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The effectiveness of sustainable product and service innovations is often restricted by limited market acceptance or unexpected consumption patterns. The latter includes rebound effects, which occur when resources liberated by savings are used for further consumption. Recently emerging research from the Living Lab is striving to address and anticipate challenges in innovation design by integrating users in prototyping and field testing product and service innovations. The paper presents findings from a literature review on rebound effects and expert interviews identifying methods to monitor and measures to mitigate rebound effects in early innovation design via Living Lab research.
We find that monitoring and mitigating rebound effects in Living Lab research includes technological and behavioural triggers as well as socio-psychological and time use effects in addition to economic re-spending effects. The experts have confirmed that Living Labs contain the potential to observe complex demand systems of users within experimental designs, encompassing indirect rebound effects in terms of expenditure as well as time use. In this respect, Living Lab research can facilitate support for sustainable innovations, which aim to encourage changes in consumer behaviour, considering re-spending and time use effects simultaneously.
The transformation processes towards a sustainable development are complex. How can science contribute towards new solutions and ideas leading to change in practice? The authors of this book discuss these questions along the energy transition in the building sector.
A transformative research that leaves the neutral observer position needs appropriate concepts and methods: how can knowledge from different disciplines and from practice be integrated in order to be able to explain and understand complex circumstances and interrelations? What role do complex (agent-based) models and experiments play in this respect? Which mix of methods is required in transformative science in order to actively support the actors in transformation processes?
Theses questions are illustrated by the example of the BMBF funded project "EnerTransRuhr".
Die Transformationsprozesse hin zu einer nachhaltigen Entwicklung sind komplex.
Wie kann Wissenschaft dazu beitragen, dass neue Lösungen und Ideen in der Praxis zu Veränderung führen? Dieser Frage gehen die Autorinnen und Autoren am Beispiel der Gebäudeenergiewende nach. Eine transformative Forschung, die den neutralen Beobachterposten verlässt, braucht entsprechende Konzepte und Methoden: Wie kann Wissen aus unterschiedlichen Disziplinen und aus der Praxis integriert werden, um komplexe Sachverhalte und Zusammenhänge zu erklären und zu verstehen? Welche Rolle spielen komplexe (agentenbasierte) Modelle und Experimente dabei? Wie sieht der Methodenmix einer transformativen Wissenschaft aus, die Akteure bei Transformationsprozessen aktiv unterstützt? Illustriert werden diese Fragen am Beispiel des vom BMBF geförderten Forschungsprojektes "EnerTransRuhr".
Rebound-Effekte sind die unerwünschten Wirkungen vieler Nachhaltigkeitsbemühungen. Gleichzeitig zeigen sie, dass gespartes Geld und gewonnene Zeit wieder reinvesitiert werden, damit wir mehr vom Leben haben, mehr tun und mehr erleben können - Rebound-Effekte sind Teil des Steigerungsspiels.
Auf der Grundlage soziologischer Theorien der Steigerung und Beschleunigung liefert das Buch eine umfassende Empirie zu indirekten Einkommens-, aber vor allem zu Zeiteffekten in Deutschland. Im Zentrum der empirischen Studien steht die Überprüfung einer dreifachen Dividende von Arbeitszeitverkürzungen - Ressourcenschonung, soziales Engagement und individuelle Lebenszufriedenheit. Zwar kompensieren Zeit-Rebound-Effekte potenzielle Ressourceneinsparungen in großen Teilen, aber nicht vollständig. Davon abgesehen äußern sich Zeit-Rebound-Effekte in ehrenamtlichem Engagement und individueller Zufriedenheit - erwünschte Wirkungen von Rebound-Effekten.
Das Ziel dieser Basisstudie ist es Ursachen für Rebound-Effekte und potentielle Gegenmaßnahmen aufzuzeigen. Zudem sollen Möglichkeiten zur Beobachtung und Verringerung von Rebound-Effekten in Living Labs beschrieben werden.
