In the beginning of april, a workshop in the context of the project BENE took place in the Eco-Region Kaindorf as the final project activity.
The project BENE (Citizen action for sustainable energy) consists of three parts: First, it assessed the potential of active citizen engagement in energy issues as a contribution to more energy-aware lifestyles. Building on this analysis, strategies on how to improve citizen action were developed and implemented in cooperation with two initiatives – namely “Eco-Region Kaindorf” and “Ökostrombörse”. Finally, a policy paper summarizes main results and facilitates the extension and replication of existing initiatives.

During the workshop, the participants discussed how sustainable ideas can be transferred into the Eco-Region. Moreover, the concept of an action day was created.
SERI researcher Ines Omann and Ira Mollay, founder of the “Mutmacherei” (“inspire4change“) moderated the workshop.
Thereby, Ira Mollay presented the Mutmacherei, including several examples which are relevant for Kaindorf. In the subsequent discussions, participants created new ideas for Kaindorf which will be realized during the action day.

Content of the project “Environmental Pressure Index” is the construction of a composite indicator that describes the pressure for the environment on EU territory. It will comprise the major strands of European environmental policy: climate change and energy use, nature and biodiversity, air pollution and health impacts, water use and pollution, waste generation and use of resources.

The purpose and scope of the index are focused on environmental pressures and harm to the environment, bound by the EU political territory and closely linked to evaluating the effects of environmental protection policies. It should concern all major areas of EU environmental policy and reflect decreases of such pressures as a decline in the index value.

During the project decisions will be taken concerning the themes and subthemes of the index as well as the involved indicator and the methodological approach for the calculation of the composite indicator. An expert workshop will help elaborting the best-suited decisions and spreading the concept of the indicator. All choices and decisions made will be incorporated in a detailed report that should function as a handbook for the construction of composite environmental indices.

For more information click here.

The project opening event “LebensKlima in Finkenstein” attracted over 100 citizens, politicians and representatives from tourism and business. They gathered on January 19, in the Dorfhotel Schönleitn in Finkenstein.

From March onwards, 15 citizens from the community will be guided by SERI in a Citizens Forum, to develop a vision for a good life in Finkenstein, which is based on the wishes and needs of citizens. This vision will serve as the basis for thematic working groups in which the implementation of innovative ideas for the community is being developed. The project structure and composition of the Citizens Forum were discussed and examined during this event. The system analysis brought up topics like the interplay between different economic sectors and the residential population, a stronger social cohesion, mobility and local supply as possible key issues. Following the event, some of the participants expressed their interest to participate in the Citizens Forum.

Ira Mollay presented her initiative “Mutmacherei” with some examples of civic engagement on various issues from other communities and regions. For Finkenstein, the examples can serve as inspiration, but it will be necessary to develop locally embedded ideas to meet the local conditions, requirements and issues.
On the project website www.lebensklima.at, the project progress will be continuously documented.

Sorry, this entry is only available in Deutsch.

On Monday, 13.12.2011 a recent SERI study was presented at a press conference. The aim of this study was to enable a serious comparison between the environmental sustainability of dry soy products and meat. Starting point is the high level of meat consumption in the industrialized countries which makes a significant contribution to the climate change. Various environmental indicators for soy granule have been calculated. Such as renewable and nonrenewable resources, land and water consumption and CO2 emissions.

The result: meat cannot keep up, compared to soy dry products. The replacement of ground meat with soy granules allows a GHG reduction of 90 percent!

For detailed information, please click here and here (german).

As part of this year’s annual conference of the UN Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), Fritz Hinterberger was invited to give a key note speech at a high-level workshop entitled “Promoting innovative industries and technologies for a sustainable future in the Europe and NIS region”, taking place on 30th of November at the UN centre in Vienna.

The workshop, organized by UNIDO’s “Europe and Newly Independent States Programme” aims to identify options for industrial modernization in this region, in order to move towards more resource and energy efficient and low carbon economies in that world region.

For the workshop, SERI prepared a background paper entitled “Resource use and resource efficiency in Central and Eastern Europe and the Newly Independent States”. The paper provides an assessment of material consumption and material productivity in 30 countries across Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the Newly Independent States (NIS) in the Caucasus and Central Asia between 1995 and 2008.

The results show that material extraction in the 30 countries grew significantly between 1995 and 2008, most notably of construction minerals; the volume of material trade doubled; per capita consumption increased by 25%, from 9.8 tonnes in 1995 to 12.2 tonnes in 2008 and was thus above the global average of 10.4 tonnes but below EU-15 average of 18.6 tonnes per capita in 2008. Material productivity rose by 42 per cent between 1995 and 2008, and most of the countries experienced a relative decoupling between per capita GDP and per capita material consumption.

The paper can be found here.

More information about the workshop can be found here.

The presentation of Fritz Hinterberger can be downloaded here.

Finkenstein am Faaker See will serve as a pilot project community for the European research project InContext.

SERI will conduct one of the three pilot projects in the community of Finkenstein (Carinthia, Austria). The other two will take place in Rotterdam (The Netherlands) and in Wolfshagen (Germany). In the pilot projects, leading European research institutions in the fields of transition, behavioural science and sustainable development collaborate to identify the framework conditions enabling a societal transition towards an ecologically sound, economically successful and culturally diverse future. At the core of the project lies an examination of the interplay between structural conditions and internal factors in building the context for individual behaviour.

Within the scope of the Austrian pilot project we will work with local citizens, conjointly develop a vision of a “good life” in the community, and organize specific acitivities in Finkenstein in this regard.

Regarding the thematic focus, the Finkenstein pilot project will focus on the interplay and linkages between tourism, industry, and residential population (longtime residents, new residents). A first kick-off event in Finkenstein will take place in January 2012. Participatory workshops for envisioning a good future for the community will be held throughout the year 2012.

The project CapitalAdapt investigates the role of human and social capital in coping with and adapting to climate change. Thus, it focuses on human and social aspects of the climate change discussion such as knowledge, education, health, relationships and involvement in the community. On October 7th and 14th the first project-workshops started in the two case studies Virgen and Klosterneuburg.

At the workshops the current state of research was presented. Then workshop participants discussed challenges of future climate change impacts and possible consequences for the specific case study. Moreover, areas which could possibly be most affected (vulnerability hotspots) were identified.
A second series of workshops which will focus on elaborating concrete measures related to climate change adaptation will be held in spring 2012.

Sorry, this entry is only available in Deutsch.

Sorry, this entry is only available in Deutsch.

Sorry, this entry is only available in Deutsch.

Sorry, this entry is only available in Deutsch.

Sorry, this entry is only available in Deutsch.

Sorry, this entry is only available in Deutsch.

Frühmann, J. and Jäger, J. (2010)
In: Environment, Forced Migration and Social Vulnerability (2010): 247-262

This chapter discusses how to develop scenarios of environmental change to estimate future migration flows that are forced by environmental degradation. The methodology as well as the examples presented here was developed in the EU-funded project EACH-FOR ( www.each-for.eu ). In the next section, the chapter discusses environmental degradation and gives an overview of the ‘hot spots’ in the case studies. This section is followed by an introduction to scenarios in general and the scenario narratives of the fourth Global Environmental Outlook (GEO 4; UNEP and United Nations Environment Programme, 2007) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which were used in the EACH-FOR project. The fourth section gives a detailed description of the EACH-FOR approach – including two case study examples from Egypt and Mozambique. The chapter finishes with conclusions that sum up the first results of the work with scenarios in the case studies and reflect on the approach taken in the EACH-FOR project.