The project "Capacity Building Emissions Trading to Support Bilateral Cooperation" aims to disseminate knowledge on emissions trading internationally and to support partner countries in setting up national emissions trading systems. The consortium supports the Federal Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety's bilateral activities in the field of capacity development and training on emissions trading. Former and current cooperation partners include Brazil, China, Chile, Kazakhstan, Mexico, South Korea, Thailand, Turkey and Ukraine.

To fulfill its commitments under the Paris Agreement, the European Union plans to increase the ambition of its 2030 greenhouse gas emissions reduction target. As a basis for this debate, in December 2020, the EU Commission published the communication "Stepping up Europe's 2030 climate ambition" and a related Impact Assessment (IA) on raising the 2030 target in September 2019. In the communication, the Commission proposed to increase the EU target to -55% compared to 1990 and presents different policy approaches to reach this target.

Together with FutureCamp, Ecologic Institute examines in detail the design options of climate protection contracts. The focus is on the practical implementation of the instrument, such as the design in compliance with EU state aid law as well as overlap and demarcation with other (funding) instruments.

In this project, Climact and Ecologic Institute analysed the impact assessment for the new EU climate target proposed by the Commission in September 2020. After examining policy options and modelling results, they were compared with recent studies, in particular with Climact's modelling results for 2030. A policy brief highlights key points where the Commission differs from other studies and identifies climate change potentials that deserve more attention in future analyses.

By bringing together policymakers from the European Commission and other European institutions, as well as selected experts from academia and civil society, this conference creates a virtual platform for discussion how Europe can leapfrog to resilience. The organizers offer a unique space for cross institutional dialogue and knowledge transfer, enriched by different perspectives and areas of expertise.

Around the world, an increasing number of countries have decided to phase out coal, both to achieve their climate targets, but also to modernise their electricity sector in the transition from fossil to renewable energy supply. This includes Germany, which long had one of the highest shares of coal use in Europe – and Chile, as one the first Latin American country to move beyond coal. To support the dialogue in the Chilean-German Energy Partnership, Ecologic Institute, Agora Energiewende and Chilean experts were commissioned to draft a paper comparing the coal phase-out processes in both countries.

The Ariadne project shows ways in which the climate goals can be achieved. The focus is on research for energy transition strategies, their systemic effects, and which sectoral interactions arise as a result. The project investigates policy instruments to help achieve climate goals in an efficient and socially balanced way. With the help of evidence-based assessments, the scientific basis for shaping the energy transition is to be expanded and any learning processes in politics and science are to be triggered.

Ecologic Institute investigates the extent to which transport and buildings are already affected by the existing EU emissions trading scheme, e.g. through district heating networks and electromobility. Furthermore, Ecologic Institute contributes case studies on non-European emissions trading schemes covering transport and/or buildings (including California, New Zealand and Tokyo). Furthermore, Ecologic Institute provides analyses on which price-based instruments are already applied in selected EU member states. Finally, Ecologic Institute examines how the expansion of emissions trading would affect competitiveness and the EU's existing climate policy instruments.

The European commission strives for carbon-neutrality in Europe by 2050. In order to achieve this goal, the energy intensive industries will have to reduce their emissions substantially. On behalf of the European Parliament, CE Delft and Ecologic Institute will summarise how energy intensive industries in Europe can transition to a carbon-neutral energy economy while preserving their global competitiveness.

Under this contract, the Ecologic Institute continues its programme of ETS training and capacity building activities implemented under the auspices of the Internationcal Carbon Action Partnership (ICAP), supported by the European Commission. In an Ecologic-led consortium with ICF and Get2C, the programme seeks to provide participants from developing countries and emerging economies with knowledge to develop and implement emissions trading as a cost-effective policy instrument to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The objective of this project is to support DG Climate Action (European Commission) in its assessment of Member States’ key challenges to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and related policies recently put into place. The information should also help DG CLIMA in enhancing the role of climate policies in the European Semester. With this project, Ecologic Institute continues the work in this field since 2012.

The 2016 REFIT Evaluation of the Environmental Liability Directive (ELD) showed that the national implementation is working to a much lower extent than could be expected and with a great variation between the Member States. Under the Multi-Annual Work Programme for the period 2017 to 2020, the European Commission promotes, among others, the availability of financial security across the EU. Supporting this objective, the project aims to enhance the evidence base in relation to the current situation in Member States.

The Oekoworld Workshop on Sustainability Evaluation of Businesses in the Digital Economy in Berlin explored new ways to express ethical values in relation to complex technological and business-model innovations in the context of ethical and sustainable investment. The workshop was prepared and convened on 16 November 2018 by Ecologic Institute with sponsorship from Ökoworld AG, the asset management company behind the Oekovision investment fund.

From June 2018 to the end of January 2019, the Commission on "Growth, Structural Change and Employment" met as an independent body comprised of covering a broad cross-section of social, political and economic actors. As per its mandate from the German Federal Government adopted on 6 June 2018, the Commission was requested to develop a plan for ending coal-fired power generation in Germany, which would both contribute to meeting the Federal Government's climate policy goals, but also deliver recommendations on manging structural change in the coal regions and create new, future-proof jobs.

BIOBRIDGES's overall aim is to ensure the marketability of sustainable bio-based products by establishing primary partnerships between bio-based industries, brand owners and consumer representatives in cooperation with other stakeholders like local communities, local authorities and industrial actors. The ambition is to create at least two new cross-sector interconnections in bio-based economy clusters.