With around 75% of EU population living in urban areas, cites will play a key role in curbing greenhouse gas emissions, reducing vulnerability to impacts of climate change and building resilience. Multifunctional nature-based solutions can be a powerful tool to jointly address climate change mitigation and adaptation in urban areas. A number of innovative pilot projects introduced in Berlin in the last 20 years were able to demonstrate in practice how cities can save energy, cool down buildings, reduce urban heat island effect and sequester and store carbon by working with natural climate solutions.

On October 12th and 13th the 2020 European Sustainable Development Network (ESDN) Annual Conference took place. Together with prominent speakers like Angela Merkel and Achim Steiner participants discussed the transformative potential of the EU Green Deal. Stephanie Wunder, Senior Fellow at the Ecologic Institute presented what steps are needed next to implement the Green Deals’ Farm to Fork Strategy. The presentation is available for download.

On 25 September 2020, Dr. Stephan Sina, Senior Fellow at Ecologic Institute, participated as an expert in a hearing of the Bavarian State Parliament’s Committee for Environment and Consumer Protection on the draft of a Bavarian Climate Change Act. Together with nine other experts, he commented on the draft law and answered questions from members of parliament.

On 22 September 2020 the 10th Day of the Food Industry in Brandenburg took place. For the first time through an online format, the food industry of the Berlin/Brandenburg metropolitan area discussed future paths for the development of the food industry in 2030. Stephanie Wunder from Ecologic Institute held the keynote speech. The video recording of the event is available online.

On 2 July 2020, Dr. Martin Hirschnitz-Garbers and Dr. Stephan Sina from Ecologic Institute, together with Susanne Altvater from s.Pro, gave a keynote presentation "Reflections on extended producer responsibility under the EU Single-Use Plastics Directive" at the working group "Implementation of the EU Single-Use Plastics Directive" and discussed it with the participants

With more than 1500 participants in the live stream and via YouTube, the online webinar "Saving the climate with knife and fork? How our eating habits affect the environment" on 18 May 2020 was a complete success. Together, Tanja Dräger de Teran (WWF) and Stephanie Wunder (Ecologic Institute), highlighted the links between daily nutritional routines and their impact on climate, land use and health.

In order to overcome the negative effects of conventional meat consumption, many alternatives are emerging that could offer solutions. But is that really the case? In the webinar "The future of meat: from trend analysis to policy action" Stephanie Wunder, Senior Fellow at the Ecologic Institute and Sylvia Veenhoff from the German Federal Environment Agency (UBA) presented and discussed the results of a trend study commissioned by the UBA describing three core trends: artificial meat, plant-based meat and insect food.

The Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB) and the Àerea Metropolitanade Barcelona (AMB) invited Doris Knoblauch from Ecologic Institute to speak at the workshop "Metropolitan Challenges in the post 2020 European Union" in Barcelona (Spain), on 10 March 2020. In her presentation, the expert discussed the substantive and organisational importance of the European Green Deal for cities and metropolitan areas.

In the webinar series "Why do we need a climate law?" Matthias Duwe, Head Climate at Ecologic Institute, presented three key elements of a sound climate law: (1) the coordination of long-term planning and short-term policy, (2) monitoring progress, and (3) mechanisms for coordinating sectoral policies. In particular, he focused on the Slovenian climate law and showed how to adopt the European lessons learned within the Slovenian context.

On 22 February 2020, Benedict Bueb of Ecologic Institute was invited to speak on Environmental Inequality at the International Alumni Center (iac) of the Robert Bosch Stiftung. During the workshop "Inequality: From grassroots to policy-making" he presented different perspectives on the topic. He highlighted that not only the social effects of environmental changes and environmental policy decisions, but also access to environmental policy decision-making are often very unequally distributed.

The concept of climate services is rapidly climbing research-funding agendas word-wide. Initially climate services focused on improving access to climate data but have since evolved into user informed activities. Still, there is a long way to go to make climate services not only usable but also useful for regional and local decision maker. Paying attention to this matter, the sixth International Climate Service Conference in Pune, India focused among others on the architecture of user participation, contextualization of climate services and ethical question on its provision. Dr. Grit Martinez of Ecologic Institute presented the Institute's recent research results from the European research project Innovation in Climate Service Provision.

On 2 December 2019, Doris Knoblauch and Dr. Stephan Sina, Senior Fellows at Ecologic Institute, held a presentation on "Tackling Plastic Pollution – Introduction to Global Plastic Pollution and the Discussions at the International Level" for 21 experts from ministries, authorities, local government, and non-governmental institutions of low-income countries, including newly industrialized economies.

With future climate neutrality in view green activists from Berlin's city districts discussed local climate action at the "#FromVisionToAction!" conference. In her introductory keynote, Dr. Camilla Bausch elaborated on the current global political trends as well as the meaning of "climate neutrality", and discussed options for local action in the subsequent panel discussion with Regine Günther (Berlin Senator), Sascha Müller-Kraenner (DUH), and Clara Herrmann (District Councilor).

On 20 November 2019, Doris Knoblauch of Ecologic Institute was invited as an expert to a hearing on "Climate Protection in the Pankow District" at the Pankow District Assembly in Berlin. The expert's presentation dealt with possible climate protection measures in terms of content (e.g. how the change in mobility or nutrition can succeed), but focused on organisational aspects, such as how climate protection can be anchored as a cross-sectional task in the district administration and within the population.

On 10 and 11 October 2019, experts from the Korean Environmental Ministry, Korean Environmental Industry & Technology Institute, Korean Institute of Analytical Science and Technology and the University of Seoul visited the Umweltbundesamt (UBA) and the Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung (BAM) in Berlin. Together with colleagues from BAM, UBA and Ecologic Institute they presented and discussed current developments in research in Germany and Korea on micropollutants and plastic in the environment, especially in water and food. Ulf Stein from Ecologic Institute and deputy coordinator of the four-year project PlastikNet, which is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) presented on research activities of the research focus 'Plastics in the environment' in Germany.