The problem of historical contamination remains an important gap in European policymaking on soils. Political commitment is required to address the issue of historical contamination systematically by providing a common EU framework to guide and facilitate activities at the national level, where in turn establishing and implementing national strategies for managing soil contamination is important. Finally, improving knowledge, sharing, and availability of existing information, and engaging stakeholders in the process of remediating soil contamination is recommended by the authors, lead by Ana Frelih-Larsen and Sophie Ittner of Ecologic Institute. The RECARE policy brief is available for download.

Despite the extensive loss of productive soils and the valuable ecosystem services that soils provide, the awareness of the magnitude and negative implications of these processes remain relatively low. In this RECARE policy brief, Ecologic Institute's Sandra Naumann and Ana Frelih-Larsen together with Gundula Prokop from the Austrian Environment Agency illustrate the scale of the problem and identify ready-made solutions and steps policy makers and practitioners can take across different levels, from city planning to national and European level. The RECARE policy brief is available for download.

Shipping is vital for trade in the global economy and in particular for countries whose economies are closely tied to trading, like those surrounding the Baltic Sea. However, compared to other sectors, shipping is also a significant driver of environmental pressures, such as the spread of alien species or other physical influences. Underwater noise and emissions of nitrogen oxide and fine dust are additional significant pressures from shipping compared to other land and sea-based activities. Shipping is also a source of greenhouse gases (GHG). Ecologic Institute's policy brief presents an assessment of 20 policies with the potential to tackle the pressures from shipping. The policy brief is available for download.

Krüger, Ina et al., (2016): Marine Strategy Framework Directive, AQUACROSS Policy Review, European Union's Horizon 2020 Framework Programme for Research and Innovation grant agreement No. 642317.

COACCH (2018). The Economic Cost of Climate Change in Europe: Synthesis Report on State of Knowledge and Key Research Gaps. Policy brief by the COACCH project. Editors: Paul Watkiss, Jenny Troeltzsch, Katriona McGlade. Published May , 2018.

This policy brief explores and explains the concept and rational of co-creation, both as a general concept as well as in the specific context of sustainability science. Furthermore, it takes a detailed look at its use and potential in the framework of European research & innovation funding. On this basis, it identifies a number of lessons learned with regard to the application of the concept and puts forward concrete policy recommendations. The RECREATE policy brief, written by Ecologic Institute's Dr. Martin Hirschnitz-Garbers, is available for download.

This brief aims to highlight the benefits to business of engaging with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and how the EU Horizon 2020 project Knowledge, Assessment, and Management for Aquatic Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Across EU Policies (AQUACROSS) can assist with the SDGs focused on managing aquatic ecosystems. The business brief is available for download.

Ecologic Institute co-authored the RECREATE policy brief no. 7 on challenges and opportunities for national waste prevention programs. The authors state that the political framework needs to be more enabling and with further support for research and development targeted at measuring waste prevention and behavior change to unlock the potential of waste prevention. The RECREATE policy brief is available for download.

Ecologic Institute published a briefing for the ENVI Committee of the European Parliament to guide their participation in the upcoming UN Ocean Conference to be held June 2017 in New York City. The brief provides a short overview of the UN 2030 Agenda and specifically, Sustainable Development Goal 14: Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development (SDG 14). The brief identifies key issues and the position of main stakeholders. In a final section, several recommendations to guide EU participation are provided. The briefing is available for download.

This policy brief introduces the SWITCH-ON Virtual Water Science Laboratory, a digital platform for scientific research and collaboration built upon the principles of transparency, community and open access. The Virtual Lab implements Open Science by encouraging collaborative experiment definition and by facilitating the search and upload of open datasets. The SWITCH-ON Policy Brief No.2 is available for download.

This policy brief illustrates how SWITCH-ON supports globally-connected science, digital innovation, and the use of open data to help citizens, governments, and businesses in Europe and across the globe move towards a sustainable future. It shows how the 14 SWITCH-ON products are closely aligned to the SDGs by addressing several EU environmental policy objectives. The SWITCH-ON Policy Brief No.4 is available for download.

This T20 Policy Brief sends a loud exhortation to the leaders meeting in the G20 Summit in Hamburg in July 2017. T20 or "Think 20" is a network of think tanks in the G20 countries, and 23 experts in 13 think tanks in 8 countries contributed to this policy brief. Ecologic Institute founder R. Andreas Kraemer, Senior Fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), led the drafting, and Benjamin Boteler, Ina Krüger, and Grit Martinez of Ecologic Institute contributed. The policy brief is available for download.

This policy brief illustrates how the SWITCH-ON project has provided proof-of-concept of how product development based on Open Innovation and Open Data can foster environmental and economic benefits in the European Union. This was achieved by transforming Open Databased hydrological science outputs into useful products and services for water managers, researchers, businesses and authorities at multiple levels. The SWITCH-ON policy brief is available for download.

After two years of research and stakeholder consultation, the BioSTEP consortium, led by Ecologic Institute, finalized the BioSTEP policy paper. This paper concludes five recommendations, aiming to support the revision of the European Bioeconomy Strategy. These recommendations were amended and complemented at the BioSTEP Forum, which was held in Brussels in March 2016. The policy paper is available for download.

Europe's coastlines are a product of human cultivation. Since settling on the coast, humans have engineered the coastal characteristics to suit the purposes of states, the economy and human recreation. At the time of the Treaties of Rome, Europe had just emerged from the devastating aftermath of the Second World War with a 'great hunger' for a liberal life style, leisure activities and travel. The diverse and scenic views of Europe's coasts offered the ideal destination for such endeavors. Soon, a rapid coastal urbanization coupled with a steady increase in mass tourism emerged. Spurred by the trust in technical and engineering capacities, new bold attitudes about building and living on the sea often interfered with the natural sediment transport of coastal systems, leading to erosion. Today, more than 42% of Europeans live in coastal regions with coastal infrastructure worth about 959 billion EURO. Recent and historic high-impact storm events have demonstrated that weather events pose a significant risk and can immobilize cities and countries. The FP7 project, Resilience-Increasing Strategies for Coasts – toolKIT (RISC-KIT), recently issued a policy brief to communicate lessons learned and to support the dissemination of tools, which coastal managers to improve coastal resilience in Europe and elsewhere.