented tentative project results from the ongoing project "A framework for Member States to support business in improving its resource efficiency", commissioned by DG Environment and running from January to October 2015, at the 4th Meeting of the Expert Group Greening the European Semester in Brussels. The presentation slides are available for download.

The pending transformation of the German and European electricity system resulting from rising shares of renewable energy is triggering new technical requirements for both electricity producers and consumers. These requirements include "network codes", bodies of technical rules for the operation of electricity grids, which are developed by the European Transmission System Operators (TSOs) in their umbrella organization ENTSO-E before being implemented on the national level in the EU Member States.

Srebotnjak, Tanja et al. 2015: Methodische Grundlagen des Environment Burden of Disease (EBD)-Ansatzes der WHO zur quantitativen Bewertung von umweltbedingten Krankheitslasten. Chancen, Risiken und Grenzen der Methodik aus naturwissenschaftlicher, rechtlicher und ethischer Perspektive (EBDreview), Dessau-Roßlau. ISSN 1862-4340.

Multiple international environmental agreements govern countries' treatment and protection of their natural resources and environment. The treaties have different requirements for the Parties to report on the implementation, e.g., regulations, policies, strategies, etc. However, to date there has been no comprehensive assessment regarding implementation of these agreements on the national level. The Global Environmental Governance Project, spearheaded by Prof. Dr. Maria Ivanova, Associate Professor of the McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies at University of Massachusetts Boston, aims to fill this knowledge gap.