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Das Fortschreiten des Klimawandels und die Schädigung der Ökosysteme machen deutlich, dass die seit Jahrzehnten international geforderte nachhaltige Entwicklung zu den wichtigsten Herausforderungen gehören.
Um die von den Vereinten Nationen in der Agenda 2030 festgeschriebenen Nachhaltigkeitsziele, den sogenannten Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), zu erreichen, sind alle relevanten Akteurinnen und Akteure - die Politik, die Wirtschaft sowie jede und jeder Einzelne - gefragt.
Eine nachhaltige Entwicklung, die zugleich Umweltschonung, stabile wirtschaftliche und gesellschaftliche Entwicklung sowie soziale Gerechtigkeit berücksichtigt, beruht damit auf der Kompetenz oder auch der "Literacy" der Einzelnen, für sich und im Kollektiv nachhaltiges Handeln auszuüben und im gegenseitigen Miteinander fördern zu können. Doch welche Fähigkeiten sind notwendig, um nachhaltig Handeln zu können? Welche Fähigkeiten brauchen insbesondere Konsumentinnen und Konsumenten, um ihre Produktions- und Konsummuster nachhaltiger (mit-)gestalten zu können?
Antworten darauf liefert die "Literacy für nachhaltigen Konsum", die in dem vorliegenden Diskussionspapier entwickelt und vorgestellt wird.
Quantitative environmental assessments are crucial in working effectively towards sustainable production and consumption patterns. Over the last decades, life cycle assessments (LCA) have been established as a viable means of measuring the environmental impacts of products along the supply chain. In regard to user and consumption patterns, however, methodological weaknesses have been reported and, several attempts have been made to improve LCA accordingly, for example, by including higher order effects and behavioural science support. In a discussion of such approaches, we show that there has been no explicit attention to the concepts of consumption, often leading to product-centred assessments. We introduce social practice theories in order to make consumption patterns accessible to LCA. Social practices are routinised actions comprising interconnected elements (materials, competences, and meanings), which make them conceivable as one entity (e.g. cooking). Because most social practices include some sort of consumption (materials, energy, air), we were able to develop a framework which links social practices to the life cycle inventory of LCA. The proposed framework provides a new perspective of quantitative environmental assessments by switching the focus from products or users to social practices. Accordingly, we see the opportunity in overcoming the reductionist view that people are just users of products, and instead we see them as practitioners in social practises. This change could enable new methods of interdisciplinary research on consumption, integrating intend-oriented social sciences and impact-oriented assessments. However, the framework requires further revision and, especially, empirical validation.
The transdisciplinary research mode has gained prominence in the research on and for sustainability transformations. Yet, solution-oriented research addressing complex sustainability problems has become complex itself, with new transdisciplinary research formats being developed and tested for this purpose. Application of new formats offers learning potentials from experience. To this end, we accompanied fourteen research projects conceptualized as real-world labs (RwLs) from 2015 to 2018. RwLs were part of a funding program on "Science for Sustainability" in the German federal state of Baden-Württemberg. Here, we combine conceptual and empirical work to a structured collection of experiences and provide a comprehensive account of RwLs. First, we outline characteristics of RwLs as transformation oriented, transdisciplinary research approach, using experiments, enabling learning and having a long-term orientation. Second, we outline eleven success factors and concrete design notes we gained through a survey of the 14 RwLs: (1) find the right balance between scientific and societal aims, (2) address the practitioners needs and restrictions, (3) make use of the experimentation concept, (4) actively communicate, (5) develop a "collaboration culture", (6) be attached to concrete sites, (7) create lasting impact and transferability, (8) plan for sufficient time and financial means, (9) adaptability, (10) research-based learning, and (11) recognize dependency on external actors. Characteristics and success factors are combined to illustrate practical challenges in RwLs. Third, we show which methods could be used to cope with challenges in RwLs. We conclude discussing the state of debate on RwLs and outline future avenues of research.
The demand for metals from the entire periodic table is currently increasing due to the ongoing digitalization. However, their use within electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) poses problems as they cannot be recovered sufficiently in the end-of-life (EoL) phase. In this paper, we address the unleashed dissipation of metals caused by the design of EEE for which no globally established recycling technology exists. We describe the European Union's (EU) plan to strive for a circular economy (CE) as a political response to tackle this challenge. However, there is a lack of feedback from a design perspective. It is still unknown what the implications for products would be if politics were to take the path of a CE at the level of metals. To provide clarification in this respect, a case study for indium is presented and linked to its corresponding recycling-metallurgy of zinc and lead. As a result, a first material-specific rule on the design of so-called "anti-dissipative" products is derived, which actually supports designing EEE with recycling in mind and represents an already achieved CE on the material level. In addition, the design of electrotechnical standardization is being introduced. As a promising tool, it addresses the multi-dimensional problems of recovering metals from urban ores and assists in the challenge of enhancing recycling rates. Extending the focus to other recycling-metallurgy besides zinc and lead in further research would enable the scope for material-specific rules to be widened.
