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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).
Nachhaltige Regionalpolitik
(2013)
This chapter is an excerpt from a study commissioned by the European Parliament, which examines EU subsidies for agriculture, fisheries, transport, energy and regional development. Based on proven methodologies for the identification and assessment of environmentally harmful subsidies, the study assesses the sustainability level of the sectoral policies and makes recommendations for a reform that would contribute to the alignment of the EU budget towards a more sustainable growth. The following sections provide the main findings of one of the largest fields of expenditure within the EU budget, the structural and cohesion policy.
Leasing society : study
(2012)
The green new deal and ecological industry policy : greening of manufacturing and energy generation
(2011)
Economic performance of a country is generally being measured through GDP (Gross Domestic Product), a variable that has also become the de facto universal metric for "standards of living". However, GDP does not properly account for social and environmental costs and benefits. It is also difficult to achieve sustainable decision-making aiming at sustainable progress and well-being if welfare is being considered from a purely financial point of view. The study highlights the benefits and some of the shortcomings of GDP. It serves as a helpful and practicable instrument for monetary and fiscal policies. The real problem presumably is that GDP growth is too often confused with (sustainable) welfare growth in people's minds. While there certainly is a correlation between the two, this study shows that this is a highly conditional correlation, void of substantial causality for GDP levels observable in the European Union. In order to be able to assess people's well-being and general sustainable development in the sense of sustainability, an alternative instrument going beyond GDP is necessary. Using so called SWOT analyses, several alternative progress indicators have been assessed in the context of this study. On the one hand it was analysed how far ecological and social factors can be integrated in the GDP measurements. Thereby difficulties arose then trying to monetise these factors. As a further possibility indicators were analysed which are to replace GDP as a whole. The category supplementing GDP seems to be the most realistic and acceptable option for going beyond GDP. Within this approach, GDP is being complemented with additional environmental and/or social information. In order to make this kind of solution feasible the study claims the establishment of an overarching and transparent indicator system for improving economic decision-making in support of sustainable development.
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has matured over the past decades and become part of the broader field of sustainability assessment. To strengthen LCA as a tool and eventually increase its usefulness for sustainability decision-making, it is argued that there is a need to expand the ISO LCA framework by integration and connection with other concepts and methods. This paper explores the potential options for deepening and broadening the LCA methodologies beyond the current ISO framework for improved sustainability analysis. By investigating several environmental, economic and social assessment methods, the paper suggests some options for incorporating (parts of) other methods or combining with other methods for broadening and deepening the LCA.
Renania del Norte-Westfalia (RNW) es el mayor estado federal (land) de la República Federal de Alemania. Hasta la década de 1970, la región del Rin-Ruhr, con una población de unos 12 millones de habitantes y una potente industria química, del carbón y del acero, se vio afectada por graves problemas de contaminación. En los años setenta, la protección medioambiental apareció en las agendas políticas nacionales e internacionales. Los gobiernos federales y el estatal lanzaron múltiples intervenciones legislativas y económicas para limpiar ríos, suelos y aire. Como resultado, surgió una ecoindustria muy competitiva. En este artículo, se resumen las características de las ecoindustrias y se describe el cambio estructural de la región del Ruhr. Asimismo, centrándose en el mesonivel y empleando los ejemplos de la gestión energética y la gestión municipal de residuos, se destacan los puntos fuertes y los puntos débiles de las políticas económicas regionales de clusters que apoyan las ecoindustrias en RNW.
Northrhine-Westphalia (NRW) is the largest land of the Federal Republic of Germany. Until the 1970ies the Ruhr-area with a population of about 12 million people and a strong coal, steel and chemical industry had been plagued with severe pollution. In the 1970ies environmental protection had emerged on the international and national policy agendas. The federal and regional government launched massive legislative and economic public interventions for cleaning-up rivers, soils and air. As a result, a highly competitive eco-industry emerged. The article outlines main features of ecoindustries, the structural change of the Ruhr area and regional economic cluster policies in support of eco-industries in NRW. It draws conclusions for eco-industry policy developing from end-of-pipe towards integrated preventive approaches.
The study "A Green New Deal for Europe" consists of two basic elements: Firstly it aims to cope with the economic crisis through intensive measures in order to systematically stimulate the eco-industries, to create jobs and to boost economic recovery. Secondly it aims at establishing the foundation for a green modernisation of the European economy. The study examines existing EU strategies policies and programs concerning their suitability to implement the Green New Deal. It proposes exemplary measures in the field of energy, mobility and resource use. The study has been compiled by the Wuppertal Institute on behalf of the Greens/European Free Alliance (EFA) Group in the European Parliament.
Die gesellschaftlichen Rahmenbedingungen für eine ökologische Wende der EU-Regionalpolitik sind scheinbar ungünstig. Dem Vorsorgeprinzip der Umweltpolitik liegt die Annahme zugrunde, dass man auf bestimmte Tatsachen reagieren muss, weil sonst Schäden entstehen. Nach dem Soziologen Niklas Luhmann entspricht dies jedoch einer allzu einfachen Alltagsvorstellung. Der Ökonom Hans-Jochen Luhmann diagnostiziert hinsichtlich der Wahrnehmung von ökologisch relevanten Informationen eine regelrechte "Blindheit der Gesellschaft". Blockaden bei der Umsetzung von Umweltpolitik scheinen diese Befunde zu bestätigen. Der Planungswissenschaftler Arthur Benz meint in diesem Kontext, dass man bei der Durchsetzung von Planungskontrolle eben nicht mit dem freiwilligen Lernen der Akteure rechnen dürfe. Wie lässt sich unter diesen Bedingungen eine ökologische Wende der Europäischen Regionalpolitik umsetzen? Ist der Planungspessimismus, der sich in Deutschland nach einem Planungsoptimismus der 1970er Jahre durchgesetzt hat, gerechtfertigt? Welchen Wert können zielorientierte Instrumente wie etwa Indikatoren für die Umweltplanung in der Regionalpolitik noch haben? Vor dem Hintergrund gesellschaftlicher Differenzierung beleuchtet der Umweltwissenschaftler Philipp Schepelmann die Probleme, die bei der Anwendung von Umweltindikatoren in der regionalen Wirtschaftsförderung auftauchen. Für seine empirische Untersuchung im Ziel-2 Gebiet der EU-Strukturfonds in Nordrhein-Westfalen entwickelt er in Anlehnung an die soziologische Systemtheorie das Konzept der Resonanz. Resonanz bezeichnet die aktive Reaktion von sozialen Systemen auf Umweltprobleme als Voraussetzung für eine zielorientierte Umweltpolitik. Die Resonanz von Policy-Netzwerken gegenüber Umweltindikatoren kann nachgewiesen und verglichen werden. Am Beispiel der umweltpolitischen Indikatoren des Lissabon-Prozesses der Europäischen Union wird die regionale Resonanz von Indikatoren in verschiedenen Policy-Netzwerken untersucht. Das Ergebnis der Resonanzanalyse ist aus planerischer Sicht überraschend positiv: Es gibt nicht nur Blindheit und Untätigkeit gegenüber ökologischen Herausforderungen; differenzierte Policy-Netzwerke leiten in NRW erfolgreich eine ökologische Wende der EU-Regionalpolitik ein.