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The economic assessment of low-carbon energy options is the primary step towards the design of policy portfolios to foster the green energy economy. However, today these assessments often fall short of including important determinants of the overall cost-benefit balance of such options by not including indirect costs and benefits, even though these can be game-changing. This is often due to the lack of adequate methodologies.
The purpose of this paper is to provide a comprehensive account of the key methodological challenges to the assessment of the multiple impacts of energy options, and an initial menu of potential solutions to address these challenges.
The paper first provides evidence for the importance of the multiple impacts of energy actions in the assessment of low-carbon options.
The paper identifies a few key challenges to the evaluation of the co-impacts of low-carbon options and demonstrates that these are more complex for co-impacts than for the direct ones. Such challenges include several layers of additionality, high context dependency, and accounting for distributional effects.
The paper continues by identifying the key challenges to the aggregation of multiple impacts including the risks of overcounting while taking into account the multitude of interactions among the various co-impacts. The paper proposes an analytical framework that can help address these and frame a systematic assessment of the multiple impacts.
Resource use of wind farms in the German North Sea : the example of Alpha Ventus and Bard Offshore I
(2013)
The German government aims to obtain at least 40 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030. One of the central steps to reach this target is the construction of deep sea offshore wind farms. The paper presents a material intensity analysis of the offshore wind farms "Alpha Ventus" and "Bard Offshore I" under consideration of the grid connection. An additional onshore scenario is considered for comparison. The results show that offshore wind farms have higher resource consumption than onshore farms. In general, and in respect to the resource use of other energy systems, both can be tagged as resource efficient.
Mit der Nachhaltigkeitsanleihe NRW erschließt das Land das international wachsende Segment des nachhaltigen Investments für die Kreditfinanzierung des Landeshaushalts. Ziel der vorliegenden Studie ist es, die Bewertung positiver Nachhaltigkeitseffekte für die in 2016 emittierte Nachhaltigkeitsanleihe NRW zu erproben und Handlungsempfehlungen zur Bewertung zukünftiger Nachhaltigkeitsanleihen zu entwickeln. Für eine umfassende Nachhaltigkeitsanalyse ist aufgrund der Vielschichtigkeit der finanzierten Projekte und fehlender Standards zur Bewertung sozialer Kriterien eine umfangreiche Untersuchung erforderlich, wodurch sie für eine regelmäßige und standardisierte Wirkungsanalyse zukünftiger Anleihen nicht in Frage kommt. Stattdessen verfolgt die vorliegende Studie einen pragmatischen Ansatz zur Bewertung. Der Fokus liegt auf der Evaluation der potenziellen Treibhausgas-Minderung (THG-Minderung), da deren Bewertung sich derzeit als Standard für eine Wirkungsanalyse solcher Anleihen abzeichnet. Darüber hinaus werden die nächsten Schritte für eine Weiterentwicklung der Methodik und des Indikatorensets im Rahmen zukünftiger Wirkungsanalysen aufgezeigt.
The German government has set itself the target of reducing the country's GHG emissions by between 80 and 95% by 2050 compared to 1990 levels. Alongside energy efficiency, renewable energy sources are set to play the main role in this transition. However, the large-scale deployment of renewable energies is expected to cause increased demand for critical mineral resources. The aim of this article is therefore to determine whether the transformation of the German energy system by 2050 ("Energiewende") may possibly be restricted by a lack of critical minerals, focusing primarily on the power sector (generating, transporting and storing electricity from renewable sources). For the relevant technologies, we create roadmaps describing a number of conceivable quantitative market developments in Germany. Estimating the current and future specific material demand of the options selected and projecting them along a range of long-term energy scenarios allows us to assess potential medium- or long-term mineral resource restrictions. The main conclusion we draw is that the shift towards an energy system based on renewable sources that is currently being pursued is principally compatible with the geological availability and supply of mineral resources. In fact, we identified certain sub-technologies as being critical with regard to potential supply risks, owing to dependencies on a small number of supplier countries and competing uses. These sub-technologies are certain wind power plants requiring neodymium and dysprosium, thin-film CIGS photovoltaic cells using indium and selenium, and large-scale redox flow batteries using vanadium. However, non-critical alternatives to these technologies do indeed exist. The likelihood of supplies being restricted can be decreased further by cooperating even more closely with companies in the supplier countries and their governments, and by establishing greater resource efficiency and recyclability as key elements of technology development.
