Spangenberg, J., Omann, I. (2006)
In: International Journal of Innovation and Sustainable Development 2006 – Vol. 1, No.4 pp. 318 – 348

Abstract

Social sustainability is a qualitative criterion, which has to be applied to different domains, i.e., the economy, society and the population. It is challenged by current political and economic developments. Based on a German study comprising discourse-derived narratives and extensive modelling, this paper demonstrates how the social sustainability of strategies for sustainable development can be evaluated. For this objective, a simplified form of ‘horizontal’, i.e., non-hierarchical, explorative Multicriteria Analysis (MCA) is applied. First, the social quality criteria developed by the project are used for the assessment, and secondly, criteria from the literature are applied to the same scenario. The MCA demonstrates that strategies exist, which combine economic and environmental success with social sustainability. The paper illustrates how policy impact can be assessed ex ante and subsequently be monitored. It furthermore demonstrates that – despite their rather divergent phrasing – the existing social sustainability criteria have enough in common to allow for a robust assessment.

This entry is only available in Deutsch.

This entry is only available in Deutsch.

Mauz, I., Fischer, A., Langers, F., Young, J., Bednar-Friedl, B., Grünberger, S. and Musceleanu, O. (2009)
In: eco.mont – Journal on Protected Mountain Areas Research, 1 (2). 39-45.

Environmental problems are often constructed globally and through sophisticated instruments and methods. However, the extent to which these globally constructed problems correspond to ordinary citizens’ perceptions of the environment is often unclear. We focus here on results from an exploratory survey in eight sites across Europe, targeted at ordinary citizens, to determine whether biodiversity changes are perceived in daily life, and, if so, whether the views derived from these perceptions coincide with the discourse about global loss of biodiversity. Our results indicate that while respondents acknowledged global biodiversity loss – a process which they could not observe – their own experiences of changes in animal and plant numbers in their local environment were much more diverse. Their own observations mainly related to animals and plants which were part of their “life world”, which occurred in places familiar to them and were encountered during everyday activities not necessarily targeted at observing nature. These observations drew a complex picture of changes that is difficult to match with the discourse of global biodiversity loss.

This entry is only available in Deutsch.

This entry is only available in Deutsch.

This entry is only available in Deutsch.

This entry is only available in Deutsch.

This new article, published in the Journal “Resources, Conservation and Recycling” , discussed a new set of complementary resource use indicators.

Many of today’s most urgent environmental problems arise from increasing volumes of worldwide production and consumption and the associated use of natural resources, including renewable and non-renewable raw materials, energy, water and land. Solid indicators to measure different dimensions of anthropogenic resource use are essential for designing appropriate policy measures for a sustainable management of these resources. Based on a brief review of the current state of the art of resource use indicators, this paper suggests a new set of complementary resource use indicators, combining existing measures for resource use. The suggested indicator set covers the core resource input categories of materials, water and land area and includes the output category of greenhouse gas emissions. This set can be applied consistently from the micro level of products and companies up to the macro level of countries and world regions. All suggested indicators take a life-cycle wide perspective on production and consumption activities. This set of indicators deals with the issue of the overall scale of the human production and consumption system. It can be regarded as the general indicator framework, based on which more specific indicators, for example, on different environmental impacts related to natural resource use, can be calculated.

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This entry is only available in Deutsch.

This new article, co-authored by Stefan Giljum and published in the Journal of Industrial Ecology, estimates the material flows required along the whole production chains of imports and exports for selected Latin American countries: Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Mexico. These indirect material flows (also called “ecological rucksacks”) of imports and exports are calculated as “raw material equivalents”, i.e. each material incorporated in a product (e.g. plastics or steel) is transformed into its equivalent of primary resource extraction (e.g. oil or crude iron ore). Results are set out for the year 2003 for each of the countries and in time series for the years 1977, 1986, 1996, and 2003 in the case of Chile. The findings show that including these indirect material flows is important, when calculating resource use indicators for Latin American countries, which export large amounts of primary commodities. For example in the case of Chile, the trade balance in terms of material flows is almost balanced, when only direct material flows are considered. However, when the ecological rucksacks of the exported products are included in the calculation, the trade balance is clearly negative (i.e. Chile exporting much higher amounts of resources than importing from the rest of the world). The results support SERIs demand to use comprehensive resource use indicators (including ecological rucksacks) to evaluate global resource flows and resource consumption of countries and world regions.

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This entry is only available in Deutsch.

Hinterberger, F., Omann, I. & Stocker, A. (2002)

In: Empirica, 29, 113-130. Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Environmental policy faces major challenges in Europe. The European Treaties require an integration of environmental, economic and social policies in order to allow for a Sustainable Development. This is of special importance for the link between environmental and employment policy. This paper starts with a definition of the three pillars of sustainable development, the viability (resilience) of environmental, economic and social systems. With regard to economic development and the social field, these objectives are relatively easy to operationalise: GDP and employment are a generally used headline indicator of sustainable development. The total material input into an economy can be seen as an indicator showing the environmental impact.

This view brings about major challenges for economic theory: We include the total material input along with resource productivities to describe, explain and evaluate possible developments of economic and environmental variables.

With the help of the results from a German research project we show the relationships between the indicators, the productivities and how they can be influenced by policy measures. The simulation results indicate the possibility of win-win situations concerning the environment and employment. Additionally we investigate whether the developed minimum conditions of sustainable development are valid for Austria.

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Hinterberger, F. & Omann, I. (2000)

In: Perspektivends 17. Jg. 2000/Heft 2, S. 21-32.

In diesem Beitrag wird ein sozio-ökologisches Szenario für Deutschland dargestellt und anhand dreier Gleichungen bezüglich der Wirkung auf das Wirtschaftswachstum, die Beschäftigung und den Ressourcenverbrauch analysiert.

Behrens, A., Giljum, S., Kovanda, J. & Niza, S. (2007)

In: Ecological Economics 64 (2007) 444-453.

[Rights for full paper reserved by publisher]

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