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This report provides an overview of current activities regarding climate change mitigation in six emerging economies: Brazil, China, India, Mexico, South Africa and South Korea. We cover the institutional set up, measurement, reporting and verification systems for greenhouse gases and mitigation policies and measures. The analysis also addresses existing barriers to mitigation and considers where the international community could provide support to remove these.
The Sino-German project "Low Carbon Future Cities" (LCFC) aims to develop a low carbon strategy for its Chinese pilot city Wuxi. The strategy primarily focuses on carbon mitigation, but also considers links with the issues of resource efficiency and adaption to climate change. This report written by Daniel Vallentin, Carmen Dienst and Chun Xia offers strategic examples of good practice and makes recommendations to Wuxi city government about the changes that key sectors can adopt in order to comply with its low carbon targets. The recommendations are based on scientific analyses which were undertaken earlier in the LCFC project.
Improving material efficiency in the manufacturing industry is a sustainability imperative for companies due to economic and environmental advantages such as the reduction of material costs and resource use. Innovative solutions in terms of material efficiency measures are diverse and widespread. As a systematic assessment of efficiency approaches and their effects are likely to support dissemination and deployment, this paper aims to develop an approach that helps to classify material efficiency measures. The classification approach presents different dimensions and properties of material efficiency measures based on a literature analysis regarding existing classification approaches as well as on work that has been conducted for the Eco-Innovation Observatory. The classification has been designed as basis for an empirical impact assessment of material efficiency measures based on a data sample that stems from the German Material Efficiency Agency.
Die Debatte um den Veggie-Day hat gezeigt: sehr schnell wird das alte Konfliktmuster "Freiheit vs. Staat" aktiviert. Selbst das eingestaubte Bild einer "Ökodiktatur" dient wieder als Schreckgespenst und Wahlkampfhilfe. Dabei lohnt es sich sehr wohl, über das Verhältnis von Staat und individueller Freiheit zu streiten. Uwe Schneidewind und Angelika Zahrnt zeigen in dem Buch, wie dieses Verhältnis im Zeitalter der Nachhaltigkeit neu auszutarieren ist und ein zeitgemäßer Liberalismus aussehen kann. Das Buch erweitert den Blick auf die Debatte über die Wohlstandspolitik und es provoziert. Es verbindet die individuelle Suche nach dem guten Leben mit der Aufforderung an die Politik, diese Suche zu erleichtern und zu unterstützen. Wo hat die individuelle Konsumfreiheit heute ihre Grenzen, wenn wir - wie z. B. beim Klimawandel - um ihre weltweiten Folgen wissen? Wer hat die Verantwortung dafür, dass ökologische Grenzen eingehalten werden? Welchen Handlungsspielraum hat das Individuum und wie kann Politik ihn erweitern? Eine gute Politik sorgt dafür, dass eine Vielfalt individueller Lebensstile möglich ist, ohne die Lebensentwürfe anderer einzuschränken. Sie schafft Möglichkeitsräume für gutes Leben, so die beiden Autoren. Von einer ökologisch orientierten Wirtschaftsordnung über die Gestaltung einer auf das richtige Maß setzenden Stadt- und Verkehrspolitik bis zu neuen Impulsen in der Verbraucher-, Arbeits- und Gesundheitspolitik reichen dabei die Ansatzpunkte einer Suffizienzpolitik. Das Buch zeigt die Ansätze auf und entwickelt daraus ein umfassendes politisches Programm.
The limited data availability, transparency and harmonisation in environmental assessments of products are bottlenecks for improved environmental and sustainability governance. Despite the progressive developments of information and communication systems, reliable, accurate, up-to-date data for assessing the resource use of products and services is still lacking. Resource accounting systems often have limited scope on single companies, processes or products. This paper presents an approach for an automated bottom-up accounting system for measuring resource efficiency at product and service level. It is based on a global collaborative network of resource accounting nodes connected for the accounting of natural resources use for products and services. Using an Internet-based service-oriented architecture, relevant and timely data is passed from supplier to customer recursively through the whole value chain to produce an "ecoCost" for each product or service. This conceptual paper reflects first experiences from partners of the myEcoCost project funded by European Commission (www.myecocost.com).
