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Das im Auftrag des Umweltschutzamts Kiel entwickelte Zero-Waste-Konzept zeigt anhand eines umfangreichen Handlungsplans, wie Kiel zur "Zero Waste City" werden kann. Das Konzept ist die Basis für eine Zertifizierung als "Zero Waste City" - eine Auszeichnung, die der europäische Verein Zero Waste Europe vergibt. Nachdem im Jahr 2007 die italienische Gemeinde Capannori zur ersten "Zero Waste City" in Europa erklärt wurde, haben sich knapp 400 europäische Gemeinden dieser Bewegung angeschlossen.
Für das Kieler Zero-Waste-Konzept stellten die Forschenden insgesamt 20 konkrete Ziele auf, die helfen, Abfall zu reduzieren, die Wiederverwendung von Produkten zu steigern und die Abfalltrennung zu verbessern. Kiels ambitioniertes Ziel: Die Stadt will die Maßnahmen, die innerhalb des Zero-Waste-Konzepts ermittelt wurden, zwischen 2025 und 2050 umsetzen und bis 2035 die Gesamtabfallmenge pro Kopf und Jahr durchschnittlich um 15 Prozent senken, die Haus- und Geschäftsabfälle - also Restabfälle - bis zum Jahr 2035 halbieren und langfristig auf 50 Kilogramm pro Kopf und Jahr reduzieren.
Addressing food waste prevention is one target of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and a major task for the UN Environmental Programme and the European Commission. It is promising in terms of its environmental saving potential. However, it also leads to consumers being able to save money, which they then are likely to spend, thus again causing a negative environmental impact. This dimension of the so-called indirect rebound effect, which prevents the desired ecological benefits from being achieved, is investigated in this paper. By using a single-region environmentally extended input-output model from a production perspective, the indirect rebound effects from food waste prevention in Germany are analysed. Any political action needs to consider not only a differentiation in income class, but also alternative concepts such as the principles of sufficiency in order to achieve all ecological benefits and specifically the third target of SDG 12.
Renewable energy targets in the European Union (EU) have raised the demand for timber and are expected to increase dependence on imports. However, EU timber consumption levels are already disproportionally high compared to the rest of the world. The question is, how much timber is available for the EU to sustainably harvest and import, in particular considering sustainable forest management practices, a safe operating space for land-system change, and the global distribution of "common good" resources. This article approaches this question from a supply angle to develop a reference value range for the current as well as future sustainable supply of timber at the EU-27 and global levels. For current supply estimates, national-level data on forest area available for wood supply, productivity in that area, as well as the rate available for harvest were collected and aggregated into three potential supply scenarios. For future supply estimates, a safe operating space scenario halting land use change, a sensitivity analysis, and a literature review were performed. To provide both a comparison of global versus EU sustainable supply capacities and to develop a benchmark toward evaluating and comparing levels of consumption to sustainable supply capacities, per capita calculations were made. Results revealed that the per capita sustainable supply potential of EU forests is estimated to be around three times higher than the global average in 2050. Whether a global or EU reference value is more appropriate for EU policy orientation, considering both strengthened economic and cultural ties to the forest in forest-rich countries as well as the need to prevent problem shifting associated with exporting land demands abroad, is discussed. Further research is needed to strengthen and harmonize data, improve methods for modeling future scenarios and incorporate interdisciplinary and multi-stakeholder perspectives toward the development of robust and politically relevant reference values for sustainable consumption levels.
Seit einigen Jahren erfährt die Abfallwirtschaft unter dem Schlagwort "Kreislaufwirtschaft" einen massiven Perspektivwechsel: Nach den Vorstellungen der Europäischen Kommission, die 2015 ihren Aktionsplan Kreislaufwirtschaft vorgestellt hat, sollen Abfälle in Zukunft in erster Linie als potenzieller Rohstoff gesehen werden; sowohl die in einzelnen Produkten enthaltenen natürlichen Ressourcen als auch deren ökonomischer Wert sollen am Ende der Nutzungsphase möglichst optimal erhalten bleiben. Angesichts der Rohstoffarmut in Europa sollen die Abfälle recycelt und wieder in den Produktionsprozess zurückfließen, um so auch langfristig die europäische Wettbewerbsfähigkeit sicherzustellen.
Damit geraten jedoch auch neue Fragen in den Fokus: Was genau passiert eigentlich mit unserem Müll? Wo bleibt er, und in welchen Teilen der Welt wird er recycelt? Und wer hat dann Zugriff auf die Rohstoffe, die aus ihm zurückgewonnen werden?
The ultimate goal of German Resource Efficiency Programme (ProgRess) is to make the extraction and use of natural resources more sustainable and reduce associated environmental pollution as much as possible. By doing this - also with responsibility towards future generations - the programme should create a prerequisite for securing a long-term high quality of life. To bring the policy approaches formulated in ProgRess to reality, efforts to implement resource efficiency measures have to be increased at all levels - from international to regional to local.
