<p>&#13; The concept of disproportionate cost is one of the key economic elements of the EC Water Framework Directive. The practical implementation of this concept by the Member States offers a range of possible interpretations that are more or less in line with environmental economic theory. In a contribution to the envecon 2007 Applied Environmental Economics conference in London, Benjamin Görlach and Britta Pielen provided an introduction to the concept, its role in the Water Framework Directive, and provided an overview of the current discussion in some EU Member States.</p>&#13;

<p> Over the coming years, a trillion dollars worth of investment in water and sanitation infrastructure is needed in the United States of America.&nbsp; It is not clear how such investment can be financed, and those responsible in the USA are looking for institutional and organisational solutions.&nbsp; To this end, the US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) and other held a conference on &quot;Paying for Sustainable Water Infrastructure&quot; in Atlanta, Georgia, on 21-23 March 2007.&nbsp; R. Andreas Kraemer presented the municipal structures for water supply and sewerage in Germany.</p>

<p>&#13; The concept of sustainable development has gained tremendous popularity since Rio but is still challenging to consider in everyday political practice. The Parliamentary Advisory Council on Sustainable Development, in its opinion on the 2004 progress report on the National Sustainability Strategy of the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany, thus asked for an instrument to assess legislation on its sustainability. On 28 February 2007 the Parliamentary Advisory Council on Sustainable Development held a public hearing on the Sustainability Impact Assessment instrument, which aimed at discussing existing concepts for Sustainability Impact Assessments as well as their integration in parliamentary procedures.</p>&#13;

<p>&#13; Sustainable energy and climate change policy with respect to biofuels has become more and more important. In addition to offering a noteworthy alternative to fossil fuels, they also offer carbon reduction potential. However, increasing use of biofuels has led to new challenges in the field of economy, nature protection and social acceptance. Due to these new challenges, one important step is to develop a certification system for biofuels based on criteria of sustainability. Stephanie Schlegel, a Fellow at Ecologic Insitute, presented experiences with the FSC Forest Certification at the workshop ”Sustainable biofuels – How to certify?“, organised by Econsense.</p>&#13;

While Germany has introduced a comprehensive ecological tax reform (ETR) in 1999, Poland has taken only first steps into this direction. In order to intensify the exchange between German and Polish experts from politics, research and NGOs, the Polish Ministry of the Environment together with the German Ministry of the Environment organised a workshop in Warsaw during which the design of the German ecological tax reform and its implications were discussed. Helen Lückge, Fellow at Ecologic, presented the economic implications of the German ETR.

The second transnational conference of the WaterCost project as part of the Intereg North Sea Region focused on the issue of cost-effectiveness analysis and how it to apply it to groundwater and water supply issues. Benjamin Görlach gave a presentation on the role of cost- benefit considerations in the implementation process of the Water Framework Directive. He concluded that since there is only patchy data on costs and benefits, and elaborated on the role of the AquaMoney project in addressing this gap.

How can the effectiveness of environmental policies be assessed in retrospect? Have the stated targets of environmental policies been achieved, and if so, was it because of the policies or because of other factors? Have targets been achieved at proportionate costs, or could there have been cheaper options of reaching them? These and other questions on ex-post policy evaluation were discussed at an expert workshop convened by the European Environment Agency and the Environment Agencies of Denmark, the Netherlands and the UK. Benjamin Görlach gave an introduction to cost-effectiveness analysis as an evaluation tool, and presented experiences with ex-post cost-effectiveness analyses of environmental policies in Europe.

The seminar on "Energy and Climate Policy for the Future" served to identify the regulatory framework and conditions of energy supply and energy policy that the industry requires, and to discuss the interaction between energy policy and climate protection. R. Andreas Kraemer of Ecologic Institute was invited to set the tone for the seminar with an opening dinner lecture, and to add reflections on energy supply security and the security policy implications of energy policy in the European neighbour states.

The environment is a cross-cutting theme in the European funding policies. Which are the environmental and agricultural funding opportunities for 2007-2013, and what are the consequences for landscape change and sustainable development? Rainer Müssner in collaboration with Katrina Marsden gave a presentation focusing on these issues at the 14th International Symposium on Problems of Landscape – Ecological Research.

The IPDEV research project partners met in London at the two-day workshop "Intellectual Property Rights and Sustainable Development". Together with a high level group of experts and stakeholders, the project results and policy recommendations were discussed. Stephanie Schlegel from Ecologic Institute presented the findings on "Geographical Indications and their contribution to environmental quality and linkages to social & cultural issues". Her presentation is available for download. Benjamin Görlach and Dora Schaffrin spoke about the international Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture.

The Free University of Berlin organised a conference on behalf of The Permanent European conference for the study of the rural landscape (PECSRL) from 4 until 9 September 2006, focusing on the theme: European rural future: Landscape as an Interface. Rainer Müssner from Ecologic gave a presentation about the importance of landscape issues in public policies. This presentation focused on the following key questions: Is "landscape" a priority issue on the national / European policy agenda?, do we have a coherent "landscape policy"? and what can be done to increase the political "weight" of landscape issues?

There are obvious successes in Transboundary Water Management. How can the Landscape sector profit from these experiences, considering there exists an insufficient level of co-operation between states? Rainer Müssner in collaboration with Eduard Interwies gave a presentation focusing on these issues at the 22nd conference of The Permanent European Conference for the Study of the Rural Landscape.

The Università Luigi Bocconi organised a conference on behalf of the Milan municipality to analyse Milan's wastewater treatment system as regards sustainability issues, organisational models and future challenges. The conference took place on 4 May 2006. Researchers from around Europe presented five case studies on European experience with wastewater management in urban areas. Ecologic Fellow Nadine Herbke presented the results of the Berlin and Emscher case studies.

On behalf of the European Commission, DG Environment, Ecologic Fellow Thomas Dworak participated in a workshop on the WFD and Agriculture and gave a presentation on EU agricultural policies and water management. The workshop was held in Malinska, Croatia on 25 and 26 April 2006 and organised by the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River (ICPDR) together with the UNDP-GEF Danube Regional Project.