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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.
National policies for resource efficiency and waste management : structures, impacts, and deficits
(2015)
Reforming the EU VAT system to support the transition to a low-carbon and resource efficient economy
(2015)
This chapter discusses the question of ecologically differentiated value added taxes (VAT) as a tool to overcome tax-related cognitive barriers by connecting to an existing tax system. This is elaborated along several aspects: (a) The role indirect of consumption taxes for the economy, (b) the legal issues of the VAT system, (c) the EU harmonization efforts in this context, (d) the distributional implications of value added taxes. Following this, the chapter develops a proposal for a VAT reform (e). To this end, it looks at potential and existing differentiations between sectors, products and services, and product and service groups and turns to those consumption areas that are widely identified as particularly resource and carbon intensive and sets out how a harmonization of the overall system and an ecological differentiation in single consumption areas could be brought together. Potential impacts and effects are briefly discussed (f) and some conclusions are drawn (g). The subject addressed in the chapter is relevant from a policy perspective but mainly descriptive: It does not use innovative qualitative and quantitative tools.
The rising global demand for metals in a context of declining ore grades is driving the opening of new mines and the expansion of existing ones, disturbing substantial land areas (especially by open pits). However, how much land is currently disturbed globally? How much land could be disturbed by metal mining in 2050? This study investigates the global area disturbed by mining of iron, bauxite, copper, gold, and silver for the first time. The first part consists of the calculation of the specific land requirements, i.e. the area newly disturbed caused by the ore extraction at the mine site. The second part addresses the global area disturbed in the year 2011 whereas the third presents scenarios of how such area might evolve until 2050. The last part addresses the current and future pressures on global biodiversity by metal mines and shows possibilities for the future opening of new mines in low biodiversity areas, alleviating pressures in high biodiversity ones. This study presents the findings of the author´s dissertation hoping they are used as a frame to develop policies and incentives to reduce the amount of area directly disturbed by mines and their pressures on biodiversity.
The CO2 utilisation is discussed as one of the future low-carbon technologies in order to accomplish a full decarbonisation in the energy intensive industry. CO2 is separated from the flue gas stream of power plants or industrial plants and is prepared for further processing as raw material. CO2 containing gas streams from industrial processes exhibit a higher concentration of CO2 than flue gases from power plants; consequentially, industrial CO2 sources are used as raw material for the chemical industry and for the synthesis of fuel on the output side. Additionally, fossil resources can be replaced by substitutes of reused CO2 on the input side. If set up in a right way, this step into a CO2-based circular flow economy could make a contribution to the decarbonisation of the industrial sector and according to the adjusted potential, even rudimentarily to the energy sector.
In this study, the authors analyse potential CO2 sources, the potential demand and the range of applications of CO2. In the last chapter of the final report, they give recommendations for research, development, politics and economics for an appropriate future designing of CO2 utilisation options based upon their previous analysis.
For 20 years, the number of resource policy approaches with direct and indirect relations to raw materials, resource and material efficiency has grown enormously at national and international level. This discussion paper makes an inventory of different political and regulatory approaches that contain a direct or indirect reference to resources such as construction materials, industrial minerals, or metals. They are examined and evaluated regarding foci and resource priorities as well as further categories such as target lines, governance levels, indicators used, integration into wider target systems, specification, and implementation. The aim is to provide an overview of the spectrum of resource objectives in international, European, and national strategies, programs, and initiatives. The closer analysis of raw material targets embedded in the policy programs and legal approaches reveals that most goals lack a time frame and a concrete vision, thus remain at a strategic level. To complement the overview, the state of research in the field of modeling and simulation is briefly discussed. Concluding remarks concerning their relation to the objectives identified and the task of target setting complete the discussion.
Consumption-based CO2 emissions, which are commonly calculated by means of environmentally extended input-output analysis, are gaining wider recognition as a way to complement territorial emission inventories. Although their use has increased significantly in the last years, insufficient attention has been paid to the methodological soundness of the underlying environmental extension. This should follow the internationally agreed accounting rules of the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting, which addresses the activities undertaken by the residents of a country, independent from where these take place. Nonetheless, some footprint calculations use extensions that account for all the activities within the territory, which leads to methodological inconsistencies. Thus, this article introduces the most relevant conceptual differences between these accounting frameworks and shows the magnitude of the gap between them building on the data generated for the EXIOBASE model. It concludes that the differences are high for many countries and their magnitude is increasing over time.
