Ursula von der Leyen, the new President of the European Commission, took office today, on 1 December 2019. As one of her first proposals, she promised to propose a European Climate Law in the first 100 days of her term in office. This 'Law' is a critical step to make Europe climate neutral. It can close gaps in existing EU climate rules. These gaps will impede the EU from becoming climate neutral before 2050. A new paper by Ecologic Institute discusses what a European Climate Law should look like, and how it could close existing gaps. The paper is available for download.

The report "Integrated approaches for sustainable urban-rural development" published by the German Federal Environment Agency at the end of 2019 summarizes the results of the three-year research project "Rural Urban Nexus – Global Land Use and Urbanization" (RUN). The findings of the project, that was led by Ecologic Institute, show that there is already a wide range of strategic approaches, instruments and institutional forms for better collaboration between cities and their surrounding areas. Rather than establishing new instruments, administrations and policy makers should make greater use of existing possibilities – especially informal instruments of regional planning – and to integrate sustainable urban and peri-urban development into existing policies. In particular, the development of regional food strategies can be an important entry point and catalyst for achieving sustainable urban rural development.

With the adoption of the Paris Agreement, the world of climate policy has changed, with important implications for the debate on carbon leakage. This report looks at how the risk of carbon leakage changes for different constellations of climate policy targets, how the incentives for countries have changed, and what carbon leakage entails for global emissions under these constellations.

This study shows that a commitment to a regional food policy promises positive effects in a whole range of policy areas, including environmental protection, sustainable land use, health, strengthening local value chains, education, and participation. Regional food policy in Germany requires the establishment of new structures and can only succeed if administrations work together across disciplines and sectors, if there is cooperation between the city and its environs and if it is shaped in a participatory process together with all the actors concerned. Due to the high media interest and the mobilisation potential that the topic of nutrition has to offer, it might be easier to set up these processes compared to many other topics.

Technological developments and trends can contribute significantly to resource conservation. In addition to political framework conditions, social routines, patterns of action and consumption styles are important, as they have a considerable influence on individual and societal resource requirements. The present trend analysis therefore systematically examines how socio-economic and socio-cultural trends can affect the use of resources.

Ecologic Institute and its partner EMVIS Consultant Engineers have supported The Nature conservancy (TNC) in the preparation of this report, by outlining the key water challenges in Europe and the types of Nature Based Solutions that are applicable for addressing these challenges in Europe. The report is available for download.

Olmeda C., Šefferová V., Underwood E., Millan L., Gil T. and Naumann S. (compilers) 2019: EU Action plan to maintain and restore to favourable conservation status the habitat type 6210 Semi-natural dry grasslands and scrubland facies on calcareous substrates (Festuco-Brometalia) (*important orchid sites). European Commission Technical Report.

This FAQ note presents the links between the Birds and Habitats Directives and the Nitrates Directive. The FAQ note specifies the legislations’ objectives, highlight the interactions between both areas of legislation, and points to the opportunities for greater coordination between the directives. This note by Ecologic Institute is available for download.

As part of the 'Sustainability 2030 Science Platform', Ecologic Institute has published a study on oceans as a global commons. An overview of the different governance mechanisms in regard to the Global Commons "Oceans" area are discussed. The study is available for download and will be presented at the beginning of December at the Annual Conference 2019 of the Science Platform.

This report analyses two specific activities within the REFRESH project: First, the dissemination of the Framework for Action ("Blueprint") that helps national governments to build Voluntary Agreements with the relevant stakeholders in the sector to reduce food loss and waste and second, work with Standardisation Bodies, specifically barcode standards used by retailers.

This report provides a detailed overview of REFRESH's activities as well as an assessment of their outreach and impact. It also reflects on the lessons learned of REFRESH's communication activities, including barriers and success formats.

This report by Ecologic Institute explores the extent to which current policy frameworks support sustainable urban development and nature-based solutions (NBS). It reveals that a variety of different terms are used across countries in policies and discourses in support of sustainable urban development, with green (and blue) infrastructure being the most frequently used. However, while many policies were shown to have strong explicit support for sustainable urban development, these often lack mandatory policy instruments.

This working paper identifies the main overarching trends affecting the food supply system, sets out the environmental and socio-economic implications of spatial decoupling of food production, consumption and disposal, and addresses the particular role of urbanisation in changing supply systems. The effects in industrialised and developing countries are considered in equal measure.

Since 2012, more than 200 experts from various fields of water management and nature conservation, the federal states and the federal government, the federal waterway administration, the energy industry, hydraulic engineering, fisheries biology, nature conservation, fishing and fishing associations and university science have been involved in the German Participatory Forum on Fish Protection and Downstream Migration. In the second cycle of the Forum, from 2015 to 2018, the productive dialogue was continued and a better understanding or various aspects of fish protection and downstream fish migration was compiled. This report documents the project work of the 2nd cycle and is available for download.