Für die Umsetzung der Energiewende und speziell den Ausbau erneuerbarer Energien sind nicht nur energiewirtschaftliche oder Klimaschutz-Kriterien maßgeblich. Zu einer umfassenden Nachhaltigkeitsbewertung gehört unter anderem auch die Ressourcenbewertung. Hier ist unstrittig, dass die Gesamt-Ressourceninanspruchnahme eines Energiesystems generell erheblich niedriger ist, wenn dieses nicht auf fossilen, sondern auf erneuerbaren Energien basiert (und dabei nicht hauptsächlich auf Biomasse ausgerichtet ist). Bisher wurde jedoch insbesondere der Verbrauch und die langfristige Verfügbarkeit der mineralischen Rohstoffe, die in der Regel zur Herstellung von Energiewandlern und Infrastruktur benötigt werden, wenig untersucht.
Im Rahmen des Projekts KRESSE wurde daher erstmals analysiert, welche "kritischen" mineralischen Rohstoffe für die Herstellung von Technologien, die Strom, Wärme und Kraftstoffe aus erneuerbaren Energien erzeugen, bei einer zeitlichen Perspektive bis zum Jahr 2050 in Deutschland relevant sind. Die Einschätzung als "kritisch" umfasst dabei die langfristige Verfügbarkeit der identifizierten Rohstoffe, die Versorgungssituation, die Recyclingfähigkeit und die Umweltbedingungen der Förderung. Die Studie macht deutlich, dass die geologische Verfügbarkeit mineralischer Rohstoffe für den geplanten Ausbau der erneuerbaren Energien in Deutschland grundsätzlich keine limitierende Größe darstellt. Dabei kann jedoch möglicherweise nicht jede Technologievariante unbeschränkt zum Einsatz kommen.
The European Horizon 2020-project COMBI ("Calculating and Operationalising the Multiple Benefits of Energy Efficiency in Europe") aims at estimating the energy and non-energy impacts that a realisation of the EU energy efficiency potential would have in the year 2030. The project goal is to cover the most important technical potentials identified for the EU27 by 2030 and to come up with consistent estimates for the most relevant impacts: air pollution (and its effects on human health, eco-systems/crops, buildings), social welfare (including disposable income, comfort, health and productivity), biotic and abiotic resources, the energy system and energy security and the macro economy (employment, economic growth and the public budget). This paper describes the overall project research design, envisaged methodologies, the most critical methodological challenges with such an ex-ante evaluation and with aggregating the multiple impacts. The project collects data for a set of 30 energy efficiency improvement actions grouped by energy services covering all sectors and EU countries. Based on this, multiple impacts will be quantified with separate methodological approaches, following methods used in the respective literature and developing them where necessary. The paper outlines the approaches taken by COMBI: socio-economic modelling for air pollution and social welfare, resource modelling for biotic/abiotic and economically unused resources, General Equilibrium modelling for long-run macroeconomic effects and other models for short-run effects, and the LEAP model for energy system modelling. Finally, impacts will be aggregated, where possible in monetary terms. Specific challenges of this step include double-counting issues, metrics, within and cross-country/regional variability of effects and context-specificity.
Energy efficiency improvements have numerous benefits/impacts additional to energy and greenhouse gas savings, as has been shown and analysed e.g. in the 2014 IEA Report on "Multiple Benefits of Energy Efficiency". This paper presents the Horizon 2020-project COMBI ("Calculating and Operationalising the Multiple Benefits of Energy Efficiency in Europe"), aiming at calculating the energy and non-energy impacts that a realisation of the EU energy efficiency potential would have in 2030. The project covers the most relevant technical energy efficiency improvement actions and estimates impacts of reduced air pollution (and its effects on human health, eco-systems/crops, buildings), improved social welfare (incl. disposable income, comfort, health, productivity), saved biotic and abiotic resources, and energy system, energy security, and the macroeconomy (employment, economic growth and public budget). This paper explains how the COMBI energy savings potential in the EU 2030 is being modelled and how multiple impacts are assessed. We outline main challenges with the quantification (choice of baseline scenario, additionality of savings and impacts, context dependency and distributional issues) as well as with the aggregation of impacts (e.g. interactions and overlaps) and how the project deals with them. As research is still ongoing, this paper only gives a first impression of the order of magnitude for additional multiple impacts of energy efficiency improvements may have in Europe, where this is available to date. The paper is intended to stimulate discussion and receive feedback from the academic community on quantification approaches followed by the project.
