How can the EU sustain and strengthen its environmental leadership in a decade shaped by geopolitical instability, accelerating climate impacts and growing demands for competitiveness and resilience? This was at the centre of the Think2030 Conference in Brussels, marking 50 years of the Institute for Institute for European Environmental Policy (IEEP), where our Executive Director, Christoph Heinrich, joined a panel discussion on systemic risks and Europe’s environmental future.

From 17 to 19 March 2026, the European Carbon Farming Summit 2026 brought together leading voices from policy, research, private sector and practitioners to discuss the role of carbon farming in Europe’s climate and agricultural transition. Ecologic Institute, as part of the CREDIBLE and CAFAMORE consortia, has actively contributed to the programme, sharing insights from its work on carbon markets, agricultural finance, and land-use governance.

Doris Knoblauch from Ecologic Institute presented recent work from the Plastic Pirates – German Coast citizen science project at the 2026 conference of the European Citizen Science Association (ECSA) in Oulu (Finland). The conference brought together around 650 participants from across Europe and beyond to discuss the latest developments in citizen science research and practice.

At an expert event organised by the Danish EU Presidency 2025 and the European Commission, Hugh McDonald (Ecologic Institute) outlined key policy directions for making European agriculture more climate compatible. His core messages highlight why clear targets, fair incentives, and early political action are essential for transforming the agricultural sector.

On 26 November 2025, Dr. Stephan Sina, Senior Fellow at Ecologic Institute, participated in a panel discussion with law students on the role of law in the climate crisis at Humboldt University in Berlin. He discussed climate change legislation, obstacles to the implementation of measures to achieve climate targets, the role of courts, challenges for companies that want to behave sustainably, and opportunities for law students to contribute to climate protection.

As part of the Arctic Circle Assembly 2025, Fenja Kroos, researcher at Ecologic Institute, participated as a speaker in a panel discussion. Fenja Kroos highlighted in particular the importance of inclusive governance approaches, systems thinking, and strong international research networks and boundary organisations for addressing Arctic governance challenges.

How can cities become more resilient, biodiverse, and socially inclusive in times of rapid change? These questions shaped the 4th World Conference of the Society for Urban Ecology (SURE), titled Cities Under Global Social Transformations. Among the many insights, Carlos Calzadilla Guerra contributed a discussion session on potential and challenges of repurposing urban vacant land (UVL) into nature-based solutions (NbS) in Latin American cities.

For five days, experts from politics, science and environmental organisations discussed more protection for the oceans at the 3rd UN Ocean Conference in Nice: Climate change, overfishing and pollution are threatening marine biodiversity worldwide. Europeans were strongly represented, as were countries from the Global South, as well as important G20 countries such as Australia, India, Brazil and China. Dr Grit Martinez took part in the UN Ocean Conference on behalf of Ecologic Institute's Coastal and Marine Research Division. At the conference, a sincere commitment to the protection and sustainable use of the oceans was evident.

Hugh McDonald and Julia Pazmino from Ecologic Institute led the session "Ensuring sustainability outcomes from carbon farming: Recommendations for the CRCF and voluntary carbon markets" at the Second European Carbon Summit 2025. Hugh joined a panel on policy areas for carbon farming, while Julia shared insights on rewarding mechanisms for farmers.

On 13 and 14 February 2025, Arne Riedel and Fenja Kroos from Ecologic Institute participated in the founding meeting of the Polar Policy Working Group of the German Society for Polar Research (DGP), held in Berlin. The meeting was organised in cooperation with the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES) and took place back-to-back with the annual conference of the DVPW thematic group on Polar and Ocean Politics.

On 12 and 13 February 2025, Arne Riedel and Fenja Kroos from Ecologic Institute participated in the Network Conference of the Thematic Group "Polar and Ocean Politics", held at the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Berlin. The conference brought together scholars from a wide range of disciplines to discuss current challenges in polar and ocean politics.

On 21 January 2025, the United Nations Association of Germany (DGVN) hosted a panel discussion to discuss the next steps in the global plastics negotiations. The fifth round of negotiations in November 2024 ended without an agreement – a failure? Doris Knoblauch, scientist at Ecologic Institute, took part in the panel discussion and reported on the progress of the negotiations and how things could now proceed from her perspective.

Dr Stephan Sina, Senior Fellow at Ecologic Institute, took part in a panel discussion in the Bundestag as part of a workshop on environmental crime organised by Bündnis90/Die Grünen. In his keynote speech, he outlined the most important innovations of the amended EU Environmental Crime Directive and the challenges of its implementation in Germany. The panel discussion was chaired by MdB Lukas Benner. Other panellists were Katharina Lang (WWF) on the topic of illegal timber trade and journalist Marius Münstermann on the topic of illegal waste trade.

On 17 April 2024, the fifth h_da Dialogue Forum took place at the Schader Forum in Darmstadt as part of the Darmstadt Days of Transformation. It included a panel on "Post-growth economy for small and medium-sized enterprises", which sparked a lively discussion if and how a post growth economy can work for SMEs or if, taking the post-growth perspective, it might even be the only possible solution to tackle the triple planetary crisis. Susanne Langsdorf, Senior Fellow at the Ecologic Institute in Berlin, explained the potential role of circular economy solutions to tackle the challenges and elaborated on the current political activities on national and European level to transform to a green(er) economy.

At the Think2030 conference in Brussels, Aaron Scheid discussed the role of the agricultural sector in reaching climate neutrality by 2050 during a Science4Policy session. Despite some progress so far, efforts have stagnated, and current projections indicate only a modest reduction of greenhouse gases (GHG) by 2030, ultimately making the sector number one in terms of GHGs emissions. Therefore, shifting support away from emission-intensive practices and transitioning into a low-emission agricultural sector must be our first priority, while making farmers the driver of the transition.