On 29 February, the book presentation of Growth in Transition will take place at the Permanent Representation of Austria to the EU in Brussels. The book was edited by SERI researchers Fritz Hinterberger and Elke Pirgmaier in collaboration with Elisabeth Freytag and Martina Schuster from the Austrian Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management.

Stimulating growth through adjusting macroeconomic conditions remains the principal policy response to pressing problems of unemployment, poverty and environmental degradation. However, the current growth trajectory has neither led to a reduction of our overall resource use – as we use resources and energy more efficiently we consume more – nor created the conditions for full employment and increasing wellbeing.

Growth in Transition presents detailed key arguments for reconsidering the conditions for sustainable economies, with an international cast of commentators from politics, administration, civil society, business and science.

For detailed information on the book presentation, please click here.

Signing up for this event is mandatory. To register, please send an e-mail to growthintransition@seri.at by 23 February.

This entry is only available in Deutsch.

Food is a fundamental necessity of life. It is also one of the consumption areas with the greatest environmental impacts. The debates over sustainable food production and consumption, both in academia and politics, have spurred over the last decade. Growth policies in the food and agriculture sector pay attention to increasing productivity and providing enough food for an increasing population in a globalized world. Nevertheless, progress has been uneven and growth has been unsustainable in some regions, leading to escalating pressures on ecosystems.

In the course of the EU project RESPONDER, our partners in Portugal are organizing a high profile workshop on 25-27 January in Lisbon. RESPONDER promotes sustainable consumption by exploring novel ways of knowledge brokerage that help to improve the management of potential political, social and economic contradictions with economic growth.

To get more information and to apply for participation please click here.

This entry is only available in Deutsch.

This entry is only available in Deutsch.

The new report “Scenarios towards a One Planet Economy in Europe” is a major outcome of the OPEN:EU project in which SERI was involved. The scenarios describe alternative, albeit not necessarily ideal visions of the transition toward a One Planet Economy in Europe by 2050. They present both an illustration of life in Europe in 2050 and the policy settings that are necessary to support the transition to this common end point under different assumptions about the future.

The scenarios were developed by SERI and the Ecologic Institute on the basis of stakeholder input provided during a two-day workshop in September 2010. The Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) was responsible for quantifying and modeling the scenarios.

The four scenarios created were:
Scenario 1 – Clever and caring – a future with a quality-driven mindset towards development with dynamic technological innovation.
Scenario 2 – Fast forward – a future with a quantity-driven mindset towards development with dynamic technological innovation.
Scenario 3 – Breaking point – a future with a quantity-driven mindset towards development with technological stagnation.
Scenario 4 – Slow motion – a future with a quality-driven mindset towards development with technological stagnation.

The results of the scenario modelling exercise suggest that the transformation of Europe into a One Planet Economy by 2050 would require very aggressive policy action even under the most beneficial circumstances.

The report can be downloaded here.

The Eco-Innovation Observatory (EIO), in which SERI is one of the partners, is gathering information and opinions on future markets and trends of eco-innovation. The EIO team invites to respond to a short survey. It uses an innovative real time feature, allowing you to see the results based on all previous responses.

The survey is open until 11 November 2011. The results will contribute to the EIO’s flagship annual publication expected in early 2012.

For filling in the survey, which takes around 5-10 minutes, click here.

Polzin, C. (2006)

Summary
This book presents the stories of 11 micro-entrepreneurs in Northern Namibia, the majority of them being women. Their stories witness the everyday struggle of poor people having an enormous sense of responsibility and courage, coping with a wide range of forms of vulnerability in a not always conducive environment.

These examples – ranging from a lady hairdresser working in her village to the initiator of a car-repair shop that started under a tree, but is now a formalized business and rapidly expanding -, clearly break with the common conviction that poor people are passive, waiting for assistance and unable to change their situation. They want to be considered as serious entrepreneurs, understanding market opportunities, combining resources and developing medium-term strategies. Their strategies are at least as sophisticated as those of SMEs in fi rst world countries, even if their economic level is lower and their exposure to risks higher.

These cases are representative of a large number of people in Namibia. They show, in an impressive way that poverty does not mean inability but lack of choice. The poorer people are, the less they have access to opportunities for income generation. Studies fi nanced by GTZ show that the lack of access to fi nancial services is a key constraint for self-reliance of low income groups in Northern Namibia.

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Friedl, B., Hammer, M., Jäger, J., Lorek, S., Omann, I., Pack, A. (2007)

Abstract
This report presents results from the second year of the Global Change project “Sustainable Food Consumption: Trends and Opportunities”. The objectives of the project are to contribute to a transition to more sustainable food consumption in Austria through an improved understanding of food consumption patterns and trends and their direct environmental impacts, to identify and discuss key policy options forenhancing sustainable food.

