Behavioral Consequences of Inequality

This research project aims at testing some of the predictions of the relative income hypothesis, and improving the methodology for assessing the behavioral consequences of inequality.

Trafo Labour

Title: The Role of Trade Unions and Workers’ Interests in the Social-Ecological Transformation towards a Climate-Friendly Society. The Case of Austria

This project aims to contribute to a better understanding of the role of trade unions in Austria in current climate change politics and analyses the options for enhancing this role in order to contribute to socio-ecological transformation. A precondition for enhancing this role is an increasing political priority of climate change issues within trade unions. Key here is that, on the one hand, trade unions augment understanding of the complex problems related to climate change and link them to the social questions and interests of wage-earners and, on the other hand, to better anchor the interests of wage earners in Austrian climate policy. Up to the present, trade unions have rarely been a focus of (social)-scientific research on climate change policy. This interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary project intends to close this research gap. Moreover, we want to strengthen the focus of trade unions that take climate change issues seriously and see the necessity of creating alliances across institutional and mental barriers.

WWWforEurope: Welfare, Wealth and Work for Europe

WWWforEurope started in April 2012 as a four year research project within the 7th Framework Programme funded by the European Commission. The objective of this 4-year project is to provide the analytical basis for a socio-ecological transition in Europe: the change to a new growth path with smart, sustainable and inclusive growth as is envisaged in the EU 2020 strategy. In order to support the transition, the project analyses the need, the feasibility and best practice for change, specifying the institutional changes needed at all policy levels to implement these options. The old and new challenges Europe is facing define the starting point: globalisation, new technologies and postindustrialisation, demographic change and ecology in the context of welfare systems that have come under stress due to high public deficits. The vision is that Europe will become a role model for a "high road growth path" which actively incorporates social and ecological goals, employment, gender and cultural aspects in an ambitious, forward looking way while continuing to be competitive in a globalised world.

Find more information here:

Debt-, Inequality-, Booms and Crises

In this project the team investigates the causes of credit booms and economic crises in Europe and beyond in the context of macroeconomic imbalances, growing inequality, and financial market liberalization. The analysis is based on research designs allowing for a causal interpretation of the results and state-of-the-art econometric techniques, using new data-sets.

The focus lies on:

• The role of pre-crisis sectoral lending and borrowing patterns of households, firms, and governments, as well as deleveraging processes as a cause of the severity of the Great Recession in Europe. 

• Application of a dynamic endogenous threshold model to determine if there exists a threshold in the finance-growth nexus above which further financial liberalization has a negative impact on overall economic performance for a sample of high- and low-income countries.

• Application of US regional micro data to test if rising inequality led to increases in credit demand due to consumption emulation of the less-affluent.

• Investigation on the macroeconomic and institutional determinants of severe recessions and financial crises for a large sample of high- and low-income countries, applying an event study approach.

Financialization, Growth, and Biophysical Limits

Over the past decades, we have gained a sound understanding of how the real economy interacts with its environmental basis. Concurrently, a growing literature has developed which investigates the interactions between financial markets and the real economy. In this project we aim at combining the two bodies of knowledge to understand how finance can serve a just, resilient, and sustainable economic system that improves lives and at the same time respects biophysical limits.

Specifically, this project analyzes the interactions between the financial, the real, and the "real-real" side of the economy to explore avenues toward a financial system that channels resources into socially useful, productive, and environmentally sustainable activities. Businesses are powerful agents for innovation and must be part of the solution to the most pressing environmental issues the world is facing today.

Green Growth AT

Climate adaptation: Towards a climate risk management approach

The concept of risk in research on climate change is nothing new and already in the 1990s integrated risk assessments to analyze global climate change have been proposed. Yet, only over the last few years, with the consequences of climate change becoming visible, have assessments of climate change impacts and vulnerability changed in focus from an initial analysis of the problem to the assessment of potential impacts, and finally, to the consideration of specific risk management methods as taken forward in IPCC’s recent 5th assessment report. While notions of risk and risk management bring along well defined tools, methods and metrics and provide for a concrete decision orientation, analyses have often more narrowly focussed on single external stressors as well as the short term. We examine innovative risk framings and risk analytical approaches in terms of their potential for properly helping to assess and project climate-related risks as well as informing global to local-scale short and long-term climate policy.

