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Europe in transition : paving the way to a green economy through eco-innovation ; annual report 2012 (2013)

Meghan O'Brien Raimund Bleischwitz Sören Steger Susanne Fischer Michal Miedzinski Christoph Campregher Martin Bruckner Sandra Aparcana Anne Karjalainen

Beyond biofuels : assessing global land use for domestic consumption of biomass ; a conceptual and empirical contribution to sustainable management of global resources (2012)

Stefan Bringezu Meghan O'Brien Helmut Schütz

Consumption of natural resources should not exceed sustainable levels. The increasing use of biofuels and to some extent biomaterials, on top of rising food and feed demands, is causing countries to use a growing amount of global land, which may lead to land use conflicts and the expansion of cropland and intensive cultivation at the expense of natural ecosystems. Selective product certification cannot control the land use change triggered by growing overall biomass consumption. We propose a comprehensive approach to account for the global land use of countries for their domestic consumption, and assess this level with regard to globally acceptable levels of resource use, based on the concept of safe operating space. It is shown that the European Union currently uses one-third more cropland than globally available on a per capita basis and that with constant consumption levels it would exceed its fair share of acceptable resource use in 2030. As the use of global forests to meet renewable energy targets is becoming a concern, an approach to account for sustainable levels of timber flows is also proposed, based on the use of net annual increment, exemplified with preliminary data for Switzerland. Altogether, our approach would integrate the concept of sustainable consumption into national resource management plans; offering a conceptual basis and concrete reference values for informed policy making and urging countries to monitor and adjust their levels of resource consumption in a comprehensive way, respectful of the limits of sustainable supply.

The eco-innovation challenge : pathways to a resource-efficient Europe ; annual report 2010 (2012)

Meghan O'Brien Raimund Bleischwitz Stefan Bringezu Susanne Fischer Dominik Ritsche Sören Steger Tobias Samus Justus von Geibler Stefan Giljum Christine Polzin Elke Pirgmaier Stephan Lutter Michal Miedzinski Asel Doranova Jarmo Vehmas Anne Karjalainen Minttu Jaakkola Leena A. Saarinen

Resource-efficient construction : the role of eco-innovation for the construction sector in Europe (2012)

Meghan O'Brien Raimund Bleischwitz Rainer Lucas Stefan Bringezu Tobias Samus Michael Ritthoff Sören Steger Justus von Geibler Holger Wallbaum Michal Miedzinski Stefan Giljum Thomas Patz Anne Karjalainen Leena Saarinen

Closing the eco-innovation gap : an economic opportunity for business ; annual report 2011 (2012)

Meghan O'Brien Susanne Fischer Sören Steger Dominik Ritsche Justus von Geibler Nino David Jordan Michael Miedzinski Asel Doranova Alasdair Reid Stefan Giljum Stephan Lutter Barbara Lugschitz Christine Polzin Jarmo Vehmas Anne Karjalainen Leena Saarinen

The physical dimension of international trade. Part 2: Indirect global resource flows between 1962 and 2005 (2012)

Monika Dittrich Stefan Bringezu Helmut Schütz

Global trade is increasingly being challenged by observations of growing burden shifting, in particular of environmental problems. This paper presents the first worldwide calculations of shifted burden based on material flow indicators, in particular direct and indirect physical trade balances. This study covers the period between 1962 and 2005 and includes between 82 and 173 countries per year. The results show that indirect trade flow volumes have increased to around 41 billion tonnes in 2005. The traded resources with the highest share of associated indirect flows are iron, hard coal, copper, tin and increasingly palm oil. Regarding the burden balance between regions, Europe is the biggest shifter whereas Australia and Latin America are the largest takers of environmental burden due to resource extraction. To evaluate the findings from a global perspective, the results are analysed in terms of resource flow induced environmental pressure related to a country's land area in terms of total and per capita area. Resource endowment and population density seem to be more relevant in determining the physical trade balance, including indirect flows, than income level.

Eco-innovation in business : reducing cost and increasing profitability via material efficiency measures (2012)

Susanne Fischer Meghan O'Brien

Leasing society : study (2012)

Susanne Fischer Sören Steger Nino David Jordan Meghan O'Brien Philipp Schepelmann

Resource efficiency in European industry : study (2012)

Meghan O'Brien Susanne Fischer Philipp Schepelmann Stefan Bringezu

The physical dimension of international trade. Part 1: Direct global flows between 1962 and 2005 (2010)

Monika Dittrich Stefan Bringezu

The physical dimension of international trade is attaining increased importance. This article describes a method to calculate complete physical trade flows for all countries which report their trade to the UN. The method is based on the UN Comtrade database and it was used to calculate world-wide physical trade flows for all reporting countries in nine selected years between 1962 and 2005. The results show increasing global trade with global direct material trade flows reaching about 10 billion tonnes in 2005, corresponding to a physical trade volume of about 20 billion tonnes (adding both total imports and total exports). The share from European countries is declining, mainly in favour of Asian countries. The dominant traded commodity in physical units was fossil fuels, mainly oil. Physical trade balances were used to identify the dominant resource suppliers and demanders. Australia was the principal resource supplier over the period with a diverse material export structure. It was followed by mainly oil-exporting countries with varying volumes. As regards to regions, Latin America, south-east Asian islands and central Asia were big resource exporters, mostly with increasing absolute amounts of net exports. The largest net importers were Japan, the United States and single European countries. Emerging countries like the "Asian Tigers" with major industrial productive sectors are growing net importers, some of them to an even higher degree than European countries. Altogether, with the major exception of Australia and Canada, industrialized countries are net importers and developing countries and transition countries are net exporters, but there are important differences within these groups.

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