In Chapter 2, we identify relevant socio-economic driving forces for food consumption and analyse these drivers for different household and different food categories. After analysing the household food consumption of an average household, we compare different socio-economic groups by the factors of age, income, education, employment status and family type. Older people consume more vegetables and fruits than meat in comparison to younger age groups. In particular, younger people have a higher (relative) preference for dried, smoked and salted meat, minced meat, rice, pasta products, bread and fruiting and flowering vegetables, which could reflect the time convenience dependency in the diets of young people. Lower income households respond mainly to price and look for filling foods. They have a higher relative consumption of potatoes (instead of root, fruiting and flowering vegetables), apples and pears (instead of exotic fruits) and lower absolute figures in bottled beverages. Income has no influence on total consumed quantities of meat, but only on the consumption of beef. High income households consume a higher share of beef, whereas low income households substitute beef with higher amounts of pork. Diets of higher income households respond to time scarcity with higher consumption figures for foods that can be quickly prepared (dried, salted and smoked meat, cheese, curd and yogurt). People with higher education consume more vegetables, fruits, bread, rice, flour and pasta in contrast to meat. The dietary choices of higher educated households are generally dependent on three factors: taste, time scarcity and health and/or environmental awareness.

Diets of rural households are largely made up of traditional foods like bread, flour, apples, pears and pork. Dietary choices of employees, irrespective of their position, and the self-employed are driven mostly by time constraints. This argument is based on a higher preference for food products that need less time for preparation (e.g. dried, salted and smoked meat instead of pork, fruiting and flowering vegetables instead of potatoes) by both labour force status groups. The income factor may be the reason why employees in top positions have the highest share of beef and veal consumption. Household food consumption reflects structures within families, due to different tastes but also because of nutritional aspects (e.g. higher recommended calcium intake for children). Accordingly, households without children (couple households, adult households) have highest consumption figures of vegetable, fruits and meat, whereas single parents, family households and single households consume markedly less. By focusing the analysis within the categories of vegetables, meat and fruits, it can be stated that the family type has only a weak influence on food preferences. The only relevant trend is that households without children have a stronger preference for beef, at the expense of pork and poultry, which are very popular among family households.

In Chapter 3, environmental impacts of food consumption are calculated according to two indicators: CO2 equivalents emissions for the issue of climate change and material input for the issue of resource use. The effect on both was calculated separately and then compared. We have built on the preferences of household categories for different forms of meat, vegetables and fruits and then compared the impacts of those preferences to those of an average household. In general one can say that the preference effects of meat are much larger than the effects of fruits and vegetables, which means that being sustainable in the preferences for vegetables and fruits can not compensate being unsustainable in the category of meat. The highest impacts for both indicators are given for top employee households and for high income households, followed by highly educated households and singles. Young households also have negative impacts compared to the average household; however they are much stronger in the case of material inputs. Farm households and households of low and middle position people contribute less to emissions and material use, because of traditional eating habits.

These results do not, however, give any indications about the environmental impacts due to quantities consumed; to get a first impression we have calculated the relative shares of different food categories by socio-economic groups. We have to modify the conclusion for those households who have a strongly positive preference effect (except for young households). While they consume less sustainable types of particularly meat, they have higher shares of vegetables and fruits relative to meat. In other words, their overall combination of meat, fruit and vegetables is more sustainable than on average, making their classification as unsustainable consumer groups more ambiguous.

Based on the results and on a stakeholder workshop, recommendations for (policy) measures are developed in Chapter 4. Thus policies, in particular aiming at influencing the behaviour of younger, wealthy people and those in high positions are seen to be a very efficient way of changing the trend. But as this group represents only a small share of all Austrian households, the big group of low and middle position households should be addressed as well and encouraged (via information campaigns, subsidies, CO2 taxes etc.) to keep their traditional eating habits AND to consume more organic food and less meat. Besides giving recommendations for the most relevant socio-economic group we also focus on measures that lead to reduced consumption of the most unsustainable food category, which is meat, and here especially beef and dried, salted, smoked meat. Measures that raise awareness and change behaviour, that are given in an appealing way via the media that appeal to the different groups are recommended.

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Oosterhuis, F., Dodoková, A., Gerdes, H., Greño, P., Jantzen, J, Mudgal, S., Neubauer, A., Rayment, M., Stocker, A., Tinetti, B., van der Woerd,Varma, A. , (2008).