The implementation of energy efficiency improvement actions not only yields energy and greenhouse gas emission savings, but also leads to other multiple impacts such as air pollution reductions and subsequent health and eco-system effects, resource impacts, economic effects on labour markets, aggregate demand and energy prices or on energy security. While many of these impacts have been studied in previous research, this work quantifies them in one consistent framework based on a common underlying bottom-up funded energy efficiency scenario across the EU. These scenario data are used to quantify multiple impacts by energy efficiency improvement action and for all EU28 member states using existing approaches and partially further developing methodologies. Where possible, impacts are integrated into cost-benefit analyses. We find that with a conservative estimate, multiple impacts sum up to a size of at least 50% of energy cost savings, with substantial impacts coming from e.g., air pollution, energy poverty reduction and economic impacts.
Improvements in energy efficiency have numerous impacts additional to energy and greenhouse gas savings. This paper presents key findings and policy recommendations of the COMBI project ("Calculating and Operationalising the Multiple Benefits of Energy Efficiency in Europe").
This project aimed at quantifying the energy and non-energy impacts that a realisation of the EU energy efficiency potential would have in 2030. It covered the most relevant technical energy efficiency improvement actions in buildings, transport and industry.
Quantified impacts include reduced air pollution (and its effects on human health, eco-systems), improved social welfare (health, productivity), saved biotic and abiotic resources, effects on the energy system and energy security, and the economy (employment, GDP, public budgets and energy/EU-ETS prices). The paper shows that a more ambitious energy efficiency policy in Europe would lead to substantial impacts: overall, in 2030 alone, monetized multiple impacts (MI) would amount to 61 bn Euros per year in 2030, i.e. corresponding to approx. 50% of energy cost savings (131 bn Euros).
Consequently, the conservative CBA approach of COMBI yields that including MI quantifications to energy efficiency impact assessments would increase the benefit side by at least 50-70%. As this analysis excludes numerous impacts that could either not be quantified or monetized or where any double-counting potential exists, actual benefits may be much larger.
Based on these findings, the paper formulates several recommendations for EU policy making:
(1) the inclusion of MI into the assessment of policy instruments and scenarios,
(2) the need of reliable MI quantifications for policy design and target setting,
(3) the use of MI for encouraging inter-departmental and cross-sectoral cooperation in policy making to pursue common goals, and
(4) the importance of MI evaluations for their communication and promotion to decision-makers, stakeholders, investors and the general public.
Nowadays, the main impetus to apply additive manufacturing (AM) of metals is the high geometric flexibility of the processes and its ability to produce pilot or small batch series. In contrast, resource and energy intensities are often not considered as constraints, even though the turnout of additive manufacturing is high, at least compared to chip removing processes.
The study at hand analyses the material characteristics and environmental impacts of a hose nozzle as an example of a commercial product of simple geometry. The production routes turning (conventional manufacturing) and laser beam melting (additive manufacturing) are compared to each other in terms of natural resource use, climate change potential and primary energy demand. It is found, that the product shows a lower demand for natural resources when produced via AM, but higher carbon emissions and energy demand when using a steel, that is mainly (80%) produced from high-alloyed steel scrap. However, different case studies during the sensitivity analyses showed that a number of factors highly influence the results: the steel source as well as the source of electricity play a major role in determining the environmental performance of the production routes. The authors also found that other production processes (here cold forging of tubes) might be an eco-friendly alternative to both routes, if feasible from an economic point of view.
In regard to the material characteristics, experimental testing revealed that the material advantages of AM produced hose nozzles (in particular higher yield strength) are reduced after a solution heat treatment is applied to the as-produced material, in order to increase corrosion resistance. However, products that do not require this production step might benefit from the higher yield strength, as a lower wall thickness could be realised.
