Hanna Ahlström interned for 5 months in the Green Finance & Economic Analysis Unit of the European Commission's Directorate-General for Environment. During her internship, she made valuable contributions on several projects including researching member state policies on green finance, contributing to policy papers and briefings, and organizing meetings. Hanna also supported work on implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and mapping EU policies to its goals. She assisted with work on green public procurement as well, including drafting country analyses. Hanna demonstrated strong research, writing, and organizational skills during her productive internship.

1. EUROPEAN COMMISSION
DIRECTORATE-GENERAL
ENVIRONMENT
Directorate A - Policy
ENV.A.2 - Green Finance & Economic Analysis
Brussels, 26.07.2016
ENV A.2/MR/ka Ares(2016)
Letter of Recommendation
To whom it may concern
Hanna Ahlström worked as an intern in the Green Finance & Economic Analysis Unit
(ENV.A.2) - until 1 July: Resource Efficiency & Economic Analysis Unit (ENV.F.l) - of
DG Environment for 5 months between 1 March 2016 and 31 July 2016.
During her five months working with us, Hanna made valuable analytic contributions to a
number of the unit's files. She did this by making good use of her analytical and drafting
skills in drawing together information, distilling key messages and communicating them.
She proved able to co-ordinate the different work tasks expected of her and to work with
a mixture of colleagues from different backgrounds across DG Environment.
- Hanna's main tasks were related to green finance. Throughout her stage, she has
shown a keen interest in this topic and quickly accumulated knowledge and
absorbed information on greening financial systems and related topics. She
provided thorough research support on Member State policies on green finance
and on preparing a "Future Brief' publication on the topic of impact investment;
she contributed to policy papers on the topic as well as briefings and speeches for
high-ranking officials from DG ENV; she helped in organising external and
internal meetings, incl. a seminar on Financing the Circular Economy and events
related to Green Week 2016 (with the topic "Investing for a Greener Future"),
which included drafting minutes and reports. Furthermore Hanna made valuable
contributions to an ongoing DG ENV study on green bonds, by commenting on
draft reports and participating actively in progress meetings.
- Hanna contributed considerably to the DG's work on implementation of the 2030
Agenda for Sustainable Development, in particular related to mapping the
European Union's policies, legislation and actions against the SDGs and their
targets. Furthermore, she also prepared case studies on the Sustainable
Development Goals, in particular in areas of her specific competence such as
SDG 6 (water), SDG 12 (sustainable consumption and production) and SDG 15
(terrestrial ecosystems). Hanna demonstrated in-depth knowledge of the nature
and characteristics of the SDGs and, combined with her expertise on substance,
her work was a valuable asset to the unit and for formulating the DG's output.
- Hanna also made valuable contributions to the work on Green Public
Procurement (GPP). In particular, she: drafted the GPP sections in the country
analyses of the annual Environmental Implementation Review (EIR), stemming
Ref. Ares(2016)3952604 - 27/07/2016

2. from the recently adopted EIR communication; assessed and structured the
feedback received from Member States regarding current work on monitoring of
the EU Green Public Procurement target; she provided input to the ongoing study
on EU Criteria for Renewable Electricity; she supported the work relating to two
recently established Inter-service groups on GPP in the Commission’s own
procurement and in EU Funds, led by DG ENV. She also provided content for
the update ofthe GPP website.
- Finally, Hanna has been writing a report on Job creation in a Circular
Economy, focusing on sectoral development and skills. She also commented on
the analysis undertaken in a study on the macroeconomic modelling of resource
efficiency improvements.
In executing the above tasks, Hanna worked with a number of colleagues in the unit.
They all had a very positive view of her. She combined all of the attributes one would
hope for in a colleague: common sense, flexibility, ability to adapt to take on new tasks
and to re-arrange work according to priorities, ability to work with deadlines, reliability,
curiosity, enthusiasm, willingness to accept responsibility, easy inter-personal skills,
technical skills and an awareness of how specific issues link to an overall context. Her
output was well structured and to the point. She showed a strong interest in matters of
European integration and integrated well in a multicultural and multilingual environment.
Given all this, we are very happy to recommend her and wish her all the best for her
future career.
2