Category Archives: SERI Working Papers
Resource use and resource productivity in Asia: Trends over the past 25 years
Giljum, S., Dittrich, M., Bringezu, S., Polzin, C., Lutter S. (2010)
This working paper provides the first comparative and quantitative assessment of material consumption and resource productivity in Asia between 1985 and 2005. 19 Asian countries were selected for the analysis, together representing more than 90% of GDP in Asia. The study is based on [...]
Global implications of a European environmental tax reform
Giljum, S., Lutz, C. & Polzin, C. (2010)
European production and consumption activities are increasingly dependent on material and energy resources from abroad and imply significant economic and environmental consequences in other regions around the world. While the overall level of resource use in Europe has stabilised over the past 20 years, the source of [...]
A comprehensive set of resource use indicators from the micro to the macro level
Giljum, S., Burger, E., Hinterberger, F. & Lutter, S.
Due to growth of world population, continued high levels of consumption in the developed world, combined with the rapid industrialisation of countries such as China, India and Brazil, worldwide demand on natural resources and related pressures on the environment are steadily increasing. Renewable resources, and the [...]
What about needs? – Re-conceptualising Sustainable Development
Rauschmayer, F., Omann, I., Frühmann, J. & Bohunovsky, L. (2008)
Although the concept of needs is central in the Brundtland definition of Sustainable Development (SD), this concept has hardly been taken up in sustainability science or policy making. And although SD is a concept that nobody really disagrees upon and that is heavily used by [...]
Global dimensions of European natural resource use – First results from the Global Resource Accounting Model (GRAM)
Giljum, S., Lutz, C., Jungnitz, A., Bruckner, M. & Hinterberger, F. (2008)
With increasing international trade in the world economy, the inclusion of indirect (or embodied) natural resources of traded products receives growing importance, when domestic production and consumption patterns are evaluated from the perspective of global sustainable development. In this paper, we present results [...]
The Socio-economic Modelling for the ALARM Project: Process and Results
Stocker, A., Jaeger, J., Meyer, B. & Omann, I. (2007)
The aim of this paper is to identify important socio-economic drivers of biodiversity loss and to analyse their possible political and economic dynamics by modelling socio-economic and environmental parameters of different scenarios, as well as to draw conclusions about the effectiveness of the policy options [...]
A Multicriteria tool for Evaluating the Impacts of Product Service Systems on Sustainable Development – An application in Austrian companies
Omann, I. (2007)
The development and implementation of eco-efficient product service systems (PSS) is one company-related step towards sustainable development. Despite several isolated initiatives, PSS have still not been implemented widely. Possible reasons for this failure to disseminate the concept are the lack of appropriate supporting methods and tools for the companies and the lack [...]
Modelling scenarios towards a sustainable use of natural resources in Europe
Giljum, S., Behrens, A., Hinterberger, F., Lutz, C. & Meyer, B. (2007)
The issue of unsustainable patterns of natural resource use currently experiences a steep rise on the policy agenda both in Europe and other world regions. A rapidly increasing body of literature assesses past developments of material use and resource productivities, however, little effort [...]
The accounting of indirect material requirements in material flow-based indicators
Rodrigues, J. & Giljum, S. (2005)
One important question in the field of Material Flow Accounting (MFA) is the accounting of indirect material flows, via an appropriate indicator and computation methodology. Several indicators and computation methodologies are currently in use, which complicates the articulation and comparison between different empirical studies. In this paper we present [...]
North-South trade and the distribution of environmental goods and burdens - A biophysical perspective
Giljum, S. & Eisenmenger, N. (2003)
The implications of North-South trade for economic development and the distribution of economic benefits through international trade have been a long-standing discussion in economics. In the last 20 years, environmental distribution issues gained increasing attention in the international debate, in particular since the recognition of sustainable development as the [...]