Researcher: Reinhard Mechler

MFA IX

Continuation on development of Webpage: www.materialflows.net

Carbon-Cap (Carbon emission mitigation by Consumption-based Accounting and Policy)

Climate policies so far mainly focused on production sectors, applying territorial emission reduction approaches. However, growing consumption is a main driver behind rising greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Against this background, the Carbon-Cap project aims at stimulating innovative demand side oriented climate policies by improved shared insight in consumption emissions and thus realize a more effective policy mix for achieving the objectives of the EU policy packages. WU contributes to several work packages within Carbon-Cap. The WU team leads the work on identifying options for consumers to reduce their carbon footprints across a large number of product groups and consumption groups, with a focus on indirect GHG emissions along international supply chains. The WU team also leads a task performing comparative assessments of carbon footprints on the product level with several existing carbon footprint models (so-called multi-regional input-output models). Finally, WU also contributes to the analysis of policy options and identifies barriers and drivers for its implementation through qualitative interviews with key stakeholders.

UNIDO Ukraine

The UNIDO project "Promoting the adaptation and adoption of RECP (resource efficient and cleaner production) through the establishment and operation of a Cleaner production center (CPC) in Ukraine" is in the line with the UNIDO-UNEP Resource Efficient and Clean-er Production Programme: The aim of the project is to support the project and provice valuable background information via a report on concpets, experience and political action in the field of RECP.

WKÖ Modul 2

Analyse der materiellen Dimension von Dienstleistungen am Beispiel der österreichischen Wirtschaft.

OECD MFA Data

Compiling a database on material flows in the GTAP aggregation.

UNEP MFA II

In this project the research group Sustainable Resource Use continues its work with partner institutions in Australia and Japan to further develop and update the global database on worldwide material extraction commissioned and made publicly available by the UNEP International resource Panel (IRP). The data update will also figure prominently in the first regular report of the IRP and will continue to be important into the future also in regard to monitoring the SDGs related to material use and waste. Data processing procedures will be standardised and  the whole time series re-established from source data. Further, it is planned to provide data for the 2014-2018 period by means of advanced now-casting methods.

OECD MF III

This project provides an assessment of material flows embodied in internationally traded products based on the OECD inter-country input-output database as well as a number of other MRIO databases.

FOEE Bioeconomy LF

Write a new report present state and trends as well as the predicted growth and land footprint due to the rise in the use of bio-based products, materials and fuels due to current EU policies in this area (and the other predictions based on OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2015-2024 and other relevant data). A particular focus will be on biobased plastics and fuels, as these are aeas of high policy relevance and of relevance to Friends of the Earth campaigns work.

Eco-ICE (Eco-Innovation and Circular Economy)

DG Environment of the European Commission granted a team led by Technopolis Group Brussels, including WU, Wuppertal Institute and Bio by Deloitte, to assess options for “Measuring the eco-innovation uptake and circular economy transition”. The main objective of this project is to improve and implement new approaches to guide, monitor and assess policies deployed in support to eco-innovation and the transition to a circular economy. The project improves the metrics and indicators of eco-innovation performance developed by the Eco-Innovation Observatory (EIO) and, in parallel, develop indicators for monitoring the transition to a circular economy. WU’s research group “Sustainable Resource Use” is responsible for updating and expanding the “Eco-Innovation Scoreboard (EIS)”, a composite indicator measuring the eco-innovation performance of EU countries, as well as further developing the “Global Eco-Innovation Scoreboard (Global EIS)”. WU’s team also elaborates the Austrian Eco-Innovation country profile as well as contributes to the elaboration of a major report, which will be published at the end of the project.