The earth's capacity to absorb greenhouse gases is ultimately a critical limiting factor in the handling of metals. The fact that the demand for metals far exceeds their secondary production is extremely problematic at this point. Nevertheless, metals are crucial for climate protection and energy system transformation. Examples are the rare earth metal neodymium used in high-performance permanent magnets in wind turbines, the alkali metal lithium as the most important component in batteries, or the metal tellurium used in thin-film solar cells to generate solar power. It is therefore essential to promote the aspects of resource efficiency and to strengthen the critical role of metals in national and European policy programs. Next to a global solution, a European solo effort with predominantly market-based instruments and the effects of committed behaviour by civil society in the European Union (EU), show that the EU can make a considerable contribution to sustainable development on its own. Thus, a comprehensive approach is needed for sustainable metal management in the sense of a circular economy on the European level fostering sustainable production and consumption pathways. But, this need and the special role of metals are not seen in the current debate about resources in society and politics. Due to the fact that in public perception, metallic raw materials are often discussed as less urgent than energy or polymer raw materials, this article aims to highlight the critical role of metals.
Further, the objective of this contribution is to show which prerequisites exist for the development and establishment of a holistic metal management and where political strategies have to start. Challenges needed to be overcome to achieve such a holistic metal strategy and management are highlighted. In particular, the role of the metal industry, circular product design and labelling and corresponding indicator systems is examined. In addition, the special role of digitalisation is being worked out. Finally, conclusions are drawn and shown which aspects have to be considered for a holistic metal strategy and management.
Sustainable consumption policies affect households differently, in particular when they are confronted with limitations on income, time or freedom of movement (e.g. driving to work). And although it is possible to assess either the average or individual material footprint (per capita or via surveys), we lack methods to describe different types of households, their lifestyles and footprints in a representative manner.
We explore possibilities to do so in this article. Our interest lies in finding an applicable method that allows us to describe the footprint of households regarding their socio-demographic characteristics but also find the causes consumption behaviour. This type of monitoring would enable us to tailor policies for sustainable consumption that respect people's needs and restrictions.
In this paper, we aim to present a comprehensive analysis on the emerging phenomenon of distributed innovation in commons-based peer production (CBPP) platforms. Starting with the exploration of the widely held belief on value-creation confined to industrial settings, we raise several questions regarding the feasibility of, and a need for, an inclusive innovation process that can tap grassroots capacity into both traditional (industrial research and development) and emerging (peer-to-peer) innovation models to yield sustainable solutions. In particular, we explore the emergence and structuration of digital innovations in the maker movement, as it presents an alternative construct of innovation wherein access to and sharing of knowledge is predominantly distributed. With innovation outcomes often freely revealed, its very structuration could pose a principal challenge to our conceptualizations of value creation and competitive advantage in the current economic model. Drawing from responses received from 200 collaborative innovation platforms, six semi‐structured interviews focusing on socio-technical innovation cases, as well as four in-depth narrative interviews with maker turned entrepreneurs, we present a detailed analysis on the topology of network, typology of actors, as well as the underlying innovation ecosystem in CBPP networks in Germany. In doing so, we contribute to the conceptualization of peer-to-peer distributed innovations in collaborative platforms.
Urban transitions and transformations research fosters a dialogue between sustainability transitions theory an inter- and transdisciplinary research on urban change. As a field, urban transitions and transformations research encompasses plural analytical and conceptual perspectives. In doing so, this field opens up sustainability transitions research to new communities of practice in urban environments, including mayors, transnational municipal networks, and international organizations.
Immer mehr Unternehmen verkünden, klimaneutral sein zu wollen und zahlreiche Firmen bieten bereits klimaneutrale Produkte oder Dienstleistungen an: Von der klimaneutralen Paketzustellung bis zur Flugreise. Doch was bedeuten die Neutralitätsziele der Unternehmen genau? Ist das gesetzte Ziel ambitioniert? Und welche Rolle spielt Offsetting, also der Ankauf von Klimaschutzzertifikaten und deren Anrechnung auf das eigene Klimaschutzziel? Die hinter den verkündeten Zielen stehenden Ansätze sind häufig nur schwer nachvollziehbar. Vor diesem Hintergrund gibt der vorliegende Zukunftsimpuls zehn Empfehlungen für die Festlegung und Umsetzung von Neutralitätszielen. Die Autorinnen und Autoren sprechen sich dabei unter anderem für die Nutzung einer robusten Datenbasis als Grundlage für Neutralitätsziele aus, betonen die Bedeutung einer transparenten Kommunikation und zeigen auf, welche Rolle Offsetting spielen sollte. So sollten angekaufte Klimaschutz-Zertifikate einen möglichst begrenzten Beitrag zur Zielerfüllung leisen und ausschließlich zum Ausgleich von Emissionen genutzt werden, die nicht reduziert oder vermieden werden können. Insgesamt sollten Neutralitätsziele nicht zum alleinigen Kriterium für ambitionierten Klimaschutz von Unternehmen gemacht werden, sie stellen vielmehr ein Baustein einer weitaus umfassenderen unternehmerischen Klimaschutzstrategie dar.