On 7 February 2023, Aaron Scheid, Fellow at Ecologic Institute, takes stock of pesticides in agriculture and discusses possible alternatives.

Diverse crop rotation, mechanical weed control, beneficial insects to protect crops: According to a study commissioned by BUND, standard practice in organic farming could also be used more often by conventional farmers. Aaron Scheid from the Ecologic Institute and author of the study in an interview with Deutschlandfunk radio about non chemical plant protection measures.

On 23 November 2022, Dr. Stephan Sina, Senior Fellow at Ecologic Institute, participated as an expert in a hearing of the Hessian State Parliament's Committee for Environment, Climate Protection, Agriculture and Consumer Protection on the Government draft of a Hessian Act on the Promotion of Climate Protection and Adaptation to the Consequences of Climate Change. Together with about 40 associations and experts, he commented on the draft law and answered questions from members of parliament.

Ewa Iwaszuk, a Fellow at Ecologic Institute, held a presentation "Policy instruments to promote implementation of nature-based solutions" at a side-event "Nature-based solutions for building performance" during the global climate conference COP27 in Sharm-el-Sheikh (Egypt). Ewa's presentation made the case that policy instruments and their governance act as critical enablers or barriers to adoption of nature-based solutions. She presented the Urban Governance Atlas that Ecologic Institute is currently developing in the frames of the INTERLACE project and discussed good practice examples of policy instruments from around the world that support the implementation of nature-based solutions at a building level.

In this podcast's episode, Benjamin Görlach of the Ecologic Institute, describes how pricing and policy interact to foster a faster energy transition. Interviewed by Michael LaBelle, episode 66 covers everything from the EU's emission trading system, the dominance of electricity for transport and the 4i-TRACTION project – standing for innovation, investment, infrastructure and sector integration.

From 7 to 19 December 2022, the international community is scheduled to come together to discuss the future of the Convention on Biological Diversity. One of the key items that will be negotiated at the upcoming COP15 is the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. In the light of these upcoming negotiations on 2 November 2022, the Guarini Center on Environmental, Energy and Land Use Law at New York University School of Law and the German Consulate General in New York organized an event with experts from New York City and Berlin to discuss the role of local governments in implementing global biodiversity targets, including the ways in which cities can support urban biodiversity. Sandra Naumann, Senior Fellow at the Ecologic Institute, presented Berlin's strategy to promote urban biodiversity and participated in the final panel.

During this webinar, Ecologic Institute's Dr. Nico Stelljes presented the highlights and the findings of the project "Indicators of an Integrated German Marine Policy" and gave an overview of a possible set of indicators to assess an integrated maritime policy at a national level, with the scope to stimulate discussions on similarities and differences in the integrated approaches to the maritime economy in the Baltic Sea Region.

In her presentation, titled "Evaluating environmental policies with citizen science data? An example from the Plastic Pirates investigating plastic pollution of rivers", Linda Mederake (Ecologic Institute) presented an approach to evaluate the Single-Use Plastics Directive with the help of citizen science data.

In an interview with "Bürger schaffen Wissen", the central platform for citizen science in Germany, Linda Mederake (Ecologic Institute) and Tim Kiessling (Kiel Science Factory) talk about the history of the citizen science project "Plastic Pirates", their experiences in working with school classes and their expectations for the ECSA Conference 2022.

From 21 to 22 September 2022, the INTERLACE project held the first European Cities Talk Nature Engagement Event in Kraków (Poland). Sandra Naumann, Coordinator of the INTERLACE project and Senior Fellow at Ecologic Institute, opened the conference by presenting the INTERLACE project and its work on the ground to the audience.

McKenna Davis, Senior Fellow at Ecologic Institute, held a keynote speech at the conference "Designing Urban Spaces with Nature" on 7 September 2022 in Eindhoven (the Netherlands). She spoke about the integration of nature-based solutions (NBS) across key European policy initiatives as a framework for enhancing local NBS action, building on her work for the European Environmental Agency and Naturvation project. She also highlighted good practice examples of policy instruments supporting NBS in the Netherlands, which are part of the Urban Governance Atlas currently being developed within the INTERLACE project.

Dr. Stephan Sina, Senior Fellow of Ecologic Institute, gave a speech at the international academic conference "Towards the Polish Climate Protection Act" on 7 September 2022 in Szczecin (Poland). He presented the main features of the German Federal Climate Change Act and its revision based on the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court on 24 March 2021. He also participated in the panel discussion.

The environmental disaster on the Oder River has brought the issue of environmental crime back into the spotlight. In a video report by the TV station Deutsche Welle, experts, including Stephan Sina from Ecologic Institute, explain the reasons for the difficulties in prosecuting environmental crimes and possible approaches for improvement. The contribution "Environmental Crime – How do they get away with it?" can be viewed online.

In an interview with Sinan Reçber of the Berlin daily Der Tagesspiegel, Rodrigo Vidaurre and Benedict Bueb of Ecologic Institute discussed what measures can be taken in various sectors to lessen the impact of droughts in Germany. In addition to water-sensitive urban development, which increasingly relies on nature-based solutions to store water during dry periods, this includes the cultivation of drought-resistant agricultural varieties as well as the rewetting of peatlands.

The biodiversity and climate crises are increasingly threatening planetary biodiversity and dependent livelihoods. Linkages between these two crises are already recognised by science and policy, but they are still not sufficiently addressed in integrated manner in practice. Nature-based solutions (NBS) and ecosystem-based approaches have the potential to enhance these synergies and deliver multiple benefits for ecosystems, biodiversity, climate change mitigation and adaptation, human well-being among other objectives. This topic was explored during the "International workshop on strengthening synergies for biodiversity and climate in multifunctional landscapes", organized by the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN). Sandra Naumann, Senior Fellow at the Ecologic Institute, was a keynote speaker, presenting on the potential but also limitations of NBS to achieve climate and biodiversity goals.