NEDS

Economic construction concepts of ecological reality in European regions

NEDS (Nachhaltige Entwicklung zwischen Durchsatz und Symbolik – Sustainable Development between Throughput and Symbolism)

Analysing the interrelationships between discourses, socio-economic structures and material flows for the three metropolitan regions of Hamburg, Vienna and Leipzig.

The project shall contribute to a better understanding of the symbolic aspects of ecological-economic change. Bringing together post-normal aspects of ecological economics (high stakes, uncertain scientific inputs, role peer communities, problem orientation), environmental accounting (such as material flow analysis) and discourse analysis and constructivist approaches offers a chance to explicitly take into account the complex relationship between science and policy. NEDS is trying to achieve this on the regional level by analysing “natural”, economic, discursive, and spatial aspects of sustainable development as discourse.

“Production of evidence”

The central research question concerns the natural-scientific and technical “production of evidence” in the discourse on sustainable development.

“Economic construction of ecological reality”

This means the way how economics and society view the environment and deal with it. For our investigation in this field, the analysis of certain terms such as nature, environment, development and efficiency as well as aspects of space and material metabolism plays a crucial role.

Regions and time frame

The analysed regions are the metropolitan regions of Hamburg, Vienna and Leipzig – including the cities and their surrounding provinces. The analysed period runs from 1992-2001.

SERIs contribution to the project

The project focuses on the analysis of discourses, networks, material flows and regional structures by inter-disciplinarily combining different methods from various scientific domains. SERI contributes to the project with the Material Flow Analysis (MFA) for the three regions.