The paper reflects the hypothesis that those technological and institutional innovations survive which extend the safe operating range (SOR) of the Humans-Technologies-Institutions (HTI) system (e.g. companies, cities, regions and countries). The multidimensional SOR of a country comprises in particular safe livelihood, quality of life, security, monetary stability, supply security and quality of the environment. A "mechanism of progress" is described involving the search for higher safety and independence of constraints. With innovation and learning in a key role, the mechanism leads to a relative decoupling of resource use and economic value added and a growing share of knowledge generation in the economy. Competition of HTI systems for scarce resources may lead to independence strategies such as enhanced resource efficiency. It may also lead to cooperation of competing HTI systems facilitated by new institutions thus forming an HTI system at higher level of complexity. While the consortium could coordinate their resource consumption within the boundaries of safe operating space, the partner HTI systems would further expand their SOR. Data is provided that net resource importing countries have developed higher material productivity thus increasing their independence from resource supply, and countries with such capability have gained higher innovation capacity.
A lack of proper treatment infrastructure and sufficient capacity for municipal solid waste (MSW) treatment is a crucial barrier for the environmentally sound management of waste. However, overcapacities, especially for waste incineration, also have to be taken into account regarding their potential impacts on recycling markets and waste treatment prices. This paper provides a comprehensive overview of existing MSW incineration plants and their capacities within Europe. In combination with the analysis of imports and exports of MSW for incineration, it provides an indication of over- and undercapacities for incineration plants. Among other things, the results show that in six of the 32 countries analysed in this study, capacities exceed more than 50% of the annual waste generation, while in two countries the total amount of waste generated annually is not enough to fill all the incineration plants.
The bioeconomy is gaining growing attention as a perceived win-win strategy for environment and economy in the EU. However, the EU already has a disproportionately high global cropland footprint compared to the world average, and uses more cropland than domestically available to supply its demand for agricultural products. There is a risk that uncontrolled growth of the bioeconomy will increase land use pressures abroad. For that reason, a monitoring system is needed to account for the global land use of European consumption. The aim of this paper is to take a closer look at the tools needed to monitor global cropland footprints, as well as the targets needed to benchmark development. This paper reviews recent developments in land footprint accounting approaches and applies the method of global land use accounting to calculate the global cropland footprint of the EU-27 for the years between 2000 and 2011. It finds a slight decrease in per capita cropland footprints over the past decade (of around 1% annually, reaching 0.29 ha/cap in 2011) and advocates promoting a further decrease in per capita cropland requirements (of around 2% annually) to reach global land use targets for keeping consumption within the safe operating space of planetary boundaries by 2030. It argues that strategic land reduction targets may still go hand in hand with the growth of a smart, innovative and sustainable bioeconomy by reinforcing the need for policies that support greater efficiency across the life-cycle and reduce wasteful and excessive consumption practices. Recommendations for further improving land footprint accounting are given.
The transition towards a circular economy is high on the political agenda and support for innovative business models can be seen as one of the key strategies for its implementation. Nevertheless most of these business models rely on an increasing generation of waste and thus undermine the prevention of waste as top of the waste hierarchy. The paper aims to link this debate to more systemic eco-innovations that offer economic market potentials by reduced material inputs and waste generation. This directs the attention to sufficiency strategies that surpass the level of individual consumer choices and regards the potentials of entrepreneurial sufficiency strategies. It takes the example of waste contracting modelsin Germany as a possible approach of resource-light business models that provide existing utility aspects with altered consumption patterns and decreased resource consumption. It describes environmental and economic benefits and draws conclusions on necessary policy framework conditions.
