Reaching the climate goals for the building sector requires to improve insulation and to increase air tightness of buildings in order to minimize heat loss. To achieve these goals and to prevent risks to the health of occupants and damages to the building fabric due to insufficient removal of pollutants and humidity, broad implementation of Mechanical Ventilation and Heat Recovery (MVHR) systems is crucial.
Comparable and up to date figures on the market penetration of MVHR systems across the EU are hardly available. However, figures point to only a small share of residential buildings being currently equipped with such systems (cf. Riviere et al. 2009). For the German building stock the figure is estimated to be below 5% (Händel 2011). The paper presents insights into the reasons for the slow diffusion of HRV technologies in the German building stock. It builds on the results of a recently completed research project whose central aim was to identify actor-specific and structural barriers for the diffusion of efficient ventilation systems in apartment buildings and to examine how these barriers can be addressed.
The analysis is based on 40 semi-structured expert interviews with energy consultants, HVAC craftsmen, and housing companies, as well as guided in-depth interviews with private owners of apartment buildings or apartments that were evaluated by means of qualitative content analysis. Based on the collected data, seven barrier categories were identified, each containing a range of single barriers for the diffusion of efficient ventilation systems within the residential building stock.
Results of the analysis were quantitatively validated by means of online surveys and a household survey among 1,008 households. The paper points out interdependencies within the chain of effects leading up to the investment decision of building owners. Furthermore, based on good practice examples identified within the data collection process, it proposes different measures to address these barriers.
More and more cities are setting themselves ambitious climate protection targets, including CO2 neutrality. Schools are important institutions of cities and therefore they have to play a central role in achieving this goal.
With the investment backlog building up and pressure from the Friday for Future movement increasing, the Wuppertal Institute and Büro Ö-quadrat have initiated the project Schools4Future, aiming to support secondary schools to become climate-neutral. In cooperation with secondary school students and teachers, the project team evaluated the existing situation of the participating schools and developed GHG-balances and feasible climate protection concepts. For this purpose, an Excel-based carbon footprint (CF) assessment tool for schools has been developed which is freely available. The tool covers all important emission areas, including heating energy, electricity use, travel to and from schools, school trips, the school canteen and paper consumption. The students were found capable to conduct the CF assessment with the guidance of the teacher, information materials and support of the researchers. So far, six pilot schools have completed their CF assessment with emissions ranging between 335 and 944 kg CO2 per person.
In this paper we present the tool and compare the CF assessment of some schools. We further elaborate on how the tool and project has increased the climate awareness and self-efficacy of students and even stimulated measures by the school board.
Comprehensive framework on asset management of transportation networks and resilience planning
(2018)
Renewable energy plays a key role in the sustainable pathway towards a low carbon future and, despite new supply capacities, the transformation of the energy system also requires the adoption of a method which allows for the integration of increasing amounts of renewable energy. This requires a transition to more flexible processes at an industrial level and demand side management (DSM) is one possible way of achieving this transition. Currently, increased shares of variable renewable energy can cause the electricity supply to become more volatile and result in changes to the electricity market. In order to develop a new dynamic equilibrium to balance supply and demand, sufficient flexibility in demand is required. As adequate storage systems are not available in the short to medium term, the potential for large electricity consumers to operate flexibly is an attractive, pragmatic and feasible option. Recent studies in Germany suggest that there is significant potential for DSM in so-called "energy-intensive industries". However, the figures (which fall in the approximate range of 1,250-2,750 MW positive and 400-1,300 MW negative shiftable load) should be interpreted with caution. The range of industrial processes considered are diverse and vary from plant to plant, with the result that it is difficult to provide accurate calculations of the accumulated potential for Germany or the EU as a whole. Based on extensive surveys and panel discussions with representatives from energy-intensive industries (aluminum, cement, chemicals, iron & steel, pulp & paper), which together account for approximately one third of the industrial electricity demand in Germany, our paper provides an overview of both the opportunities and the barriers faced by DSM. One of the key findings is the possible loss in energy efficiency due to DSM: in order to decrease or increase production depending on the stability needs of the electricity system, plants and processes may no longer operate at their optimum levels. The effects on downstream production must also be taken into account in order to gain a more complete understanding of the overall effects of industrial DSM.
"Sufficiency" is beginning to emerge as a new value throughout Western societies and the question asked in this article is: Can we observe cases with actual opportunities to link successful business strategies of incumbents to principles of sufficiency? Thus, how feasible is sustainable entrepreneurship for incumbents? As an innovative conceptual approach, it will be analyzed how brand claims function as narrative translation mechanisms in situations where tensions emerge between corporate narratives and unexpected societal trends, e.g. the emergence of sufficient lifestyles. It will be shown that even though these are still a niche phenomenon, a focus on powerful brands and the narratives connected to them are an important element in understanding the role of incumbents in transitions to sustainability.
In current German debates on sustainable urbanisation and urbanism, new urban actors reviving buildings, brownfields or whole neighbourhoods are discussed as potential drivers of urban transformation towards sustainability as well as potential co-producers for conventional actors in urban development and planning. These actor's projects can be understood as spatially confined niches for experimentation with (built) urban space itself. Building upon the concepts of niche entrepreneurship (Pesch et al., 2017) and the framework of strategic action field theory (Fligstein & McAdam, 2011; 2015), we ask how these actors secure support for their projects and how these projects in turn are altered in this process. Based upon a case study from Wuppertal, Germany, we show that in struggling for support of powerful actors, these actors often have to significantly compromise, and that these compromises can be understood as contextualisation in the project's spatial and institutional environment.