In some EU Member States, water balances have been in place for a long time, whilst for others this is a new field of water management. To support their development and use, an EU guidance document was adopted in 2015; however, there are still major challenges for their implementation. The analysis for this report has grouped these challenges (based on Member State self-assessments as well) in four clusters.

With climate change, the impacts of water scarcity and droughts are becoming of increasing concern in Europe. Water allocation mechanisms are major levers to increase water resilience, however, little work has yet occurred on the topic at EU level. This report, prepared in cooperation with members of the ad-hoc technical group on Water Scarcity and Droughts of the EU Common Implementation Strategy (CIS) for the Water Framework Directive (WFD), reviews the literature and practice for water allocation mechanisms. It identifies key challenges in EU Member States and highlights examples of methods in place.

In this study published by the European Commission, a first assessment is made of the strategic decisions made by Member States for the use of EUR 307 billion in support of agriculture and rural areas between 2023 and 2027. It maps the choices made in the CAP Strategic Plans (CSP) approved in December 2022 and analyses the joint efforts and potential impacts of Member States’ choices in relation to the nine specific objectives and the cross-cutting objective, with a focus on selected Green Deal targets.

This report by the Ecologic Institute and the Oeko-Institut provides an overview of design options for the EU's 2040 climate target and options for the implementation framework. The report discusses reforms how to make the EU climate policy framework fit for achieving the 2040 climate target.

The agriculture and land sectors must mitigate greenhouse gas emissions for the EU to meet its climate targets. In a new report published by the European Commission's DG CLIMA, Ecologic Institute, IEEP, and Trinomics investigate how an emissions trading system (ETS) could price greenhouse gas emissions from agricultural activities, and how this can be accompanied by providing farmers and other landowners with financial incentives to carry out land-based carbon removals.

This report answers a selection of questions raised by participants of a series of nine online workshops organized on behalf of PtX Hub International by Ecologic Institute, in collaboration with Oeko-Institut and adelphi between March and September 2023. In each workshop, between 20 and 120 stakeholders from the following countries took part: Colombia, Uruguay and Chile, Namibia, South Africa, Kenya, Algeria, Jordan, India and Vietnam. The paper complements our previous briefing 'EU requirements for renewable hydrogen and its derivatives', which provides an in-depth systematic analysis of the contents of these two delegated acts.

This report summarises key findings and recommendations for a strategy to promote more plant-based diets. This strategy is key for a sustainable transformation of food systems as so far, there is a lack of binding policy targets for sustainable nutrition to guide actions, and indicators to enable monitoring. This report discusses different options for targets and indicators, drawing on the concept of planetary boundaries and the Planetary Health Diet.

This report elaborates the main challenges faced by water management institutions in implementing e-flows in EU Member States, presents country progress in developing relevant good practices and presents relevant implementation examples.

This report provides an independent, systematic analysis of the structures, activities, and impacts of Germany’s Energy, Climate, Development, and Raw Materials Partnerships (ECDRPs). A particular focus lies on the partnerships with countries of the Global South. Based on the analysis, the report provides recommendations for the development of Germany’s partnerships by answering the central question: How can Germany's ECDRPs be made as impactful as possible and more transformative for a resilient transition towards climate neutrality in Germany and its partner countries?

This briefing, co-authored by Raffaele Piria (Ecologic Institute), analyzes the contents of the two Commission Delegated Regulations (CDR, also known as delegated acts) adopted by the European Commission on 10 February 2023 and entered in force in June 2023: CDR 2023/1184 contains detailed rules on the conditions under which electricity used to produce hydrogen may be counted as fully renewable according to European Union (EU) law; CDR 2023/1185specifies a methodology to assess the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions savings from renewable fuels based on hydrogen (so-called renewable fuels of non-biological origin, RFNBOs) and for recycled carbon fuels (RCFs).

This report analyzes how innovative, sustainable infrastructure solutions can be successfully disseminated through specific mechanisms and under certain conditions. It emphasizes the importance of cooperative networks and suitable framework conditions for the dissemination of innovations at municipal and regional level.

National climate framework laws have become a common approach for establishing the governance machinery required to tackle the transition to a climate neutral society. This memo serves as a brief update on the status and substance of such laws in Europe as of summer 2023, with a focus on framework laws aimed at achieving long-term transformational change.

The complex interactions between nature, climate change, and mental health are being increasingly explored amid increasing environmental challenges facing society. This study explores these connections, focusing on (1) how mental health is affected by the effects of a changing climate in Europe, and (2) how green spaces and nature-based solutions can play a role in reducing and treating those negative effects. The research uncovers the transformative power of promoting a harmonious relationship with the natural world to nurture our collective ecological and social resilience.

The current evaluation of the Masterplan Municipality Guideline for the 2016 to 2019 funding period is now available. Within this funding period, 13.5 million euros were given to 22 municipalities to finance and implement master plans that would lead the municipalities to climate neutrality by 2050. As a result, the supported municipalities could achieve greenhouse gas savings amounting to 1.2 million tons over a period of 10 years.

The evaluation of the municipal networks for the period 2018 to 2021 is now published and available for download. 28 projects were funded with Euro 5.66 million, and municipalities contributed almost Euro 3.8 Mio. own revenue for the networking activities. Over the evaluation period, the networks contributed to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of 69.2 thousand tonnes of CO2.