European consumption experts today called for a new research policy on sustainable food consumption. Facing recent food crises around the globe, European food research should set new priorities, advocated researchers and policy makers from all over Europe. More than 100 experts have jointly developed a “Research Agenda for Sustainable Food Consumption in Europe”, which sets the stage for pressing challenges to be addressed in coming years.

A guiding principle of product-related environmental protection is to promote those products on the market which are the best in ecological terms and the most efficient with regard to the consumption of energy and resources. The so-called “Top Runner” approach, developed in Japan, promotes the eco-design and dissimination of products. Although increasing energy and resource efficiency is considered extremely important for ecological modernisation, there has so far been no concept that specifies implementation of the Top Runner model in the EU and takes account of existing promotion instruments. A study conducted by Ökopol, the IÖW and the Leuphana University in Lüneburg and commissioned by the German Federal Environment Agency (UBA) now contributes towards closing this gap.

The future development of mobility faces fundamental environmental, social and economic challenges. To support the transition towards a more sustainable mobility system, the European consortium CORPUS has now launched a workshop series on mobility, which aims to enhance evidence-based policy-making in this domain.

The International Conference taking place on September 15th-16th 2011 in Freiburg aims to attract scientists from a wide variety of disciplines who share an interest in studying the change of the energy system to a system based on renewable energies. The conference is hosted by the EE-Regionen (Renewable Energy Regions) project in cooperation with the Centre for Renewable Energy (ZEE, University of Freiburg), the University of Hohenheim and the Institute for Ecological Economy Research (IÖW, Berlin).

An international consortium launched a project aiming to connect scientific evidence on sustainable production and consumption (SCP) with policy makers’ needs in decision making. Today, the web platform www.scp-knowledge.eu has been launched and, in addition to a series of “Policy meets research” workshops, the web platform will be the major tool for brokering relevant knowledge. The first workshop takes place in Vienna on 21-22 October 2010.

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.