The Öko-Institut is a non-profit, private-sector environmental research institute with its head office in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

.

Originally emerging in 1977 from the anti-nuclear movement, today the institute employs around 120 staff members in offices in Freiburg, Darmstadt

Darmstadt

Darmstadt is a city in the Bundesland of Hesse in Germany, located in the southern part of the Rhine Main Area.The sandy soils in the Darmstadt area, ill-suited for agriculture in times before industrial fertilisation, prevented any larger settlement from developing, until the city became the seat...

 and Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

. It produces scientific studies and advises policymakers, environmental NGOs, institutions and companies. Some 100 projects, both national and international, are completed each year.

The institute’s thematic priorities are:

• Chemicals management and technology assessment
  Technology assessment
  Technology assessment Technology assessment Technology assessment (TA, German Tenteractive, and communicative process that aims to contribute to the formation of public and political opinion on societal aspects of science and technology.- General description :...
  
  
• Energy
  Energy
  In physics, energy is an indirectly observed quantity. It is often understood as the ability a physical system has to do work on other physical systems...
  
   and climate
  Climate
  Climate encompasses the statistics of temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, rainfall, atmospheric particle count and other meteorological elemental measurements in a given region over long periods...
  
  
• Emission
  Air pollution
  Air pollution is the introduction of chemicals, particulate matter, or biological materials that cause harm or discomfort to humans or other living organisms, or cause damage to the natural environment or built environment, into the atmosphere....
  
   and ambient pollution control, radiation protection
• Agriculture
  Agriculture
  Agriculture is the cultivation of animals, plants, fungi and other life forms for food, fiber, and other products used to sustain life. Agriculture was the key implement in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that nurtured the...
  
   and biodiversity
  Biodiversity
  Biodiversity is the degree of variation of life forms within a given ecosystem, biome, or an entire planet. Biodiversity is a measure of the health of ecosystems. Biodiversity is in part a function of climate. In terrestrial habitats, tropical regions are typically rich whereas polar regions...
  
  
• Sustainable consumption
  Sustainable consumption
  Main articles: Sustainability, Sustainable livingDefinitions of sustainable consumption share a number of common features, and to an extent build in the characteristics of sustainable production, its twin sister concept and inherit much of from the idea of sustainable development:* Quality of...
  
  
• Nuclear engineering
  Nuclear engineering
  Nuclear engineering is the branch of engineering concerned with the application of the breakdown as well as the fusion of atomic nuclei and/or the application of other sub-atomic physics, based on the principles of nuclear physics...
  
   and facility safety
• Law
  Law
  Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
  
  , policy
  Policy
  A policy is typically described as a principle or rule to guide decisions and achieve rational outcome. The term is not normally used to denote what is actually done, this is normally referred to as either procedure or protocol...
  
   and governance
  Governance
  Governance is the act of governing. It relates to decisions that define expectations, grant power, or verify performance. It consists of either a separate process or part of management or leadership processes...
  
  

The institute is constituted as a registered association with around 3,000 members, of which almost 40 are local authorities. It finances its work primarily by acquiring third-party funding for its projects. This is complemented by membership fees and donations. Annual revenue is 8.5 million euros. The Öko-Institut has published an e-paper named eco@work since summer 2006.

The institute is a founding member of the EnergieVision association, which awards the ok-power label for green electricity products. It also launched the EcoTopTen consumer information campaign – the EcoTopTen web portal provides product recommendations for sustainable consumption.

External links

• http://www.oeko.de
• http://www.ok-power.de
• http://www.ecotopten.de