Who we are

The COBENEFITS project is part of the Inter­na­tion­al Cli­mate Ini­tia­tive (IKI)
The Fed­er­al Min­istry for the Envi­ron­ment, Nature Con­ser­va­tion, Nuclear Safe­ty and Con­sumer Pro­tec­tion (BMUV) sup­ports this ini­tia­tive on the basis of a deci­sion adopt­ed by the Ger­man Bun­destag. The project is con­duct­ed in close col­lab­o­ra­tion with gov­ern­ment min­istries, agen­cies, research insti­tu­tions, and think tanks as polit­i­cal part­ners and knowl­edge part­ners in the tar­get countries.
The organ­i­sa­tion­al con­sor­tium con­sists of Insti­tute for Advanced Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Stud­ies e. V. (IASS, lead), Renew­ables Acad­e­my AG (RENAC), the Inde­pen­dent Insti­tute for Envi­ron­men­tal Issues (UfU), and Inter­na­tion­al Ener­gy Tran­si­tion (IET).

See where we work

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Fund­ed by the min­istries of research of the Fed­er­al Repub­lic of Ger­many and the State of Bran­den­burg, the Insti­tute for Advanced Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Stud­ies (IASS) aims to iden­ti­fy and pro­mote devel­op­ment path­ways for a glob­al trans­for­ma­tion towards a sus­tain­able soci­ety. The IASS employs a trans­dis­ci­pli­nary approach that encour­ages dia­logue to under­stand sus­tain­abil­i­ty issues and gen­er­ate poten­tial solu­tions in coop­er­a­tion with part­ners from the sci­ences, pol­i­tics, the econ­o­my, and civ­il soci­ety. A strong net­work of nation­al and inter­na­tion­al part­ners sup­ports the work of the insti­tute. Its cen­tral research top­ics include the ener­gy tran­si­tion, emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies, cli­mate change, ocean gov­er­nance, air qual­i­ty, sys­temic risks, gov­er­nance and par­tic­i­pa­tion, and cul­tures of transformation.

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The Renew­ables Acad­e­my AG (RENAC) is a lead­ing Berlin-based inter­na­tion­al provider for train­ing and capac­i­ty build­ing on renew­able ener­gy and ener­gy effi­cien­cy. Since its found­ing in 2008, more than 8,000 par­tic­i­pants from 147 coun­tries have par­tic­i­pat­ed in train­ing pro­grammes. RENAC’s belief is that knowl­edge is one of the key fac­tors for the sus­tain­able devel­op­ment of clean and secure ener­gy sup­plies. Through train­ing and capac­i­ty build­ing, it aims at prop­a­gat­ing the nec­es­sary know-how to sat­is­fy the increas­ing demand for exper­tise through­out the indus­try, finan­cial insti­tu­tions and pol­i­cy-set­ting bod­ies in the green mar­kets. Its work­shops and cours­es cov­er the whole val­ue chain of renew­able ener­gy tech­nolo­gies and ener­gy effi­cien­cy mea­sures. RENAC cov­ers top­ics and skills need­ed for financ­ing, man­ag­ing, engi­neer­ing, assess­ing, imple­ment­ing, design­ing, and main­tain­ing alter­na­tive ener­gy sys­tems. It pro­vides its clients with an under­stand­ing of the issues and chal­lenges, as well as the skills to imple­ment renew­able ener­gy projects on and off the elec­tric­i­ty grid.

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The Inde­pen­dent Insti­tute for Envi­ron­men­tal Issues (UfU e.V.) is both a sci­en­tif­ic and offi­cial­ly rec­og­nized non-gov­ern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tion that con­sists of depart­ments on ener­gy effi­cien­cy and ener­gy tran­si­tion, cli­mate pro­tec­tion and trans­for­ma­tive edu­ca­tion, envi­ron­men­tal law and par­tic­i­pa­tion, as well as nature pro­tec­tion and envi­ron­men­tal com­mu­ni­ca­tion. UfU is main­ly work­ing on research assign­ments and mod­el projects financed by fed­er­al min­istries, fed­er­al states and munic­i­pal­i­ties as well as foun­da­tions. In addi­tion to its sci­en­tif­ic activ­i­ties, the insti­tute ini­ti­ates and engages in local and inter­na­tion­al projects and net­works. Approx­i­mate­ly 30 employ­ees cur­rent­ly work at UfU. The main office of the insti­tute is in Berlin with a branch in Halle/Saale.

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The Inter­na­tion­al Ener­gy Tran­si­tion GmbH (IET) is a Berlin-based con­sult­ing firm pro­vid­ing advi­so­ry ser­vices on the tran­si­tion of ener­gy sys­tems towards high shares of renew­ables and increas­ing ener­gy effi­cien­cy. We pro­vide lead­ing-edge research solu­tions to min­istries, reg­u­la­tors, inter­na­tion­al organ­i­sa­tions and pri­vate sec­tor clients. Our con­sult­ing ser­vices include capac­i­ty build­ing for deci­sion mak­ers, research and advice on inno­v­a­tive pol­i­cy design and inter­na­tion­al mar­ket analy­ses. IET also pro­vides on-call exper­tise on clean ener­gy poli­cies to gov­ern­ments and reg­u­la­tors around the world through the Clean Ener­gy Solu­tions Center.