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Accounting for the social dimension of sustainability : experiences from the biotechnology industry
(2006)
Accounting for the social dimension of sustainability proves to be a challenge for corporate practitioners, due to its intangible, qualitative nature and lack of consensus on relevant criteria. We suggest a semi-quantitative approach based on stakeholder involvement to identify relevant aspects for a sector specific assessment of the social dimension. Our case study on biotechnology illustrates that the dialogue with internal and external stakeholders enabled the creation of a key performance indicator (KPI) set to account for social sustainability in the early design stages of biotechnological processes and product development. Indicators for eight aspects are identified for the social assessment: health and safety, quality of working conditions, impact on employment, education and training, knowledge management, innovation potential, customer acceptance and societal product benefit, and social dialogue. We describe the integration of the KPI set in a software application, tailor made for practitioners of the sector, and highlight first user experiences.
In der Studie "Analyse und Bewertung der Nutzungsmöglichkeiten von Biomasse" mit Schwerpunkt auf stationäre Anwendungen wurden die Optionen zur Strom- und Wärmeerzeugung durch Biogas mit Techniken zur Holznutzung verglichen. Hinzu kommt die Betrachtung des Einsatzes von Biogas als Kraftstoff an Erdgastankstellen. Im folgenden ersten Teil werden die Ergebnisse der Studie mit Schwerpunkt auf den Biogaspotenzialen, den Techniken und Kosten sowie den Klimaschutzaspekten der Biogasnutzung vorgestellt. Ein zweiter Teil vertieft die Themen der Gewinnung von Biomethan aus der Holzvergasung, der Aufbereitung und Einspeisung von Biogas sowie den Anforderungen und Restriktionen der Einspeisung ins deutsche Erdgasnetz (BWK 5/2006).
In der Studie "Analyse und Bewertung der Nutzungsmöglichkeiten von Biomasse" wurden Optionen zur Strom- und Wärmeerzeugung durch Biogas mit Techniken zur Holznutzung verglichen. Im ersten Teil dieses Aufsatzes (BWK 3/2006) wurden Potenziale, Techniken, Kosten und Klimaschutzaspekte der Biogasnutzung vorgestellt. Der zweite Teil befasst sich mit der Gewinnung von Biomethan aus der Holzvergasung, der Aufbereitung und Einspeisung von Biogas sowie den Anforderungen und Restriktionen der Einspeisung ins deutsche Erdgasnetz.
Assessing social aspects
(2006)
Auf KURS in die Zukunft
(2006)
Das Forschungsvorhaben leistet einen wesentlichen Beitrag zur Verbesserung des nationalen Emissionsinventars. Im Bereich der Rohstoffemissionen konnten identifizierte Lücken aus der Nutzung von Kalkstein geschlossen werden. Sämtliche Einsätze von Kalkstein und Kalk in Wirtschaftszweigen, ihre Emissionsrelevanz sowie Berücksichtigung im deutschen Emissionsinventar wurden analysiert und für relevante Bilanzposten die Einsätze von Kalkstein und Kalk ermittelt. Neu in 2006 ins Inventar aufgenommene Bilanzposten wurden mit sämtlichen Detaildaten, die zur Neu-Implementierung des kompletten Zeitreihensatzes im Inventar erforderlich waren, zur Verfügung gestellt. Die Kalkstein- und Kalkbilanz für Deutschland wurde vollständig abgebildet. Die Emissionen für das Basisjahr 1990, die mit der Berichterstattung 2006 endgültig festgelegt worden sind, wurden um gut 3,5 Millionen Tonnen Kohlendioxid angepasst. Die Vollständigkeit des Inventars konnte damit erhöht werden.
COMPASS to sustainability
(2006)
Das Ende des Öls
(2006)
Der Wandel der Werte
(2006)
Driving progress by opening up early markets : a hydrogen energy strategy for North Rhine-Westphalia
(2006)
Combining environmental with employment objectives, ecological tax reform (ETR) envisages a double dividend. While research has mainly focused on the socio-economic and environmental impacts of ETR, there is less literature on the social responses. This paper gives an overview and history of German ETR as well as investigating the understanding of perceptions and attitudes towards ETR of those being "subject to tax". The research is based on qualitative social research methods. As with the other PETRAS papers, interviews were conducted with policy-makers and business leaders and focus groups were formed with lay persons. The results show that responses of policy-makers and business leaders are modest. Although some criticisms about the specific design of the German ETR remain, complaints towards ETR are settled. Attitudes appear influenced by more fundamental convictions such as economic interest or altruistic views. In contrast, ETR appears to politicise common people. Attitudes are influenced by the overall comprehension of the ETR concept, the expected impacts, perceived information deficits, as well as a general distrust in politics. Our data show that the linking of environmental and employment objectives is not understood and not welcomed. In order to increase social acceptance, the paper discusses refocusing ETR on environmental objectives, modestly increasing the share of ETR revenue spent for environmental purposes, removing inconsistencies in the ETR design, and improving information policy.
