Discover valuable insights from the collaboration of the ALL-Ready Pilot Network, which included 20 members across 13 partner countries. This factsheet offers essential recommendations, derived from the challenges of the pilot project, for establishing the European Network of Agroecology Living Labs and Research Infrastructures.

This report presents a stock-taking analysis of drought policies, planning and management in EU Member States and an outlook of planned work within the Member States and at EU level. It has been developed based on individual Member State assessments of the corresponding legislation, planning and management, including the latest available versions of (draft) River Basin Management Plans in spring 2022, using a common questionnaire, as well as more than 70 interviews with Member State administrations and stakeholders and a wide review process.

This study aims to provide actionable recommendations to the European Commission for how to make progress on selected international climate finance instruments.

Securing agricultural land is a relevant challenge. The authors of the policy brief see a number of different approaches to safeguarding agricultural areas against other land use claims and are primarily addressing the state and municipal levels. The authors argue that the topics of agriculture, food, sustainability and rural development should be more closely integrated. They also recommend using spatial planning instruments to curb the current consumption of agricultural land and thus protect it from conversion.

The Carbon Removal Certification Framework (CRCF) proposal of the European Commission and the proposed amendments by Council and European Parliament include minimum sustainability criteria for carbon removals. These criteria are vague and require specification. A new paper by Oeko-Institut and Ecologic Institute examines the sustainability criteria in detail. The German Environment Agency published the paper.

In this episode of Green Deal – Big Deal we discuss what mud houses, 3D printers and beauty have to do with Europe's journey to becoming a climate-neutral continent.

The event offered a collaborative platform for representatives from diverse sectors including industry, business, civil society, and policy. At this one-day workshop, the research team presented a stocktake of the latest research on sectoral and macro-economic climate risks and impacts, costs and benefits and potential for adaptation.

Achieving carbon neutrality in the EU is more than reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It's also about ensuring that the transition to a sustainable future is fair and equitable. That’s where the idea of Just Transition comes in, with its aim to ensure that no people or regions are left behind. In this episode, we dive into the multifaceted nature of Just Transition, covering its environmental, economic, social, and political aspects.

The annual climate change summit in 2023 (COP28) took place in Dubai, UAE. Negotiators from all around the world assembled to discuss the implementation of the Paris Agreement, undertaking the first ever global stocktake of progress towards meeting these goals. Ecologic Institute attended the talks with a delegation of four colleagues, providing legal advice to the EU delegation and discussing insights from ongoing research on innovative policy instruments.

The Mission Ocean and Waters service portal is now live and serves as a comprehensive one-stop-shop for stakeholders, offering essential tools, contacts, knowledge, matchmaking, financing, and support for the successful execution of the EU Mission "Restore our ocean and waters by 2030". The service portal ensures access to knowledge for all citizens while extending support and technical assistance to Mission Partners actively involved in the Mission Ocean and Waters implementation.

In some EU Member States, water balances have been in place for a long time, whilst for others this is a new field of water management. To support their development and use, an EU guidance document was adopted in 2015; however, there are still major challenges for their implementation. The analysis for this report has grouped these challenges (based on Member State self-assessments as well) in four clusters.

According to the European Commission, almost 26 million tonnes of plastic waste are generated annually in the EU. And since we learned how to produce plastic, humans have manufactured more than 8.3 billion tonnes of it – most of which ended up as a waste product somewhere on the planet. This process leads to plastic waste entering the landscape, rivers, beaches, and eventually ocean. So how can we possibly address a problem of this size?

The 4i-TRACTION research has identified additional instruments with untapped potential and possible game changer qualities, that can help tackle challenges of transformative change other policies struggle to address. In this side event, the 4i-TRACTION project presented three policy instruments that can support transformative change: transition plans for banks, public procurement for climate neutrality and integrated infrastructure planning.

With climate change, the impacts of water scarcity and droughts are becoming of increasing concern in Europe. Water allocation mechanisms are major levers to increase water resilience, however, little work has yet occurred on the topic at EU level. This report, prepared in cooperation with members of the ad-hoc technical group on Water Scarcity and Droughts of the EU Common Implementation Strategy (CIS) for the Water Framework Directive (WFD), reviews the literature and practice for water allocation mechanisms. It identifies key challenges in EU Member States and highlights examples of methods in place.

This report elaborates the main challenges faced by water management institutions in implementing e-flows in EU Member States, presents country progress in developing relevant good practices and presents relevant implementation examples.