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Limited knowledge and the precautionary principle : on the feasibility of environmental politics
(1997)
Local Agenda 21 in Germany
(1998)
Global climate
(1998)
This report will first provide a brief account of the political developments that led to the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol. Second, it will provide a preliminary analysis of the Kyoto Protocol itself, and, third, it will assess the prospects for the further development of international climate policy and law in 1998 and beyond. Developments outside of the Kyoto negotiations will be included to further elucidate the actual international negotiations.
The European Commission has established the Eco Management and Auditing Scheme (EMAS) to promote and institutionalize corporate environmental management and environmental audits. This article summarizes a study primarily concerned with the execution of an ecoaudit in a medium-sized furniture enterprise according to the rules of EMAS. Material flow accounting was used to assess and analyze the "gate-to-gate" and "cradle-to-grave" environmental impacts related to the firm's products and activities. A resource management strategy was developed that permits the determination of methods for firm-specific material flow management, product management, and ecological product design to improve environmental performance as seen from the vantage point of resource efficiency.
Energy and material flows
(1998)
Differences in climate change policy in Germany and the U.S. from a political science perspective
(1998)
International and national climate change policies may either mutually support or block each other. The international political debate can on the one hand be a driving force, mainly because of its "agenda-setting" power for the national political debate, but on the other hand the outcome of international climate change policy depends on the capability of national governments to formulate adequate political goals and programs, and to have the power for their realisation and implementation in the national political process.
The following analysis will focus on the differences in climate change policy in Gerrnany and the United States. From a po1itical science perspective, it has to deal with the determinants and restrictions of the policy-making processes and their impact on policy formulation and implementation in both countries. Two kinds of determinants will be considered: structural "internal" determinants deriving from the specific setting and mode of operation of the political-administrative systems, and external determinants, such as public opinion, the role of the media. interest groups, and cultural values, which favour or restrict the process of a pro-active climate change policy.
While sustainability is in danger of being reduced to a meaningless platitude, the brutal fact remains that industrial countries make a disproportionately large and negative impact on the environment. A serious transition to sustainability will require changing people's mindsets and social institutions, in addition to public policies, technologies and business practices.
This book presents a path-breaking analysis as well as highly innovative proposals for managing this transition. Emanating from Europe's foremost environmental policy think-tank, it has already stirred up a major new debate in Germany on radical, but feasible, directions in which the governments of industrial societies ought to be moving. The concept of "environmental space" and its ingenious development of indicators for measuring an economy's national and global impact combine with its delineation of concrete policies to give this book its intellectual power and potential political impact.
The implications of including sulfate aerosols on scenarios of admissible greenhouse gas emissions
(1998)
"Joint Implementation" (JI) is considered by many participants in the international negotiations on aclimate protocol to be an important economic instrument for the implementation of greenhouse gas obligations. Apart from a wide range of problems that still have to be resolved on the project level, the institutional and procedural design of such a mechanism is of vital importance. Because JI has a "perverse incentive" to overstate results achieved by individual projects, careful reporting, monitoring and verification procedures are essential. Furthermore, the institutional structure must reconcile the sometimes conflicting demands of overall effectiveness and cost-effectiveness. This paper explores the possible design of a future international mechanism for JI and makes recommendations with regard to the institutional and procedural requirements.
Speed limits
(1998)
Since the early 1980s, there has been a lively discussion about the rhetoric of economics. Ecological economists, however, so far have not tried to incorporate this discussion into their work. This paper is a first step towards including the discourse on rhetoric into the self-awareness of ecological economics. After a brief outline of what this discourse is about, the importance of metaphors as one aspect of rhetoric is examined. Connections of the rhetorical discourse to ecological economics as a post-normal science are shown. It is argued that two rhetorics of ecological economics can be distinguished: internal and external rhetoric. While the former refers mostly to methodological issues, the latter is of particular importance for the political impact that ecological economics can have. Finally, some suggestions for research are made.
Modelling a socially and environmentally sustainable Europe : final report part II: Technical report
(1998)
Sustainable development is the globally embraced paradigm for integrating environment and development policies. Agreement ends with attempts at operationalizing the elusive notion of sustainability. A contentious debate among "environmentalists" and "environmental economists" has brought about a confusing proliferation of indicators and policy advice on sustainable development. Greening the monetary national accounts could moderate the debate by generating concepts and indicators which translate environmental concerns into the language of widely used economic variables. The implementation of sustainable growth and development requires more. "Eco-nomic" instruments of environmental cost internalization need to be combined with environmental legislation and regulation. Such reconciliation of environmental and economic policies should be supported by a "social compact" between government and civil society. The sustained implementation of sustainable development depends on it.
Firms and dematerialisation
(1999)
Statisticians avoid getting involved in data analysis, leaving data users on their own in interpreting the results of their work. This is particularly unfortunate in a new area of applied statistics such as environmental accounting with which few are really familiar. Earlier this year data producers and users explored, in a national seminar, possible policy applications of the results of a "green accounting" project in the Philippines. The main findings of the author's contribution to the seminar, on which the present paper is based, are that environmental accounts: (1) present evidence of sustainable economic performance in the country during the relatively short-time period of 1988–1994; (2) provide information for environmental cost internalization; (3) may guide investment to environmentally sound production processes; (4) help to specify and monitor policies of natural wealth conservation, distribution and management; and (5) reveal major data gaps. The paper concludes that environmental accounts help to assess the sustainability of economic growth in terms of broadly defined capital maintenance. The sustainability of development, however, would have to be measured by alternative or supplementary physical indicators linked to quantifiable standards or targets.