Öffentliche Mittel für die Unterstützung von Unternehmen sollten bestenfalls so eingesetzt werden, dass sie eine möglichst große, nachhaltige Wirkung haben und mit einem gesellschaftlichen Nutzen verbunden sind. Das kann unmittelbar erfolgen, in dem die konkrete Förderung an bestimmte Vorgaben gebunden wird, wie etwa den Ausbau von zukunftsfähigen Infrastrukturen. Es besteht jedoch auch die Möglichkeit, die Risikoabsicherung von Unternehmen - beispielsweise über Bürgschaften oder andere geeignete Finanzierungskonditionen - an der Nachhaltigkeitsperformance der Unternehmen auszurichten.
Der vorliegende vierstufige Leitfaden, den der WWF Deutschland und das Wuppertal Institut entwickelt haben, dient als Grundlage für die zielorientiertere Vergabe von Mitteln und deren praktische Umsetzung. Er baut auf der von der Europäischen Union entwickelten "Taxonomie" für nachhaltige Investitionen auf. Darin enthalten sind Grenzwerte, welche die Nachhaltigkeitsperformance wirtschaftlicher Aktivitäten definieren. Auf diese Weise lässt sich filtern, ob ein wirtschaftliches Vorhaben zukunftsfähig ist. Hierbei unterstützt der "Entscheidungsbaum" des Leitfadens die Anwendung der EU-Taxonomie als Regelwerk.
Förderbanken vergeben in Deutschland jährlich mindestens 200 Milliarden Euro an Mitteln für Investitionen, die sonst nicht oder sehr viel später umgesetzt werden könnten. Sie arbeiten im öffentlichen Auftrag und richten ihre Tätigkeit an gesellschaftlichen Zielen aus. Diese Ziele haben sich weiterentwickelt. Angesichts von Klimawandel, Energiekrise und den Herausforderungen einer Kreislaufwirtschaft wollen sowohl die Länder als auch die Bundesregierung ihre Förderbanken umbauen. Gerade die Förderbanken der Länder müssen sich darum jetzt bereit machen für die "Weiterentwicklung von Förderbanken zu Transformationsbanken". Für die erfolgreiche Gestaltung dieses gesellschaftlichen Umbruchs brauchen sie Unterstützung. Wie dies gelingt, zeigt dieser Zukunftsimpuls.
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.
Causal strands for social bonds : a case study on the credibility of claims from impact reporting
(2022)
The study investigates if causal claims based on a theory-of-change approach for impact reporting are credible. The authors use their most recent impact report for a Social Bond to show how theory-based logic models can be used to map the sustainability claims of issuers to quantifiable indicators. A single project family (homeownership loans) is then used as a case study to test the underlying hypotheses of the sustainability claims. By applying Bayes Theorem, evidence for and against the claims is weighted to calculate the degree to which the belief in the claims is warranted. The authors found that only one out of three claims describe a probable cause–effect chain for social benefits from the loans. The other two claims either require more primary data to be corroborated or should be re-defined to link the intervention more closely and robustly with the overarching societal goals. However, all previous reported indicators are below the thresholds of the most conservative estimates for fractions of beneficiaries in the paper at hand. We conclude that the combination of a Theory-of-Change with a Bayesian Analysis is an effective way to test the plausibility of sustainability claims and to mitigate biases. Nevertheless, the method is - in the presented form - also too elaborate and time-consuming for impact reporting in the sustainable finance market.
The Wuppertal Institute conducted an impact analysis of the NRW Sustainability Bond #4 of 2018 on behalf of the State Government of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW). The most recent bond has a volume of EUR 2.025bn, a term of 10 years and consists of 52 eligible projects from the State's 2017 general budget (sustainable value-added was confirmed in a second party opinion by oekom research1). This report analyses the contribution of the bond to climate mitigation, sustainable land use and social impacts. It also includes information on the impacts of the previous three bonds (NRW Sustainability Bond #1 to #3).
