On behalf of the German Federal Environment Agency (UBA) the research project „Global nachhaltige materielle Wohlstandsniveaus“ analysed material needs for German households’ spending on durable consumer goods. Based on these findings, prototypical household endowments can be classified within the boundary conditions of global fairness and sustainable resource use. The applied classification scheme is based on the methodological concept of availability corridors which was developed and implemented over the project term by the Institute of Economic Structures Research (GWS) and the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy.
The methodological research activities have been accompanied by software development activities. A handy, easy understandable and instructive internet application has been developed which applies the concept of resource-specific availability corridors. The web tool documents main findings of the research project in an intuitive way and intends to increase public awareness. It provides opportunities to configure selected algorithm parameters in accordance with individual consumption patterns. Users can experience the research topic "raw material consumption and sustainability" in the context of own household endowments and identify the implied material needs of individual consumption patterns.
Adaptation in the face of climate change is currently a major challenge, not only in the EU, but all around the world. Climate change has two distinct characters: the slower trends in climatic variables such as sea water temperatur, and the extreme weather phenomena, such as heavy precipitation. The fundamental driver for regional adaptation are regional climate scenarios. Crucial for local societies is the resilience of critical infrastructures, such as Energy and Transport, against the envisaged climate scenarios. Without proper functioning of such infrastructures, many service sectors, such as Tourism, will be negatively affected. ToPDAd developes state-of-the-art socioeconomic methods & tools for an integrated assessment supporting regional adaptation decision-making.
Based on these, conjectures with respect to EU level policies for the considered sectors Energy, Transport, as well as, Tourism are made. Two time frames are specified; 2010-2050 and 2050-2100 for mid-term and long-term strategy formulations. Regional strategies and EU-level policies need to be consistent across the time frames in order to avoid maladaptation. ToPDAd will also develop the European Climate Adap-tation Platform (DCLIMATE-ADAPT). The CLIMATE-ADAPT is a key for continuous learning, and a repository of data and tools support-ing adaptation decision-making. Within the ToPDAd project an updated and upgraded version of the GINFORS model will be applied in the context of the upcoming climate adaptation debate. In work package 3 the environmental and economic impacts of sector resp. regional adaptation will be assessed with regard to different scenarios.
The CECILIA2050 project analyses the performance of existing climate policy instruments and their interaction, and maps pathways for the evolution of the instrument mix in Europe. It describes ways to improve the economic efficiency and environmental effectiveness of the instrument mix, and to address constraints that limit their performance or feasibility. These include public acceptance, availability of finance and the physical infrastructure, but also the administrative and legal framework.
The first, backward-looking part of the project takes stock of the existing instrument mix in the EU and its Member States, and assesses their coherence and past performance. It describes which factors determine their efficiency and effectiveness, and measures their effects on equity, innovation and competitiveness. The second, forward-looking part maps pathways towards a more ambitious policy mix for 2030 and 2050, starting from the current EU climate policy. With economic instruments at the heart of the mix, it describes and models how the instrumentation could evolve, based on scenarios of the magnitude of change required for the low-carbon transformation. To this end, it combines the state of the art modelling tools with qualitative and participatory methods. To complement the EU-level analysis, the effects of EU climate policies are quantified at the global level. To ensure policy relevance and mobilise practitioners’ knowledge, the project engages with stakeholders in different way. Due to the fact that economic instruments are in the focus of the analysis within CECILIA the GWS will be responsible for the coordination of all modeling related quantitative activities and will provide extended scenario based results using the GINFORS model.
Natural resources are finite and their extractions and uses are often associated with environmental impacts. Thus, over the next decades, significant and lasting increases in resource efficiency are required. Therefore, the German National Sustainability Strategy already pursues a doubling of resource productivity from 1994 to 2020. In order to achieve this goal, the German government also already adopted a national programme on resource efficiency (ProgRess). Within this setting, the PolRess project contributes scientific analyses and refinements of the currently emerging political and societal debates on resource efficiency topics.
The PolRess consortium merges the expertise of seven national research institutions in order to analyse the ongoing debate on objectives and indicators systematically and to elaborate on different options for selection, operationalisation and prioritisation of objectives of resource policy. Furthermore, qualitative scenarios are developed and quantitative model simulations are executed.
Within this consortium, GWS continuously monitors ongoing methodological developments in the research efficiency community and conducts quantitative impact assessments for selected policy mixes.
Derzeit sind Modellergebnisse aus PANTA RHEI REGIO Ausgangspunkt für weitergehende Analysen des Bundesinstituts für Bau-, Stadt- und Raumforschung (BBSR) im Bundesamt für Bauwesen und Raumordnung (BBR) im Rahmen des BMBF-Projektes CC-LandStraD. Ziel der Kooperation zwischen Projektträger (Universität Kassel, FG Ökologische Standort- und Vegetationskunde) und Projektpartner (GWS mbH) ist es vor diesem Hintergrund, den aktuellen Forschungsstand zu künftigen Trends der Siedlungs- und Verkehrsflächenentwicklung in den Regionen (Kreisen) Deutschlands für das räumliche Konzept der Lebensraumnetzwerke nutzbar zu machen.
Eine Projektion der Flächeninanspruchnahme und der ökonomischen Entwicklungen auf Kreisebene bis zum Jahr 2030 mit PANTA RHEI REGIO (Aktualisierung der Ergebnisse des Projekts „Konsequenzen des Szenarios Flächenverbrauchsreduktion auf 30 ha bis 2020 für die Siedlungsentwicklung“).
A synopsis of political welfare concepts, which are currently discussed under labels such as "green growth", "zero growth" and "degrowth", has identified fundamental shortcomings concerning the informational bases of the complex links between ecological, social and economic systems, which were taken into account in the creation of the concept. In the development of a concept for political action, a rationally acting environmental policy cannot neglect reflecting on which economic, ecological and social contexts have to be taken into account and on which normative statements its decisions should be grounded. The proposed sustainable welfare model consists of a positive impact and a normative decision model. The positive model provides a description of the "world" with which the effects of the various options for action on the environmental, social and the economic systems can be assessed. The normative model is a tool for selecting and assessing the options for action in pursuing the desired goal of sustainable welfare development. Principally the key environmental goals are prearranged to socio-economic goals. The model at hand provides the reference points for the development of a sustainable welfare concept, which can be used as a political action plan in the context of environmental policy.
The main aim of the consultancy mission was the general introduction and explanation of the TSA-RMF methodology and the analysis of the future tasks in the national TSA-implementation process against the backdrop of the existing primary data.
Als Unterauftragnehmer des WIK arbeitet die GWS in einem Projektverbund mit internationalen Partnern über die Fragestellung, welche wirtschaftlichen und gesellschaftlichen Wirkungen mit einem weiteren Ausbau des Internets in verschiedenen Bereichen verbunden sind.
In co-operation with Cambridge Econometrics (CE), the Sustainable Europe Research Institute (SERI) and the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment, Energy, the GWS analyses the resource consumption within Europe. The main task of the project is the macroeconomic modeling of the resource consumption by using the models E3ME (CE) and GINFORS (GWS) for the simulation of environmental-economic measures.