Das Forschungsvorhaben leistet einen wesentlichen Beitrag zur Verbesserung des nationalen Emissionsinventars. Ziel ist die lückenlose Erfassung des Einsatzes von Sekundärbrennstoffen in einzelnen Sektoren des Verarbeitenden Gewerbes und die Bereitstellung geeigneter Emissionsfaktoren zur Berechnung der Emissionen. Die dem UBA bislang nur teilweise vorliegenden Informationen zum Einsatz von Sekundärbrennstoffen in den Branchen Zementindustrie, Kalkindustrie, Stahlindustrie und Papierindustrie wurden in enger Kooperation mit den jeweiligen Wirtschaftsverbänden systematisch gesichtet, durch Schätzungen vervollständigt und in Form von Datenzeitreihen (von 1990 bis 2004) für die Inventardatenbank ZSE nutzbar gemacht. Ergänzt werden die nach Brennstoffkategorien differenzierten Massenströme um geeignete Emissionsfaktoren für Kohlendioxid und sog. Split-Faktoren, die den Anteil biogenen Kohlenstoffs am Gesamtgehalt angeben.
Holiday travel behavior, individual characteristics of holiday travelers and strategies to change holiday travel behavior are the subjects of this article. From the environmental perspective, the journey to the destinations is the most critical aspect of traveling. Based on a 2003 survey of 1991 German inhabitants, the kilometers traveled and the choice of transportation mode for holiday purposes have been quantified. According to the number of trips and kilometers traveled, four travel groups have been identified. The groups vary according to socio-demographics, psychological factors, number of holiday trips, and travel mode choice. Persons who traveled to more distant destinations also traveled more often and used air travel for more than 60% of their trips. For the other groups, car travel was more important. Correlating the four travel groups with greenhouse gas emissions reveals that the smallest group - the long-haul travelers - was responsible for 80% of the emissions of the whole sample. Income, education, and openness to change were main indicators of individual greenhouse gas emissions. Target group oriented strategies to reduce the environmental impact of holiday mobility are discussed against the background of 84 in-depth interviews conducted with selected representatives of the first survey.
Considering the enormous ecological and economic importance of the transport sector the introduction of alternative fuels - together with drastic energy efficiency gains - will be a key to sustainable mobility, nationally as well as globally. However, the future role of alternative fuels cannot be examined from the isolated perspective of the transport sector. Interactions with the energysystem as a whole have to be taken into account. This holds both for the issue of availability of energy sources as well as for allocation effects, resulting from the shift of renewable energy from the stationary sector to mobile applications. With emphasis on hydrogen as a transport fuel for private passenger cars, this paper discusses the energy systems impacts of various scenarios introducing hydrogen fueled vehicles in Germany. It identifies clear restrictions to an enhanced growth of clean hydrogen production from renewable energy sources (RES). Furthermore, it points at systems interdependencies that call for a priority use of RES electricity in stationary applications. Whereas hydrogen can play an increasing role in transport after 2030 the most important challenge is to exploit short–mid-term potentials of boosting car efficiency.
Grave concerns with the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) have increasingly surfaced in the international climate policy arena. The sectoral approaches described in this paper may be a way to address some of the shortcomings of this Kyoto mechanism. The paper outlines the criticisms that have been raised against the CDM as well as the conflicting interpretations of a sectoral approach and examines in how far it might resolve the mechanism’s perceived shortcomings. Furthermore, it outlines issues that need to be resolved when implementing a sectoral approach: distributing costs and benefits, defining the sector and its baseline, ensuring additionality and tackling procedural issues. A sectoral approach can enable countries to guide their structural development but it also opens up a gap between public and private investment that needs to be addressed before conflicts arise. Sectoral CDM activities may be able to lower transaction costs for projects that otherwise cannot compete in the CDM market and might even pave the way to sectoral greenhouse gas limitation targets in developing countries by establishing the necessary infrastructure for data collection. However, a sectoral CDM cannot be mistaken for a panacea. Some of the mechanism's problems remain, which highlights the need to establish additional instruments to support Southern countries in furthering sustainable development and embarking on a low-emission trajectory.
The book contains the proceedings of INFER annual conference 2004, organized at the Wuppertal Institute in Germany. Within the area of environmental economics, methodological issues now seem at stake. This is because recent methods and fields of economics, like institutional economics, competition (industrial) economics, and cognitive economics, should be applied and become more established within environmental economics. The different papers address this challenge via different case studies in areas such as agriculture, biodiversity, eco-taxes, subsidies, wind energy, environmental corruption, governance, contracts, international trade, human behavior, and many others.
