ISTP News

Whether voluntary environmental action pays off for both business and the environment has been a subject of academic and policy debate for many decades. A recent study by CIS & ISTP PhD Student Dennis Kolcava, ETH Prof. Thomas Bernauer, and NMBU & UZH Prof. Joachim Scholderer reveals that citizens are more willing to reward firms with public procurement contracts, tax breaks and lenient regulatory enforcement when these firms engage in ambitious voluntary environmental action.

A number of conditions must be met in order for utilization-focused policy advice to become a reality on a wider scale. Researchers from various institutes, including ISTP Member Prof. David Kaufmann, propose a six-point checklist for developing effective policy advice. They argue that in addition to invest in science communication for the general public and politicians, a specific form of policy advice, that is, policy-prescriptive evidence-based information, should become available. 

After his talk in Vienna, the ISTP Director Thomas Bernauer was featured in an article by the Austrian public broadcasting company (ORF). His talk was around the 'water war' hypothesis, which is pretty prominent because of climate change. However, Thomas' research shows that water conflicts rather lead to cooperation between states.

The paper is co-authored by the Energy Politics Group’s (EPG) Martin Beuse, EPG's & ISTP's associate member Tobias Schmidt, as well as Prof. Vanessa Wood from ETH’s Electrical Engineering department.

Dr. Stéphanie Engels, Head of Corporate Development at Elektrizitätswerk der Stadt Zürich (ewz) visited the ISTP yesterday and spoke about opportunities in the challenging energy market.