Dieses Arbeitspapier ist ein Ergebnis aus dem Arbeitspaket 1 "Bestandsaufnahme des Innovationsumfeldes für Living Labs" im Rahmen des Projektes "Living Labs in der Green Economy: Realweltliche Innovationsräume für Nutzerintegration und Nachhaltigkeit" (INNOLAB), das im Rahmen der Sozial-ökologischen Forschung zum Themenschwerpunkt "Nachhaltiges Wirtschaften" vom Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung gefördert wird.
Die Basisstudie stützt sich auf eine Literaturanalyse von ausgewählten Schlüsselstudien sowie auf fünf Experteninterviews und deren Inhaltsanalyse.
Es zeigt sich, dass sowohl technologische Innovationen als auch Verhaltensänderungen als Auslöser von Rebound-Effekten unterschieden werden. Von diesen Auslösern ausgehend, entstehen zunächst unmittelbare Effekte, die dann Rebound- Effekte über drei unterschiedliche Mechanismen bewirken können: über monetäre Effekte (also aufgrund von Geldeinsparungen), über Zeiteffekte (also aufgrund von Zeiteinsparungen) und über sozial-psychologische Effekte. Rebound-Effekte können sich durch die Reinvestition eingesparter Geld- und Zeitbudgets im Bedarfsfeld der ursprünglichen Einsparung (als direkte Rebound-Effekte) oder in einem anderen Bedarfsfeld (als indirekte Rebound-Effekte) ergeben, siehe nachfolgende Abbildung.
In order to make our lifestyles sustainable, changing our consumption patterns is fundamental. Hence, we need to better understand who the "consumers" are and to consider them as an active actor to directly engage for ensuring effective policies. In order to support a resource-light society, production and consumption need to be considered through an integrated system view; within this, consumers play an important role as co-acting subjects. Almost every activity in private life involves a form of consumption aimed at satisfying the subject's needs and often regarded through an economic lens. Sustainable development is not about abolishing private consumption, but rather about making it environmentally, socially and individually sustainable in its design, organization and realization, also involving ideas of simplicity or renunciation. In this paper, we will assess the status quo of the German and European debates on Consumer Research Policies and discuss the idea to link sustainability research and consumer research - where a strategic relation is currently missing. Within that discussion, an evidence-based and obligatory consumer research strategy in Germany and Europe would represent a significant improvement. A system view perspective is necessary to take into consideration the impressive amount of diversity, and to elaborate realistic economic and consumer policies. Therefore, we propose nine steps for understanding the role of the consumer in implementing sustainable development from a scientific and political perspective. The limitations of this paper are thus a result of the very diverse and often unclear policies and agendas produced by governments. The implementation of the proposed innovative research agenda for a future-orientated and sustainability-based consumer research is not free from challenges. Still, the paper suggests the first steps towards this direction. After a critical discussion of the current EU and German consumer and sustainability policies, nine differentiated and substantial ways to integrate and ameliorate them are proposed.
Actor and network analysis
(2017)
Die Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) schlagen zur Indikation verantwortungsvoller Konsum- und Produktionsstrukturen bzw. zum nachhaltigen Management und der effizienten Nutzung natürlicher Ressourcen den Material Footprint pro Kopf vor. Zudem sollen SDG-Indikatoren prinzipiell in der Lage sein, zwischen verschiedenen Bevölkerungsgruppen (etwa nach Einkommen oder Alter) unterscheiden zu können. Wir stellen einen Indikator aus der Nachhaltigkeitsstrategie NRW zum Ressourcenverbrauch des privaten Konsums auf der Grundlage von Mikrodaten vor. Der größte Ressourcenverbrauch der privaten Haushalte in NRW bleibt Wohnung, Nahrungsmittel und Verkehr vorbehalten. Dabei ist zwischen 2003 und 2013 die größte Steigerung des Ressourcenverbrauchs in Post und Telekommunikation zu verzeichnen, wobei sich insgesamt der Ressourcenverbrauch leicht reduziert hat. Der Indikator zum Ressourcenverbrauch der privaten Haushalte erfüllt die Anforderungen an Indikatoren der Sustainable Development Goals sowie der Nachhaltigkeitsstrategie des Landes NRW. Gleichzeitig empfehlen wir eine weitere Disaggregierung des Material Footprints nicht nur nach Bevölkerungsgruppen, sondern auch in Gütergruppen auf der Basis von Lebenszyklusanalysen.