The chapter intends to provide an impetus for the current debate on ProgRess policy development. The chapter identifies, analyses and describes deficits and possibilities of vertical integration of the German programme in particular and derives recommendations for action which may also serve as indications for other strategies. The following sections are based on results of the advisory report "Vertical integration of the national resource efficiency programme ProgRess (VertRess)", conducted by the German Institute of Urban Affairs (Difu) and the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy on behalf of the German Environmental Agency (UBA) and the Federal Ministry of the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU).
The waste prevention program (WPP) from 2013 must be evaluated every 6 years and updated if necessary. The review and evaluation of the implementation of the WPP took place within the scope of the project. Based on the analysis results for the implementation of the WPP at federal, state and municipal level and an assessment of existing prevention potentials, concrete proposals for a possible further development and updating of the program on prioritized waste streams and corresponding priority prevention approaches were developed. In addition, structural adjustment and change needs of the WPP were worked out and further research was shown.
With the introduction of the Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Europe (2011) and the more recent commitment of The Action Plan towards the Circular Economy (2015), the European Commission (EC) has expressed its fundamental interest to substantially improve the resource efficiency of the European economy and enable the transition towards the Circular Economy (CE). This policy push has meanwhile been complemented by some quite ambitious national programmes for RE and CE and institutional advances but it is not yet bound to targets or mandatory reporting.
Against this background, the objective of this paper is to give a comprehensive overview of the current policy frameworks at EU and a selection of MSs and provide insights into the elements shaping policy processes. The analytical framework relies on three essential interconnected components: the policy framework, the economic incentive system and economic side policies which are relevant in the context of RE and CE and actor constellations. The paper does this looking at the interface between EU-MSs. The analysis is based on different empirical surveys in which the policy development is observed and discussed (EEA 2011, 2016a, 2016b, EIO 2013, 2014, 2016) and a comprehensive review of legislative and policy frameworks at the EU and selected MSs, undertaken as part of the project POLFREE (Policy option for a Resource-Efficient Economy) (Domenech et al., 2014, Bahn-Walkowiak et al., 2014). The analysis reveals that policy frameworks for RE/CE are complex and fragmented as competing goals and visions reduce effectiveness of measures. The paper makes recommendations as to how EU and MS policies could improve RE in a coordinated way, but recognizes that achieving such coordination will be challenging in the current political context.
This report examines the role of waste management in the context of a circular economy transition. Key challenges relate to moving beyond the perception of "waste as a problem" to "waste as a resource". To this end high levels of cooperation are needed between the waste industry and enterprises engaged in circular economy business models. Collecting high quality waste streams for re-use, remanufacturing and recycling also requires citizen engagement and integrated infrastructure development from the municipal to the EU level. Ultimately, both waste prevention as well as a widespread growth in circular economy activities will require a coherent and holistic approach that takes recovery options into account at every stage of the product life cycle. Co-benefits will include reducing environmental burden as well as creating both high-skilled and low-skilled jobs for an inclusive, green economy. In concrete terms, this report examines five waste streams identified in the EU's Circular Economy Action Plan: municipal waste, packaging waste, food waste, bio-waste and critical raw materials. It looks at the current state of policy development, presents trends and data comparing Member State performance, reviews the state of technological development, and assesses employment opportunities relevant to each waste stream in the overarching context of assessing progress toward the circular economy transition in the EU. Case studies of specific options for collecting and treating waste based on experiences in Denmark, Italy and Slovenia complement the more macro-level analysis of trends. Finally, key policy options are identified, in particular focused on ways to prevent waste, align circular economy and waste management objectives and improve the quality and reliability of indicators toward more robust monitoring.
The paper undertakes a closer look on the relation of institutions and policy mixes within the multi-level scope of the European Union in the policy field of resource efficiency and maps out different configurations. Based on an extensive analysis of scope, foci, instruments and especially the distribution of institutional responsibilities in 32 EU countries, the paper aims to amplify the categorisation of policy mix characteristics developed by Rogge and Reichardt by considerations on the institutional background of policy mixes. It specifically brings into question the potential impact of different institutional settings on the consistency and coherence of approaches in this evolving policy field. Resource efficiency is an eminently cross-cutting policy concept and a specific interesting unit of analysis due to the observable heterogeneity of implementation approaches. However, it is still mainly disconnected from energy issues and, at the same time, EU policy has shifted to the circular economy approach, indicating further need for streamlining with the resource efficiency approach. The paper stresses the need to include institutional and multi-level governance issues for policy design and the development of policy mixes, especially in the context of the now refocused resource efficiency agenda to the transition to a circular economy.
