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Laila Berning-en

 

 Laila      
      

Laila Berning

M.Sc. Environmental Governance
 
Professur für Forst- und Umweltpolitik
Tennenbacher Str. 4
D - 79106 Freiburg i. Br.
Room 
 
Telefon: (0761) 47661251
Telefax: (0761) 203 - 3705
 

 

Laila Berning is a research associate, Ph.D. researcher, and lecturer at the Chair of Forest and Environmental Policy. She holds an M.Sc. in Environmental Governance and a B.Sc. in Environmental Sciences from the University of Freiburg. Laila researches the development and influences of international forest-related policy and governance mechanisms. Her research focuses particularly on analyzing transnational supply chain regulatory governance mechanisms in the forest and agricultural sector, telecoupling the EU and tropical producer countries like Indonesia and Brazil. Currently, she is researching policies regulating legal and sustainable forest and ecosystem risk biomass supply chains across demand (i.e., EU) and supply-side jurisdictions (i.e., Brazil) as part of CLEVER, an EU HORIZON research project.

Laila also lectures at the Chair of Finance, Controlling & Entrepreneurship on sustainable entrepreneurship. Her previous work as a social impact entrepreneur has received international recognition; awards include being a 2019 UN Young Champion of the Earth Finalist, a 2018 UN Hult Prize Global Finalist, and receiving the “Top 3 Next Economy Award”. Laila consults startups on challenges related to partnership development, project management, financial strategies, and integrating sustainability strategies into their business development.

 

Research interests 

  • International Forest Policy and Governance

  • EU and transnational trade policy analyses

    • EU FLEGT Action Plan (EUTR, EU FLEGT Regulation, FLEGT VPAs)

    • Newly emerging deforestation policies to regulate forest-risk agricultural commodity supply chains in the EU (EU Deforestation Regulation), UK (new due diligence provisions under the UK Environment Act) and US (US FOREST Act of 2021)

  • Sustainable trade, markets and value chains

  • Policy change and stability

  • Environmental governance & leadership 

  • Corporate accountability & sustainability


Research projects  

11/2022 – 12/2024: CLEVER - Creating leverage to enhance biodiversity outcomes of global biomass trade”. CLEVER is a transdisciplinary EU 2021 HORIZON research project. In addition to the University of Bonn, which is coordinating the project, eleven other partners from Germany, Austria, the United Kingdom, Spain, Finland, Sweden, Cameroon and Brazil are involved. EU Commission (DG Research and Innovation), Horizon Europe (HORIZON-CL6-2021-BIODIV-01-15 Call).

 
Policy support and policy consultancy projects  
 
03/2022 – 10/2022: Policy support study on Forest Law Enforcement, Governance, and Trade (FLEGT) implementation in Europe and Indonesia, and the implications of timber legality and deforestation policy changes in the EU, UK, USA and China. This research project was funded by the Forest, Markets and Climate Governance (FGMC) programme of the UK Government Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), co-funded by the Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia in Germany.

 
Professional experience 

  • Since 05/2021

Lecturer at Chair for Finance, Controlling and Entrepreneurship, University of Freiburg, Germany in the M.Sc. Module "Sustainable Entrepreneurship"

  • Since 05/2020

Research associate, P.hD. researcher and lecturer at the Chair of Forest and Environmental Policy at the University of Freiburg: Global forest and agricultural supply chain regulatory governance research, lecturer in the M.Sc. Module "Environmental Policy Analysis" & B.Sc. Module "International Politics and Markets". 

  • Since 12/2017 
CEO & Co-founder at the Safe Surgery Social Enterprise Noor Medical: Development of low-tech solutions to safely sterilize medical instruments in off-grid clinics in low and middle-income countries.
 
  • 12/2017 - 04/2020
Scientific assistant at the Chair of Environmental Governance at the University of Freiburg: Project assistant at KERNiG, a research project on sustainable municipal food systems
 
  • 09/2017 - 10/2017
Research assistant at Bioversity International in Turrialba, Costa Rica: Hurricane research - analysis of damage and loss data after hurricane Otto 
 
  • 08/2016
Project assistant at the National park house Wadden Sea (Nationalpark-Haus Baltrum) in Lower Saxony, Germany: Environmental education; composition of new educational tours on the topics of neobiota, geomorphology and pedogenesis
 
  • 07/2016
Research assistant and data analysis consultant at the office for ecological surveys of swamps (Büro für ökologische Gutachten/Moorkunde) in Kandern, Germany
 
  • 09/2015 - 10/2015
Research assistant at Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: Cartography and modelling of inundations in Rio de Janeiro with ArcGIS
 
 
Peer-reviewed publications
 
  • Berning, L., & Sotirov, M. (2024). The coalitional politics of the European Union Regulation on deforestation-free products. Forest Policy and Economics 158, 103102. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2023.103102 
  • Berning, L., & Sotirov, M. (2023). Hardening corporate accountability in commodity supply chains under the European Union Deforestation Regulation. Regulation & Governance 17(4), 870-890. https://doi.org/10.111.rego.12540

  • Sotirov, M., Azevedo-Ramos, C., Rattis, L., & Berning, L. (2022). Policy options to regulate timber and agricultural supply-chains for legality and sustainability: The case of the EU and Brazil. Forest Policy and Economics 144, 102818. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2022.102818

 

Policy support and policy consultancy projects 

 

  • Berning, L., Ferraz Ziegert, R., Cramm, M., & Sotirov, M. (2023). Map of public and private policies and governance mechanisms. Final report. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8328016
  • Berning, L., Ferraz Ziegert, R., Cramm, M., & Sotirov, M. (2023). Map of public and private policies and governance mechanisms. [Data set]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8326909
  • Berning, L., Sotirov, M., Eckelmann, J., Maryudi, A., Pratama, A., Laraswati, D. (2022). Forest Law Enforcement, Governance, and Trade (FLEGT) implementation in Europe and Indonesia, and the implications of timber legality and deforestation policy changes in the EU, UK, USA and China. Final study report. University of Freiburg, Germany, and Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7333997 
  • Sotirov, M., Berning, L., Eckelmann, J., Maryudi A., Pratama, A., Laraswati, D., (2022). Forest Law Enforcement, Governance, and Trade (FLEGT) implementation in Europe and Indonesia, and the implications of timber legality and deforestation policy changes in the EU, UK, USA and China. A Policy Brief. University of Freiburg, Germany, and Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7322940 

 

 

Education
 
  • 09/2016 - 10/ 2019
The University of Freiburg: M.Sc. Environmental Governance 
 
  • 09/2014 - 07/2015
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Spain: Environmental Engineering (ERASMUS+)
 
  • 10/2012 - 09/2016
The University of Freiburg: B.Sc. Environmental Sciences
 
 
Awards
 
  • 2020 BW goes mobile prize winner in the category “sustainability”
  • 2019 Top 3 Next Economy Award
  • UAE Expo Live Programme, Social Impact Grant Recipient 
  • 2019 Fraunhofer FEP TechBridge Award
  • 2019 UN Young Champion of the Earth Finalist
  • 2018 Global UN Hult Prize Finalist
  • 2017 CampusWELTbewerb Prize winner 

 

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