Summary
This study deals with the likely impacts of differential VAT rates for specific products with recognised environmental benefits. Applying a reduced VAT rate to environmentally preferable products while taxing the less preferable ones at the standard rate could lead to a relative price reduction for the ‘greener’ product and thus stimulate the demand for this product. Likewise, increasing the VAT rate on environmentally harmful products that are currently taxed at a reduced rate might also steer demand and supply in a more sustainable direction.

The main research question was how producers, retailers and consumers would change their behaviour in response to the introduction of reduced VAT rates for ‘greener’ products and to the increase of reduced rates on ‘non-green’ products to the standard rate. This question has been addressed in various ways: through a literature survey, by reviewing experiences with previous and existing (environmentally motivated) VAT reduction and other subsidy schemes, and by directly contacting stakeholders. Five case studies have been carried out as illustrations and in-depth explorations of the posssible impacts. Interim results of ongoing parallel studies on related subjects have been taken into account.

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Together with our German colleague Monika Dittrich, SERI researcher Stefan Giljum presented the first results of the upcoming new study “Green economies around the world? Implications of resource use for the environment and development”. The study analyses patterns of material extraction, trade, consumption and resource productivity for all countries world-wide during the past 30 years.

Around 50 participants of the World Resources Forum attended the presentation, in which Monika and Stefan talked about the alarming trends of resource use on the global level. According to our latest calculations, global annual material consumption increased from around 38 billion tonnes in 1980 to almost 70 billion tonnes in 2008. On a per capita basis, the inequalities in resource consumption are increasing. In poor countries, resource consumption is as low as 1.5 tonnes per year, while in the richest countries consumption reaches more than 50 tonnes per year. The world economy has achieved a so-called relative de-coupling of material consumption from economic growth; today, 30% less material inputs are needed to produce one Dollar of world GDP compared to 1980. However, as world GDP almost tripled in the same time period, those efficiency gains were overcompensated by the overall growth of production and consumption.

Those and other interesting results can be found in the full presentation, which can be downloaded here.

This entry is only available in Deutsch.

Over 400 participants gather from 18-21. September 2011 in Davos for the 2nd World Resources Forum.

Together with the Wuppertal Institute für Climate, Envionment, and Energy and two other organisations, SERI organizes a Workshop mainly designed for the business community.

After the short introduction by Fritz Hinterberger and Holger Rohn, examples on how to use material footprint analysis for eco-innovation will be presented by representatives of several European companies, researchers and consultants. This input will serve as a basis for joint efforts in smaller groups to co-develop ideas by the participants for their own field of interest, facilitated by those bringing experience to the workshop in designing new products or services in order to substantially reduce the use of material, water, land, and energy. Special guest of this session is Hubert Rhomberg, Managing Director of the Rhomberg Holding, Austria.

Click here for details.

Since more than 2 years, SERI has a successful cooperation with the UN Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) in the area of resource use and resource efficiency. On 14th of September, UNIDO organised a dedicated workshop, in which SERI was invited to present its work on “sustainable resource use”.

Around 20 participants from different UNIDO units (environment, energy, research, etc.) gathered at this workshop, in which SERI researchers Stefan Giljum, Eva Burger, Stephan Lutter and Christine Polzin gave a 1-hour presentation on SERI’s work related to the use of natural resources. Issues across different SERI research groups were included in the presentation, covering methodologies and indicators to measure natural resource use, empirical applications on the level of products and companies, examples from the global resource use assessments as well as policy aspects, such as targets, scenarios and policy instruments to achieve a more sustainable resource use.

The full presentation can be downloaded here.

For already completed projects for UNIDO, click here for a report for the 2009 UNIDO “Green Industry” conference and here for a study on resource use and resource efficiency in emerging economies.

Pollitt, H., Barker, A. Barton, J., Pirgmaier, E., Polzin, C. Lutter, S., Hinterberger, F. und Stocker, A. (2010)

The purpose of this study is to provide an overview of how a macroeconomic perspective can shed light on the possibility of achieving sustainable development. The study will provide some insights on what changes might be needed in the macroeconomic models and the macroeconomy itself to deliver sustainability, and the degree to which macroeconomic policy levers or environmental policy levers could produce synergies between macroeconomy and the environment.

This scoping study is a preliminary step in addressing the issue that there are strong (two-way) linkages between the economy and the environment and that each component cannot be viewed in isolation. The study aims to answer the following questions:

* What is the value-added of a macroeconomic perspective of sustainability?
* Can this perspective help to achieve sustainable development?
* What modelling tools exist for such macroeconomic analysis?
* To what extent do these tools address sustainability issues?
* Ideally, what indicators should these tools take into account?

The final report can be downloaded here.