Independent institute for environmental issues

Independent Institute for Environmental Issues V. ; (UfU)
purpose	environmental policy coordination and lobbying
Chair:	Michael Zschiesche
Establishment date:	March 10, 1990
Seat :	Berlin
Website:	www.ufu.de

The Independent Institute for Environmental Issues (UfU) is a non-profit German think tank in the socio-ecological spectrum and both an applied scientific institution and an organization with strong practical relevance. The institute's slogan - environmental science close to the citizen - was coined by East German environmental scientists as early as 1990 and is still valid today. The UfU is one of the institutions that brought about significant changes in environmental protection during the fall of the GDR .

Today, the UfU with its more than 30 employees initiates a large number of applied scientific projects, campaigns and networks that are publicly and socially relevant, push for changes to ecologically unsustainable conditions and require and promote the participation of citizens . Profile-giving are public participation and access to justice as well as transformative education.

The institute is divided into four specialist areas: nature conservation & environmental communication , participation & environmental law , transformative education & climate protection, and energy efficiency & energy transition . UfU is a member of the Ecological Research Network (Ecornet) , an association of leading environmental research institutions in Germany. UfU is based in Berlin, has a branch in Halle / Saale and a project office in Hanoi / Vietnam. Sales in 2017 were EUR 2.04 million.

The institute has been recognized as non-profit by the Berlin tax office since 1990. The association work is member-oriented. 180 members currently support the work of the institute with their voluntary work and with their monetary contributions.

The range of institutes includes more than 40 projects in Germany and abroad every year. Institute results are published in the form of studies and reports, model projects - increasingly also using social media - as well as in magazines and beyond. The institute publishes a report in German and English every two years, which can be downloaded from the website. In addition to Germany, UfU has been active in Eastern Europe (Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Croatia, Moldova) and has also been active in Vietnam since 1998.

UfU employees have published more than 70 books, brochures and guidelines as well as numerous studies and reports, including several children's books on environmental prevention .

History and structure

The institute was founded in March 1990 in Berlin by over 200 East German environmental scientists. The decisive impetus for this step was the concern to analyze and promote the development of environmental policy in East Germany in a close and timely manner.

To this day, the combination of the environmental and democratic approach has been the model for numerous scientific projects and activities. In addition to the connection between climate protection and education , the association has set priorities in the area of participation and environmental protection . Since 2009, the UfU's profile has been significantly strengthened through projects in the field of resource protection and invasive species . Social science projects on the subjects of environmental communication, climate protection, participation, development of civil society, evaluation projects and legal empirical research projects have made the UfU a sought-after institution in Germany and beyond.

UfU works on around 40 projects every year. The financing is mainly secured via third-party funded projects and project financing. The turnover in 2016 was 1.84 million euros. The institute publishes a magazine ( UfU topics and information , appears twice a year). A scientific advisory board advises the UfU on its research strategy. The twenty-strong advisory board includes political scientist Udo E. Simonis , climate researcher Hartmut Grassl and American environmental lawyer John Bonine.

Incentive system to save energy under the title fifty-fifty and projects in the field of transformative education

The UfU first launched an initiative to save energy in schools in 1995 . With fifty / fifty schools are motivated to save energy in everyday school life by changing their user behavior.

In the original fifty / fifty model, the schools involved in the project waved money at the end of each school year: half of the energy costs saved were then paid out directly to the schools involved by the school authority . Based on this idea, a number of energy saving projects with different incentive models were developed. Today, fifty / fifty stands as a brand name for all forms of energy-saving projects with a financial incentive system, which are mostly implemented in the form of bonus models. Apart from the financial incentive, the participating institutions make an active contribution to the energy transition and promote an education with awareness of the environment and climate protection.

The UfU now carries out numerous projects on the subject of energy saving in Germany, but also across Europe, in schools, daycare centers and after-school care centers. Various incentive and bonus models are used here. Educational bonus models are increasingly being chosen by the school authorities. This means that practical application and commitment in the schools play an important role in determining the premium.

In addition, various educational materials are being developed on related topics such as renewable energies and climate protection. Evaluation projects on questions of the effectiveness of educational projects have rounded off the activities in the educational sector in recent years.

Projects for public participation and implementation of the Aarhus Convention in Germany

Since its foundation, the institute has dedicated itself to the topic of participation and environmental protection. Brochures and guides as well as studies, conferences and seminars are offered in both formal and informal public participation in environmental protection. With the internet portal aarhus-konvention.de, the UfU operates the best-known information platform on the subject of implementing the Aarhus Convention in Germany. In 2009, the Internet portal umweltinformationsrecht.de was set up for the exercise of environmental information rights , which specifically supports the use of environmental information rights in Germany. Since the mid-1990s, the institute has been the first port of call for empirical research on representative actions in environmental protection. Numerous studies have, for example, refuted the claim that in Germany the recognized environmental associations are placing too much stress on the courts through collective actions. In 2018, the latest study for the period 2013 to 2016 was published for the German Advisory Council on the Environment .