This issue of «Ökologisches Wirtschaften» focuses on a specific group of actors addressing societal change: So called "Social Entrepreneurs" work on pressing societal problems with the help of entrepreneurial means. Innovative and systemic approaches shall contribute to achieving social and ecological goals – making financial viability possible at the same time.

A long-established German corporate group and a pioneer of the environmental sector have been distinguished as the best reporters in an evaluation of over one hundred German corporate sustainability reports carried out by the Berlin based Institute for Ecological Economy Research and the business initiative “Future”. On November 23 the winners were awarded by the Federal Minister for Labour and Social Affairs Franz Josef Jung and Volker Hauff, the Chairman of the German Council for Sustainable Development (RNE) at RNE’s annual conference in Berlin.

BMBF-brochure covers contributions from social-ecological research to climate protection / Several IÖW-Projects documented

Political decisions more frequently based on systematic Impact Assessments / Experts recommend coordinated improvement and implementation of evaluation methods

The SCOPE2 project (Sustainable Consumption Policy Effectiveness Evaluation), by TNO, Lund University/IIIEE & SERI and the ASCEE project (Assessing the potential of various instruments for sustainable consumption practices and greening of the market), executed by IÖW, IES & SIFO, presented their findings in an interactive dissemination event on: Tuesday 26 May 2009, Brussels, 10.00 am to 16.30 pm.

programme (PDF 217 KB)

The conference would like to add to the understanding of sustainability evaluation by especially addressing the following questions:
• What is sustainability evaluation’s contribution to policy development
and implementation?
• How should sustainability evaluations be designed to affect political
decision-making?
• How can one strengthen sustainability goals and impacts in policy evaluation
and assessment?
• How can the quality of sustainability evaluations be improved?

The conference is organised by IOEW and Ecologic. It is part of the EPOS project (Evaluating Policies for Sustainable Development).

to the website of the conference

With the theme of "governance in river basins", this book looks at approaches to the management of complex natural resources. It focuses on the analysis of regulatory approaches to complex natural systems and on the opportunities for and limitations on putting integrated policy approaches into practice. The book also examines the demands on discipline-related research approaches with regard to integration and interdisciplinarity, with a special focus on the role of economics.

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