Die Energielandschaft in Deutschland ist derzeit von einer Stadtwerke-Gründungswelle gekennzeichnet, insgesamt gab es in den letzten Jahren rund 70 Neugründungen von Stadt- und Gemeindewerken im Strombereich, davon allein 14 in Nordrhein-Westfalen. In einer Studie des Wuppertal Instituts wurde nun festgestellt, dass die wichtigsten Ziele, die mit Rekommunalisierungen verbunden werden, auch erreichbar sind.
Based on the European Waste Framework Directive and the German Recycling Management Act of 01.06.2012 the objectives for a national waste prevention programme were defined. As main objective, according to art. 1 WFD, the "prevention or reduction of the disadvantageous impacts of waste generation and management on the human health and the environment" is recommended. Indicators for a quantitative and qualitative monitoring are derived for both, the individual measures as well as for a waste prevention programme.
Carbon recycling, in which organic waste is recycled into chemical feedstock for material production, may provide benefits in resource efficiency and a more cyclical economy - but may also create "trade-offs" in increased impacts elsewhere. We investigate the system-wide environmental burdens and cost associated with carbon recycling routes capable of converting municipal solid waste (MSW) by gasification and Fischer-Tropsch synthesis into ethylene. Results are compared to business-as-usual (BAU) cases in which ethylene is derived from fossil resources and waste is either landfilled with methane and energy recovery (BAU#1) or incinerated (BAU#2) with energy recovery. Monte Carlo and sensitivity analysis is used to assess uncertainties of the results. Results indicate that carbon recycling may lead to a reduction in cumulative energy demand (CED), total material requirement (TMR), and acidification, when compared to BAU#1. Global warming potential is found to be similar or slightly lower than BAU#1 and BAU#2. In comparison to BAU#2, carbon recycling results in higher CED, TMR, acidification, and smog potential, mainly as a result of larger (fossil-based) energy offsets from energy recovery. However, if a renewable power mix (envisioned for the future) is assumed to be offset, BAU#2 impacts may be similar or higher than carbon recycling routes. Production cost per kilogram (kg) MSW-derived ethylene range between US$1.85 and US$2.06 (Jan 2011 US$). This compares to US$1.17 per kg for fossil-based ethylene. Waste-derived ethylene breaks even with its fossil-based counterpart at a tipping fee of roughly US$42 per metric ton of waste feedstock.
Calculating MIPS 2.0
(2013)
The Wuppertal Institute developed, in the early 1990s, an input-oriented lifecycle-wide resource accounting method, the "Material Input per Service-Unit" concept (MIPS), today also referred to as "Material Footprint". The official handbook applicable to products, services, and processes describes a MS Excel-based sequential approach for calculating MIPS. Today's computing power, available to every researcher, and access to software and databases dedicated to lifecycle analysis make calculating MIPS using matrix inversion possible. This also opens up possibilities for enhancing MIPS-models programmatically: parameterizing the foreground and background systems, batch modeling for producing time series, and computational algorithms enhancing interpretation. The article provides (1) an overview of the methods and tools used for calculating MIPS from its origins to today, and (2) demonstrates some of the programmatically enhanced capabilities offered to MIPS-practitioners.
Emscher 3.0 : from grey to blue - or, how the blue sky over the Ruhr region fell into the Emscher
(2013)
The river Emscher is - similar to the river Ruhr - the symbol of one of the internationally most renowned industrial regions: the Ruhr area with its 5 million inhabitants and an important location of key industries such as steel, chemical and materials industry. The revitalisation of the Emscher over the last 20 years marks a new phase in the region's history and is an impressive example of ecological and socio-economic transformation affecting all aspects of life along the river. What can we learn from the Emscher conversion for upcoming tasks in other infrastructure fields?