The bar is set high for a future-proof structural and regional policy. On behalf of the Federal Environment Agency, FiFo Köln, together with Difu and the Öko-Institut, is investigating the extent to which support programmes within the Pan-German Funding System (GFS) are already striving for an ecologically sustainable, forward-looking and transformation-oriented structural policy. Fourteen programmes were analysed, including the Joint Task ‘Improvement of the Regional Economic Structure’ (GRW). The comprehensive interim report, which has now been published, provides the centrepiece of the empirical analysis. The results show that, whilst relevant approaches do exist, they are often not implemented systematically.