Applying the material-based approach to Central and Eastern European Countries : the case of Poland
(1999)
In this paper the results of an analysis of the material intensity of advanced composite materials are presented. The analysis is based on the MIPS-concept of the Wuppertal Institute which allows the calculation of the overall material intensity of products and services. It can be shown that the production of one kg of E-Glass fibers is connected with the consumption of 6.2 kg materials, 95 kg water and 2.1 kg oxygen which is of similar size compared to the inputs required in steel production. Material inputs required to produce one kg of p-aramid are 37 kg of materials and 19.6 kg air. Values for carbon fibers are even higher yielding to 61.1 kg of abiotic materials and 33.1 kg of air. Similarly, the production of epoxy resins is connected with larger material flows than the production of polyester resins. Of core materials, inputs per kg for PVCfoam exceed those in PUR-foam production by a factor of 1.4 in water to 2.3 in abiotic material consumption. However, ecologically decisive are not the inputs per kg but the material input per service unit. Therefore, the material input per service unit computed for the body of a passenger ship and a robot arm are compared with alternative steel and aluminium versions. Both examples show that in the case of significant inputs during the user phase of products, even a more material intensive investment in the production phase can yield significant ecological benefits over the whole life-cycle compared to metal versions. Improvements can easily reach a factor of two albeit significant potential for engine optimizations have still been neglected. Results already include the actual recycling quota of metals whereas for composites only virgin material has been calculated as any form of real recycling does not actually exist but only certain types of downrecycling. Of those treatment options, first material recycling and second the use in blast furnaces would lead to better results in resource productivity than incineration and landfills. The paper finally draws some conclusions about the potential advantages of material substitution in the automotive industry. Due to the rather short real operation time of cars during their user phase - around six months - an investment in advanced composite materials in car production only results in a significant improvement of the overall eco-efficiency of cars if it allows a substantial weight reduction of the overall vehicle.
Global climate
(1999)
Sustainable consumption
(1999)
The discussion of sustainable development focused attention on new environmental goals and raised the issue of improving resource productivity. A first step towards sustainability would be to slow-down and reduce the man-induced movements of materials: this is the focus of dematerialization approach which emphasizes what socialist countries used to neglect most – minimizing the use of scarce input factors. This paper applies the dematerialization approach to the discussion on sustainable development in central and eastern Europe. In the early 1990s all countries in eastern Europe have developed new environmental programs which mainly focus on reducing pollution. Environmental strategies focusing on reducing emissions are important but not sufficient for reaching sustainability. A new orientation in the environmental policy in the young market economies is required. Dematerialization approach can be a new option for environmental policy in central and eastern Europe. Dematerialization requires a mix of instruments. Important role can be played by an ecological fiscal reform which covers ecological tax reform and the restructuring of subsidies.
It is not the scarcity of resources that constitutes environmental problems, but their use, the physical throughput of our economies. Material flows are a proxy for the totality of the unspecific environmental risks from human activities. As a strategic goal, an increase of the life-cycle-wide resource productivity by a factor 10 is suggested, including the materials bought and sold and the not-valued materials: we have to take into account the product itself and its "ecological rucksack". Material flows are best measured at the input side of the economy, where their number as well as the number of entry gates is limited. Thus here regulation and economic incentives can work more efficiently and less bureaucratically than today. The material intensity of products and services can be expressed as MIPS, the material input per unit of service, and as TMR, the total material requirement on the macro level, an important element in physical input–output tables.
An input-output approach to analyse the Total Material Requirement (TMR) of national economies
(1999)
Dematerialization, MIPS and factor 10 : physical sustainability indicators as a social device
(1999)
This book on Green Budget Reforms (GBR) provides comprehensive insight into how forerunner countries such as Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland, but also Hungary and Poland, have designed and taken first steps toward GBR, with emphasis on Ecological Tax Reform (ETR). The book covers the proceedings of an international seminar held in Slovenia with contributions from economists of the European Commission, the OECD, finance ministries and researchers. It also includes the first comprehensive case study of Slovenia, demonstrating the unique opportunities for GBR in Central and Eastern European Countries in particular. The book is for policy makers, consultants, lecturers, and scientists who wish to make and measure progress in sustainable development. Readers can choose from a range of market-based instruments applied in various countries and adapt them according to the requirements of their countries.
"Planet Dialectics" explores the ambivalences and ironies, the controversies and conflicts that pervade the terrain of global environmental politics. Most inquiries turn around one nagging suspicion: that the Western development model is at odds with both the quest for justice among the world's people and the aspiration to reconcile humanity and nature. By any stretch of imagination, it will not be possible that all citizens of the world will share in the fossil fuel-based, money-driven development model - with all its attendant paraphernalia - that has come to hold sway in the world today. The biosphere, as we know it, may give in. Against this background, the book probes Western-style development, examines its hidden assumptions, its glamour, its obsessions and the hopes it holds out for a better life. Moreover, it examines under various aspects if sustainability (truly conceived) - comprising both ecology and social fairness - is incompatible with the worldwide rule of economism. And finally, it suggests ways to leave conventional modernity behind by creating sophisticated but moderate-impact technologies, redirecting relentless accumulation, and appreciating ways of living that are simpler in means, but richer in ends.