Together with our partner Mutmacherei, SERI will organise a city walk in Vienna on the occasion of this year’s ERDgespräche. The city walk will be held in German; find more information here.

Flyer - Ute Bock Cup 2012

Here you find the trailer for the Ute Bock Cup.

From 11-13 june, the IFZ (Institut für Zukunftskompetenz) congress on “regions as area for the development of new economic and life-concepts”. Well-known experts from different areas will dedicate themselves to the topic “region is future – cooperation instead of competition”. SERI is involved too: Fritz Hinterberger will give a keynote speech on “challenges and perspectives for regions”, Ines Omann will present a Best-Practice example titled “change towards sustainability and quality of life in regions”.

Further information on the congress.

In a new report, BIO Intelligence Service, the Institute of Social Ecology and SERI present a basket of resource use indicators and corresponding targets for the Europe 2020 Flagship Initiative on Resource Efficiency. The researchers suggest a set of consumption and production based indicators that covers both, the environmental pressures and impacts from material, energy, water and land use. The project was funded by the DG Environment of the European Commission. The report is expected to be published soon on the EC website.

For further information on materials embodied in international trade, we recommend you following publications:

Kirsten S. Wiebe, Martin Bruckner, Stefan Giljum & Christian Lutz (2012): Calculating energy-related CO2 emissions embodied in international trade using a global input-output model. Economic Systems Research. Download

Martin Bruckner, Stefan Giljum, Christian Lutz & Kirsten S. Wiebe (2012): Materials embodied in international trade – Global material extraction and consumption between 1995 and 2005. Global Environmental Change.

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.

The overall aim of the RESPONDER project is to promote 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. RESPONDER links four communities: science, policy, pro-growth and beyond growth. The well-established method of “participatory system mapping” is used to make the different paradigms, contradicting approaches and trade-offs of sustainable consumption and economic growth explicit and serve as basis for much improved mutual understanding.
RESPONDER will carry out participatory system mapping in a series of EU dialogues and multinational knowledge brokerage events.

Sustainable Information and Communication Technologies and Growth in Europe
30 May – 1 June, 2012, Vienna
ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) are widely regarded as enablers of “green growth” in various sectors of the economy and important means to tackle environmental challenges such as climate change. ICT systems enable more sustainable production and consumption processes (ranging from product-specific improvements to entire “smart systems” e.g. in transport or buildings) and have the potential to influence consumer choice and behaviour (e.g. reduced travel needs through telework; change of driving behaviour and energy use patterns through “smart technologies”).
Also for this knowledge brokerage event we invite you to join outstanding keynote speakers, who are at your disposal for sharing knowledge and experiences.
• Lorenz Erdmann, Fraunhofer-Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI
• Peter Johnston, Senior Policy Advisor in the European Policy Centre in Brussels and active Member of the Club of Rome and Chairman of the International Advisory Council
• Inge Ropke, associate professor at the Technical University of Denmark, Section for Innovation and Sustainability.
• Vida Rozite, analyst at the International Energy Agency.
If you plan on attending this knowledge brokerage event, please send an email to ict@scp-responder.eu. For further details please see here.

The Role of Household Savings and Debts in a Sustainable Economy
24th – 25th May, London

The purpose of this RESPONDER event is to develop shared learning and discussion about the role that household finances, and the balance between debt, savings and consumption, plays in the wider economy and how policy shapes this. This thinking will help develop a deeper understanding of the impact of different uses of consumer credit and saving behaviours on the development of a sustainable economy capable of operating within ecological limits.

The model of economic growth used in Europe up until 2007, and particularly the role of finance within in it, created many barriers to the development of an environmentally sustainable economy. The financial crisis of 2008, and consequent European recession and debt crisis demonstrated that the model failed on narrow economic grounds, as well as sustainablility ones. This workshop is designed to engage academic researchers and poliicymakers in a process of thinking through the links between personal debt and consumption, and savings rates and long term investment in the context of creating a sustainable path for the European economy.

