Between 2005 and 2013, Brand was a member of the Committee on the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, where he served as the CDU/CSU parliamentary group's rapporteur on recycling and waste regulations.

In the negotiations to form a coalition government under the leadership of Chancellor Angela Merkel following the 2017 federal elections, Brand was part of the working group on foreign policy, led by Ursula von der Leyen, Gerd Müller and Sigmar Gabriel.

"[4] In 2015, a majority of the Bundestag voted in favor of banning assisted suicides performed by associations, on the basis of a proposal put forward by Brand and fellow parliamentarian Kerstin Griese of the Social Democratic Party (SPD).

The proposed bill submitted by Brand and Griese had called for "striking a balance" between punishing those who provide suicide assistance and complete deregulation of the process.

[6] In September 2020, Brand was one of 15 members of his parliamentary group who joined Norbert Röttgen in writing an open letter to Minister of the Interior Horst Seehofer which called on Germany and other EU counties to take in 5000 immigrants who were left without shelter after fires gutted the overcrowded Mória Reception and Identification Centre on the Greek island of Lesbos.