We present the results of a regression analysis of a large-scale integrated user online application that surveys natural resource use and subjective well-being in Germany. We analyse more than 44,000 users who provided information on their natural resource consumption (material footprint) as well as their personal socio-economic and socio-psychological characteristics. We determine an average material footprint of 26 tonnes per person per year. In addition, we endeavour to determine how much environment humans need by regressing natural resource use as well as relevant socio-economic and socio-psychological features on subjective well-being. We establish a slightly negative correlation between subjective well-being and material footprints. A higher material footprint is associated with lower subjective well-being. We conclude that consumer policies seeking to promote sustainable behaviour should highlight the fact that a lower material footprint may result in greater subjective well-being.
A reduction in working hours is being considered to tackle issues associated with ecological sustainability, social equity and enhanced life satisfaction - a so-called triple dividend. With respect to an environmental dividend, the authors analyse the time use rebound effects of reducing working time. They explore how an increase in leisure time triggers a rearrangement of time and expenditure budgets, and thus the use of resources in private households. Does it hold true that time-intensive activities replace resource-intensive consumption when people have more discretionary time at their disposal? This study on environmental issues is complemented by introducing the parameters of voluntary social engagement and individual life satisfaction as potential co-benefits of rebound effects. In order to analyse the first dividend, a mixed methods approach is adopted, enabling two models of time use rebound effects to be applied. First, semi-standardised interviews reveal that environmentally ambiguous substitutions of activities occur following a reduction in working hours. Second, estimates for Germany from national surveys on time use and expenditure show composition effects of gains in leisure time and income loss. For the latter, we estimate the marginal propensity to consume and the marginal propensity to time use. The results show that time savings due to a reduction in working time trigger relevant rebound effects in terms of resource use. However, both the qualitative and quantitative findings put the rebound effects following a reduction in working time into perspective. Time use rebound effects lead to increased voluntary social engagement and greater life satisfaction, the second and third dividends.
Im Rahmen des Forschungsprojektes wurde auf der Ebene von privaten Haushalten untersucht, in welchem Ausmaß eine Bedürfnisbefriedigung mit materiellen Gütern innerhalb der Randbedingungen von globaler Gerechtigkeit, einer nachhaltigen Rohstoffnutzung und einer umweltverträglichen Gesellschaft möglich ist. Zur Bestimmung des Rohstoffbedarfs langlebiger Haushaltsgüter wurden das methodische Konzept der Verfügungskorridore entwickelt und empirisch fundiert sowie global tragfähige Ausstattungen für verschiedene Haushalte prototypisch dargestellt. Das im Rahmen des Projekts entwickelte Webtool veranschaulicht wesentliche Ergebnisse des Forschungsvorhabens. Vor dem Hintergrund ihrer eigenen Haushaltsausstattungen wird den Nutzer/-innen des Webtools das Forschungsthema "Rohstoffverbrauch und Nachhaltigkeit" exemplarisch veranschaulicht, wodurch eine konkrete Reflexion des eigenen Konsumverhaltens ermöglicht wird.
This paper argues that the contemporary growth paradigm needs to be reconsidered on a micro level of consumption and product service-systems. This becomes necessary since a dynamic link between macro strategies and micro implementation of sustainable growth is missing up to date. Therefore, mainstream sustainability strategies of efficiency and consistency are extended by sufficiency in order to integrate strategies for individual welfare within their social environment. Limits to and drivers for growth are revised and updated socially in terms of qualitative values, diminishing marginal utility or symbolic social distinction. We elaborate a definition of sustainable growth that fosters individual welfare by enhancing social enactment within the boundaries of environmental space. Shifting focus on social aspects in design fosters more sustainable production and consumption patterns while sustaining individual welfare. We derive latent indications for eco-intelligent product service-arrangements and evaluate to concepts by referring to introduced definitions and according indications. With doing so, we illustrate new pathways for the translation of sustainable growth and strategies into product service-systems.
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).