Carbon farming refers to a range of agricultural techniques that increase the ability of the soil to sequester carbon from the atmosphere. This is crucial to achieving the European Green Deal goal of becoming CO₂-neutral by 2050. However, there are still many political and technical issues. Ecologic Institute's panel discussions included input on the report "Carbon farming. Making agriculture fit for 2030" and presented further thinking on carbon farming.

Together with our interview guests Arianna Nicoletti (Circular Textiles Lead at Circular Berlin) and Mandy Hinzmann (Fellow at Ecologic Institute) we explore the concepts of circular and sustainable fashion and discuss the potential impact of the recently published European Union Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles. We also get philosophical and ask: is the constant change and quick consumption an inherent characteristic of fashion?

Single-use plastics (SUPs) consumption is booming worldwide, with Asia being no exception. On the contrary: Asia is experiencing increasing levels of SUP consumption due to rapid economic growth, urbanization, and changing consumption and production patterns including the increase of E-commerce and rising sales of processed and packaged food. Last but not least, a "sachet economy" has been established with small portions of products (e.g., instant coffee, shampoo) being sold for convenience and to target especially the large population groups with lower purchasing power.

This report takes stock of emission trajectories, climate policies and complementary policies in G7 countries. It helps to identify gaps in the existing policy landscape of global decarbonisation efforts and proposes potential improvements. Based on these insights, we consider that G7 countries have many viable options for accelerating the global energy transition.

Promising approaches were identified via participatory stakeholder workshops, that could contribute to establishing circular construction in Berlin. Such approaches include a stronger orientation of the legal framework towards the circular economy, for example through an obligation to selective deconstruction in the Berlin Building Code. On the other hand, there is a need for even stronger public procurement of circular approaches in the building sector by facilitating the consideration of life-cycle costs in procurement practice. With the combination of these approaches, it seems possible to establish Berlin as a Circular City in the building sector in the long term.

This background paper for the research project "Digitalisation – Setting the Course for a Social-Ecological Digital Transformation in Berlin" within the project "Knowledge. Change. Berlin" provides an overview of the sustainability and digitalisation goals of the state of Berlin. First, the paper outlines sustainability goals relevant for the project in the following topic areas: data governance, climate protection, transport and mobility, energy and health.

The project "Data Governance and Regulation for a Sustainable Berlin" examined what forms of data regulation are possible and necessary at city level in Berlin to ensure that data-driven services, products and platforms are developed and used to meet social and environmental sustainability goals.

This summary distils the insights from the technical report "Charting a Path to Net Zero: An assessment of national long-term strategies in the EU" commissioned by the European Climate Foundation and written by Ecologic Institute. It summarizes the key findings and recommendations from an assessment of 22 long-term strategies (LTSs) of EU Member States available as of March 2022. The summary and the full technical report are available for download.

This paper describes important findings from the project "Data Governance and Regulation for a Sustainable Berlin" and formulates – in addition to the application field-specific papers – overarching recommendations.

Paul Ekins, Paul Drummond & Benjamin Görlach (2017) Policy instruments for low-carbon development based on work from the EUFP7 project, CECILIA2050, Climate Policy, 17:sup1, S1-S7, DOI: 10.1080/14693062.2016.1272044

This paper examines the concept of an "extended" digital product passport from a socio-ecological perspective using the example of batteries for electric vehicles. It evaluates different approaches to data regulation and formulates policy recommendations for decision makers in Berlin. It is based on preliminary work from the project, in which in particular three ideal types of data regulation and a methodology for their scenario-based evaluation were developed.

This report analysed if and how EU Member States used their auctioning revenues from the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) for climate action. For this purpose, we selected eight case study countries, namely Czech, Germany, Greece, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, and Portugal. As part of these case studies, we examined the reporting, the legal provisions and the political narrative around auctioning revenues through desk research and expert interviews.

This study analysed if and how EU Member States used their auctioning revenues from the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) for climate action. For this purpose, we selected eight case study countries, namely Czech, Germany, Greece, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, and Portugal. As part of these case studies, we examined the reporting, the legal provisions and the political narrative around auctioning revenues through desk research and expert interviews.

Ecologic Institute organised this side event focusing on the source-to-sea approach, multi-use of marine space and marine protected areas in Europe's seas (and transitional waters) – all timely topics in marine management and conservation. In three distinct sessions, a series of ambitious projects provided an insightful picture of how to balance the increasing use of coastal-marine ecosystems with the preservation or even restoration of their biological richness, by mitigating impacts and curbing pressures to achieve true sustainability. Based on the project contributions, a wider panel discussion with experts from different fields of knowledge discussed the approaches and their synergies, look for holistic solutions and consider what is needed to realise the vision of thriving, healthy European seas and coasts for future generations.

As part of the project Dialogue Forum "Private Households", a mapping of existing actors and initiatives in Germany was carried out and evaluated. The aim of this structured categorisation is to gain an overview of the current landscape of measures in order to identify which effective starting points are already covered by current measures and which are not, and how existing measures can be improved and their effectiveness increased.