In a German case study, environmental input-output analyses (eIOA) combined with NAMEA-type tables were conducted for eleven selected environmental pressure variables. (NAMEA is an acronym for national accounts matrix including environmental accounts.) The analyses were conducted to derive the production-cycle-wide resource use and environmental impact potentials of final-demand product groups. The methodology permits identification and preliminary ranking of 10 product chains along which about two-thirds of German production-born environmental pressures arise. The most relevant product groups are construction work, food, motor vehicles, basic metals, and electricity. The ten product groups are characterized by both high resource requirements and high residual outputs (air emissions, wastes). The EU policy areas of integrated product policy and sustainable use of natural resources may address these product chains as a priority in order to identify and explore the possibility of reducing the environmental impacts from products throughout their life cycles and to decouple environmental impacts from resource use.
Evaluation des Online-Modernisierungsratgebers von co2online : Beiträge des Wuppertal Instituts
(2006)
After considerable improvements of wastewater treatment, the loads of nutrients and plant protection agents, deriving from agriculture and heavy metals from urban drainages effluents as well as from erosion of agricultural soils are the main sources of nutrients and harmful substances in the loads of water bodies. The targets of the project were on the one hand the analysis of the political and legislative framework of both policy fields and on the other hand the evaluation of several, selected water protection measures with regard to their contribution to reduce water pollution, their economical effects as well as their political enforceability. The focus was laid on diffuse water pollution caused by agriculture. As main reasons for the diffuse water pollution stagnating at high level, the analysis of the political framework identified a lack of implementation discipline of water law, followed by the fragmented and insufficient water protection legislation itself and the previous design of the common agricultural policy slanted towards increasing productivity. For the future co-operation of agricultural and water authorities in implementation of their reforms and better definition of "Good Farming Practice" are recommended. The second investigation level focuses on the analysis and assessment of selected measures to reduce the input of nutrients and plant protection agents. This part was done with help of calculation models focussing on the specific cost/benefit ratios for water protection. In detail the following measures have been analysed: decoupling of direct payments, coupling of livestock farming to areas, tax on mineral nitrogen, pesticide levy, buffer stripes alongside of watercourses, all season crop cover on arable land, soil cultivation procedures, changing the use of arable land, optimisation of animal nutrition, optimisation of manure storage and application, co-operative agreements, education and training. Co-operations and water protection related education and training can be highly recommended, since they improve knowledge and freedom of action. As the results on county level show, the measure "Decoupling of direct payments" would not lead to appreciable changes as far as the nutrient surpluses on farmland is concerned. "Coupling livestock farming to areas" would decrease the surpluses substantially. For this measure and Tax on mineral nitrogen, varying adaptation reactions could be expected depending on the regional specialisation in cropping or livestock farming areas. On single farm level the measures, protein adapted feeding, optimisation of manure storage and application showed the best cost-efficiency to reduce nutrient surpluses. All season crop cover on arable land and conservation tillage are highly efficient, too, and should be included in farming practice. A stronger limitation of livestock density could mean a reduction of manure, but the implementation of this measure would lead to high losses of income for farmers specialised in animal production. For reduction of diffuse water pollution caused by urban drainage political approaches as well as detailed technical measures are examined. In the area of urban drainage storm water management (especially infiltration and constructed wetlands), unsealing of paved areas and small wastewater treatment structures (for phosphorus reduction) showed best cost-effectiveness.
In the long term, any definition of adequacy consistent with UNFCCC Article 2 will require increased mitigation efforts from almost all countries. Therefore, an expansion of emission limitation commitments will form a central element of any future architecture of the climate regime. This expansion has two elements: deepening of quantitative commitments for Annex B countries and the adoption of commitments for those countries outside of the current limitation regime. This article seeks to provide a more analytical basis for further differentiation among non-Annex I countries. To be both fair and reflective of national circumstances, it is based on the criteria of responsibility, capability and potential to mitigate. Altogether, non-Annex I countries were differentiated in four groups, each including countries with similar national circumstances: newly industrialized countries (NICs), rapidly industrializing countries (RIDCs), ‘other developing countries’, and least developed countries (LDCs). Based on the same criteria that were used for differentiating among non-Annex I countries, a set of decision rules was developed to assign mitigation and financial transfer commitments to each group of countries (including Annex I countries). Applying these decision rules results in (strict) reduction commitments for Annex I countries, but also implies quantifiable mitigation obligations for NICs and RIDCs, assisted by financial transfers from the North. Other developing countries are obliged to take qualitative commitments, but quantifiable mitigation commitments for these countries and the LDC group would be not justifiable. As national circumstances in countries evolve over time, the composition of the groups will change according to agreed triggers.
Global climate
(2006)
Global Warming
(2006)
Güterverkehr
(2006)
Die Nanotechnologie verspricht eine Fülle positiver Auswirkungen auf die Gesellschaft. Gleichzeitig werden diverse potentielle Risiken diskutiert. Es ergeben sich eine Vielzahl an ethischen Fragestellungen. Zunächst wird beschrieben, was unter Nanotechnologie zu verstehen ist. Es wird dann das Problemfeld ethischer Fragestellungen skizziert. Im Anschluss wird dargestellt, wie Chancen und Risiken der Nanotechnologie in einem Praxisprojekt adressiert werden können.