Is there a trend towards more sustainable consumption patterns in the European Union (EU)? Is there a reduction in EU greenhouse gas emissions? Is the EU losing its natural capital? Answers to these and other questions are presented in the 2013 Eurostat monitoring report on Sustainable Development in the European Union. As partner in a consortium with the Vienna University of Economic and Business, INFRAS, and Haymarket Media Group, the Ecologic Institute played a substantial role in drafting the 2013 Eurostat monitoring report.The monitoring report is available for download.

Ecologic Institute, the Urania Berlin, and the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin present the event series "Biodiversity - local/global" to offer a better understanding of biological diversity and its socially-relevant facets.

In this project Umweltbundesamt Wien, the Research Institute for Managing Sustainability (RIMAS) and Ecologic Institute jointly support the Committee of the Regions in the process of stakeholder contribution to produce an Outlook Opinion on the review of the targets contained in European Waste legislation.

On 14 December 2013, Ecologic Institute's Christiane Gerstetter discussed the potential impact of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) on environmental regulation. She identified real risks for the future regulatory freedom of the involved parties if certain clauses currently under discussion were to be agreed upon. In conclusion, she found the risks posed by TTIP from an environmental point of view to be greater than potential benefits. The presentation is available for download.

The objective of the DYNAMIX project is to identify policy mixes to absolute decoupling of economic growth from resource use and its associated environmental impacts. This study by Ecologic Institute's Katharina Umpfenbach serves to clarify the shared key assumptions that are used throughout the project and ensure their consistent application. It goes on to present a framework for assessing the effectiveness, sustainability, and cost-effectiveness of EU policy mixes aimed at achieving absolute decoupling. The study is available for download.

This UNEP policy brief seeks to address and raise awareness of the social dimension of ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) to climate change, laying particular emphasis on the social impacts of EbA on the global, national, regional and local levels as well as on social considerations in designing and implementing EbA. The authors highlight appropriate methods and measures and provide policy recommendations to facilitate successful EbA implementation and therewith the delivery of expected benefits for local communities. The policy brief is available for download.

The report "The Underlying Reasons for Resource (In)Efficiencies" documents the work performed in the EU-funded FP7 project DYNAMIX. This report identifies the main inefficiencies of resource use in the EU and investigates their drivers and underlying causes. While progress has been made in increasing the economic benefits of resource use in the EU, there is still significant potential to increase resource efficiency and hence to decouple economic development from resource use and environmental degradation. The report and and accompanying executive summary are available for download.