The report provides an overview of environmentally harmful subsidies in Germany and makes proposals for their reform or reduction. It focuses on subsidies that have a negative impact on the environmental goods climate, air, soil, water, biodiversity and landscape, as well as on health and the...

What relevance does economic growth have for achieving environmental policy goals? The report analyzes the arguments of various positions in this discourse and formulates an ideal-type "precautionary post-growth position". It also presents causes of economic growth and identifies social areas...

To date, processes to implement the global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and international climate change mitigation and adaptation obligations are largely disconnected in most countries. This creates administrative overlaps, costs and hampers the development of effective problem...

This report assesses options for the effective implementation of sustainable development impact assessment, in the context of climate change mitigation mechanisms such as those of Article 6 of the Paris Agreement. Existing carbon crediting programmes were analysed to draw insights on the best...

This report analyses the interaction of the pilot Emissions Trading System (ETS) and the electricity market in Mexico. It does so along two main questions: a) How do ETS design features affect the environmental effectiveness of the system and the quality of the carbon price signal? b) How do...

This report analyses the influence of the design features of China’s pilot emissions trading systems (ETS) in the Province of Hubei and the Municipal City of Shenzhen and the development of the electricity markets on the quality of the carbon price signal. Based on publicly available data and...

As part of the general producer responsibility regulated by the German Circular Economy Act, there are special legal regulations for the collection and environmentally sound disposal of certain waste streams (e.g. for packaging, batteries, waste electrical and electronic equipment, end-of-life...

The European Commission’s draft of the new Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) is intended to extend European sustainability reporting standards to cover all companies falling under the scope of the directive. Based on a comprehensive evaluation of non-financial statements of...

In addition to carbon dioxide, air traffic operation affects the climate through other emissions and atmospheric processes, such as the formation of ozone and contrail cirrus. The climate impact of these non-CO2 effects is strongly dependent on the emission location (in particular cruise...