GLS Bank Carbon Footprint & Handprint : Projektbericht im Auftrag der GLS Gemeinschaftsbank eG
(2021)
Die GLS Bank finanziert gezielt nachhaltige Projekte und Unternehmen in den Bereichen erneuerbare Energien, nachhaltige Wirtschaft, Ernährung, Wohnen, Bildung & Kultur, Soziales & Gesundheit. Eine zentrale Herausforderung ist es, die Nachhaltigkeitswirkung der Finanz- und Anlagestrategie robust zu quantifizieren und transparent darzustellen. Die GLS Bank hat sich zum Ziel gesetzt, die hierfür notwendigen Methoden und Daten zur Bewertung der Nachhaltigkeitswirkungen ihres Finanz- und Anlagenportfolios schrittweise weiterzuentwickeln, um eine richtungssichere Portfoliosteuerung und Kundenbetreuung zu unterstützen. Ziel des Projektes ist zunächst, das Emissionsgeschehen der finanzierten Wertschöpfungskette abzubilden (Scope 3), aber auch die eingesparten Emissionen als einen Beitrag zum Klimaschutz zu bewerten (Scope 4). Es werden die Scope 3 Emissionen der GLS Bank in den folgenden Finanz- und Anlagebereichen für das Berichtsjahr 2019 bilanziert: 1. Aktien- und Klimafonds; 2. Kredite; 3. Unternehmensbeteiligung. Scope 4 Emissionen werden in Form vermiedener Emissionen (Carbon Handprint) dabei ausschließlich für Bereiche bilanziert, in denen THG-Reduktionspotentiale richtungssicher abgeschätzt werden können.
Im vorliegenden Bericht wird der Untersuchungsrahmen, die vom Wuppertal Institut entwickelte Methodik sowie Lösungsstrategien für die Überbrückung geringer Datenqualität/-verfügbarkeit beschrieben. Die Robustheit der Ergebnisse wird durch Prüfungsmethoden reflektiert und dem Leser somit eine Interpretationsunterstützung gegeben. In einem Ausblick werden Weiterentwicklungsbedarfe und -möglichkeiten skizziert, um schrittweise eine zunehmend robuste und wissenschaftliche fundierte Methodik und Datengrundlage zur Bewertung der Klimawirkung sowie weiterer Nachhaltigkeitswirkungen des Finanz- und Anlageportfolios der GLS Bank in Zusammenarbeit mit relevanten Stakeholdern zu etablieren.
Financial institutions play a crucial role in achieving the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement. They can manage capital flows for financing the required transformation towards a decarbonized industry. Currently established policy programs and regulations at European and national level increasingly address financial institutions to make their climate warming impact measurable and transparent. However, required science-based assessment methods have not been sufficiently developed so far.
This paper discusses methodological opportunities and challenges for measuring carbon footprints of financial institutions. Based on a scientific case study undertaken with the German GLS Bank, the authors introduce an innovative method for quantifying greenhouse gas emissions from a bank's asset with a focus on loans. The authors apply an input/output database to calculate greenhouse gas (GHG) intensities and allocate them with bank's loans and investments.
Moreover, the paper provides insights of calculating avoided GHG emissions initiated by a bank's investment and loans. In conclusion, a high degree of consistent and standardized assessment methods and guidelines need to be developed and applied to promote comparability and transparency.
The long-term transition towards a low-carbon transport sector is a key strategy in Europe. This includes the replacement of fossil fuels, modal shifts towards public transport as well as higher energy efficiency in the transport sector overall. While these energy savings are likely to reduce the direct greenhouse gas emissions of transport, they also require the production of new and different vehicles. This study analyses in detail whether final energy savings in the transport sector also induce savings for material resources from nature if the production of future vehicles is considered. The results for 28 member states in 2030 indicate that energy efficiency in the transport sector leads to lower carbon emissions as well as resource use savings. However, energy-efficient transport sectors can have a significant impact on the demand for metals in Europe. An additional annual demand for 28.4 Mt of metal ores was calculated from the personal transport sector in 2030 alone. The additional metal ores from semiprecious metals (e.g., copper) amount to 12.0 Mt, from precious metals (e.g., gold) to 9.1 Mt and from other metals (e.g., lithium) to 11.7 Mt, with small savings for ferrous metal ores (-4.6 Mt).
The Wuppertal Institute conducted an impact analysis of the NRW sustainability bond #5 of 2019 on behalf of the State government of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW). The most recent bond has a volume of EUR 2.25 bn, a term of 15 years and consists of 52 eligible projects from the State's 2018 general budget (sustainable value-added was confirmed in a second party opinion by ISS-oekom). This report analyses the contribution of the bond to climate mitigation, sustainable land use and social impacts. It also includes information on the impacts of the previous four bonds (NRW sustainability bond #1 to #4).