A future-oriented and sustainable "Leasing Society" is based on a combination of new and innovative serviceoriented business models, changed product and material ownership structures, increased and improved eco-design efforts, and reverse logistic structures. Together these elements have the potential to change the relationship between producers and consumers, and thereby create a new incentive structure in the economy regarding the use and re-use of resources. While the consumer in a leasing society buys a service (instead of a product), the producer in a leasing society retains the ownership of the product (instead of selling it) and sells the service of using the product. This creates producer incentives to re-use, remanufacture, and recycle products and materials and could become a cornerstone of the circular economy, depending on how the leasing society is implemented. While a predominantly positive picture of the success of a leasing society model and related business cases emerges from the bigger part of the available literature, this paper argues that the resource efficiency of respective business cases is highly dependent on the specific business case design. This paper develops a more cautious and differentiated definition of the leasing society by discussing relevant mechanisms and success factors of leasing society business cases. The leasing society is discussed from a micro business-oriented and a macro environment-oriented perspective complemented by a discussion of conditions for successful business models that reduce environmental impacts and resource footprints.
In early September 2014, about 4.000 scientists, activists and artists at the 4th International Conference on Degrowth sent out two messages.
1. Industrialized societies will change, either by disaster or by design. Accelerated resource exploitation and climate change can force societies into a transition. Or they swiftly develop new forms of economic, political and social organization which respect the planetary boundaries.
2. "Degrowth" has become a new social movement which translates scientific insights into cultural change, political change and social practice. Hence, the conference itself was an experiment on the potentials and limits of share economy, commoning and sufficiency.
A team of young scholars and activists from different German research institutes and non-govern- mental organisations prepared the conference. The team of the Wuppertal Institute was partly involved in the preperation of the conference. Scientists from all research groups took part in the conference, presenting and discussing project results.
The publication is a collection of contributions of the Wuppertal Institute to the conference and covers pivotal issues of the degrowth-debate: indicator development (Freyling & Schepelmann), working time reduction (Buhl), feminist theory (Biesecker & Winterfeld), and urban transition (Best).
Many countries have started to develop policy programs for the sustainable use of natural resources. Indicators and targets can cover both a territorial and a life-cycle-wide global perspective. This article focuses on how a safe operating space for global material resource use can be outlined based on existing economy-wide material flow indicators. It reflects on issues such as scale and systems perspective, as the choice of indicators determines the target "valves" of the socio-industrial metabolism. It considers environmental pressures and social aspects of safe and fair resource use. Existing proposals for resource consumption targets are reviewed, partially revisited, and taken as a basis to outline potential target values for a safe operating space for the extraction and use of minerals and biomass by final consumption. A potential sustainability corridor is derived with the Total Material Consumption of abiotic resources ranging from 6 to 12 t/person, the Total Material Consumption of biotic resources not exceeding 2 t/person, and the Raw Material Consumption of used biotic and abiotic materials ranging from 3 to 6 t/person until 2050. For policy, a "10-2-5 target triplet" can provide orientation, when the three indicators are assigned values of 10, 2, and 5 t/person, respectively.
Measuring progress towards sustainable development requires appropriate frameworks and databases. The System of Environmental-Economic Accounts (SEEA) is undergoing continuous refinement with these objectives in mind. In SEEA, there is a need for databases to encompass the global dimension of societal metabolism. In this paper, we focus on the latest effort to construct a global multi-regional input-output database (EXIOBASE) with a focus on environmentally relevant activities. The database and its broader analytical framework allows for the as yet most detailed insight into the production-related impacts and "footprints" of our consumption. We explore the methods used to arrive at the database, and some key relationships extracted from the database.
Critical metals are in great demand by the electrical and electronics industry, so waste electrical and eletronic equipment represents a significant source of secondary raw materials. Owing to low recycling rates and the concomitant supply risks associated with critical metals, the closure of the material cycles is highly relevant to the German economy. Losses of these metals occur from collection until their material recovery, along the entire disposal chain of waste electrical and electronic equipment. This paper develops planning criteria for the design of collection groups to achieve higher recovery amounts of such metals. The aim is to clarify what amounts of metals exist, both product-specific and on the market, how the dismantling of the products is constructed and how collection groups can be arranged with planning criteria oriented towards resource conservation. The analysis is a snapshot using the example of indium and selected products. A procedure is presented and findings identified which are transferable to various critical metals and to waste electrical and electronic equipment. The results show that grouping of products according to resource amounts and the dismantling effort enables forward-looking and resource-efficient planning of the treatment of every single collection group.