In the course of this event we will apply participatory system mapping, an innovative moderation method that improves the mutual understanding of different communities, e.g. researchers and policy makers, pro-growth and beyond growth experts.
If you are interested in participating at this knowledge brokerage event, you can register for the event through Eventbrite following this link or for any questions you may have, please send an email to finance@SCP-RESPONDER.eu

2nd European Dialogue on Sustainable Consumption and Economic Growth
5-7 September 2012, Brussels
The 2nd EU Dialogue provides an arena for debate between researchers and policy makers across Europe to understand and discuss contradictions between sustainable consumption and economic growth. Participatory system mapping will be used to visualize different viewpoints and interests, conflicts and trade-offs.
Please Save-the-date for this event. More information will be available soon here.

Documentation of recent events on Sustainable Consumption and Growth Debates
The documentation of the previous RESPONDER events, including presentations, pictures, videos from keynote presentations and takes from the plenary debates, can be accessed here.

Get comprehensive insights and watch the presentations as if you would have been there:
• First European Dialogue in Berlin, October 2011
• Sustainable Food Consumption, Lisbon, Jan 2012
• Sustainable Mobility, Bratislava, March 2012 and
• Sustainable Housing, Barcelona, March 2012

In order to expand our team “Sustainable Economy”, we are looking for an experienced researcher.

Please send your applications to nicole.polsterer@seri.at by 14 May.

Here you can find our whole job advertisement (in German).

Just recently a new paper on the state of the art of Material Flow Accounting (MFA) was published in the Journal of Industrial Ecology. The paper encompasses the expertise of the main scientists working in the field of MFA and sets a standard regarding methodology, indicators and quality of data sources. As such, the paper is a profound basis for any research in the area. Access the paper here.

The second annual report produced by the Eco-Innovation Observatory has recently been published. The report “Closing the eco-innovation gap” looks particularly at evidence of the economic benefits from eco-innovations and argues that eco-innovation in European companies is an opportunity for strategic investment rather than a cost factor.

Changes introduced by companies have the potential to become one of the main drivers of the systemic change needed to meet the EU’s vision of a sustainable economy.
This report addresses the following questions:
- What is the scope for cost savings through eco-innovations targeted at higher resource efficiency in European companies?
- Where are the current and future opportunities for generating profits through eco-innovation?
- How are policies supporting eco-innovation evolving across the EU and what types of policy measures are used to support eco-innovation?

The full EIO report can be downloaded here.

Sorry, this entry is only available in Deutsch.

The 5-year EU-project EcoChange is currently being finalized and the most important results can now be heard on Youtube: In the video-clips, EcoChange-researchers talk about biodiversity, climate change and the possible consequences on the society.

If you want to learn about the project results in more detail, you can also find the first projection highlight on the website, which gives a detailed insight on the project work with biodiversity models.

Also see our recent news on the final conference.

On Thursday, March 29th 2012, SERI-researcher Christian Kerschner held an informative brownbag seminar at SERI and discussed the various attitudes of researchers towards technology. He gave an insight into his survey on the attitudes of ecological economists which was conducted during the ISEE conference 2010 in Bremen-Oldenburg. The participants also reflected on their own attitudes and engaged in interesting discussions. Read his full presentation here.

Brownbags are informal seminars open for discussion. They take place on a monthly basis at SERI and are open for the interested public.

What kind of framework is needed for a Green Economy? Which news does the Rio+20 conference offer? How can entrepreneurs design a Green Economy practically? And which actors should be the main drivers for green development – civil society, business, national states, international organizations and agreements? These and further interesting questions will be discussed at the International Conference on Sustainable Business and Consumption in November 2012.

There will be presentations by experts from all over the world, real-world case studies, discussions, thematic sessions as well as opportunities for networking.

Entrepreneurs as well as NGOs and stakeholder organizations can take part. If you register by 30 June 2012, the tickets are only half the price.

You find further information on the event page.

From 30 may to 1 june 2012, an event on “Green ICT (information and communication technologies) for Growth and Sustainability” takes place in Vienna.

ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) are widely regarded as enablers of “green growth” in various sectors of the economy, but at the same time expanded technology use raises energy consumption. Hence, there are various questions regarding the effects of ICTs on sustainable development.

Exemplary topics to be explored in system mapping sessions:
What impacts on residential energy consumption can be expected from the introduction of energy labeling on consumer electronics?
What is the potential of smart metering in encouraging energy savings in the long run?
Will cloud computing lead to overall savings of energy and other resources?

Programm

The keynote speakers:

Sorry, this entry is only available in Deutsch.