WKÖ Modul 1

Die Rohstoffnutzung der österreichischen Wirtschaft

Das Projekt analysiert den Rohstoffeinsatz der österreichischen Wirtschaft nach Herkunftsländern und setzt die Analyse der Materialflüsse in Beziehung zu Wertschöpfung und Beschäftigung. Dabei sollen Zusammenhänge zwischen dem Strukturwandel der österreichischen Wirtschaft, Globalisierungsprozessen von Wertschöpfungsketten und zunehmender Auslagerung von rohstoffintensiven Teilen dieser Ketten, und der Entwicklungen von Materialflüssen, Wertschöpfung und Beschäftigung untersucht werden. Das Projekt liefert damit die Grundlage für eine verstärkte Diskussion von Rohstoffaspekten in der Wirtschaftspolitik Österreichs.

RESET - 2016

Dieses Projekt führt eine Detailanalyse im Themenbereich Nachhaltiger Konsum durch und untersucht die Ursachen ansteigender Materialfußabdrücke für eine Reihe ausgewählter Produktgruppen.

IntRESS (Exploring options for global resource use)

The IntRESS project develops new insights, options and recommendations for international sustainable resource use policies through engaging the scientific community and relevant stakeholders. This should further strengthen the profile of resource efficiency and sustainable resource use issues on the European and international policy agenda. WU’s Sustainable Resource Use research group contributes particularly to the work on identifying policy targets for sustainable resource use in the area of water consumption. Based on existing approaches to identify environmental thresholds in the area of water, such as the Water Exploitation Index or the Water Stress Index, the WU team further specifies targets building on work on global flows of water calculated with global, environmental-economic input-output models. Part of WU’s task is also to organize an international expert workshop. Duration2013-2014Scientific ResearcherKarin Schanes, Stephan Lutter, Hanspeter WielandProject LeadeStefan GiljumSponsorEuropean Union / FP7

UNIDO EQuIP

In the EQuIP project, UNIDO is setting up a toolkit to measure, monitor and guide the process of industrial development in developing countries to ensure that their development path is implemented in an inclusive and sustainable way. In environmental terms, the key questions addressed are how to advance modern industrialization through the greening of existing industries as well as how to develop new green products and technologies. This shall support economic growth and increase competitiveness of the respective countries, while at the same time respecting the environmental limits both on the national and the global level (“planetary boundaries”).

The toolkit does not consist of sophisticated models or complex evaluation procedures, but of simple analytical tools based on available and – to the extent possible – quantitative indicators. The toolkit is designed in a way to be easily implemented by members of public administrations and other stakeholders in developing countries.

Experts from WU’s research group “Sustainable Resource Use”, notably Stefan Giljum and Stephan Lutter, assist UNIDO in setting up the toolkit and training manual for the areas of resource efficiency and environmental impacts.

CLIMA Land

This service contract with the European Commission aims to propose a policy framework for land use related climate mitigation for the European level. The Commission is committed to tackle the challenges of climate change while ensuring economic development and continued progress in well-being. Agricultural and forestry land use provides essential natural resources to society, but at the same time play a key role in both the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG) and removal of atmospheric carbon. Encompassing and coherent policy frameworks exist for energy and GHG emissions in the EU, but at present there is no corresponding overarching framework for EU policies for land use related climate mitigation to steer policy towards the climate targets. The main challenge is to reduce the GHG emissions and other negative environmental impacts of land use practices while maintaining (and even increasing) the socio-economic benefits.

This study assists the European Commission in understanding the impacts of different policy options on land use related climate mitigation and develops a policy framework suited to efficiently minimise land use related GHG emissions while maximising carbon removals.

Land Targets

Land is increasingly recognised as a non-renewable limited natural resource that needs to be used efficiently to be able to ensure that it can provide all its functions in the future. In this context, the European Commission will issue a Communication on land as a resource in 2015. The Land Communication needs to propose a vision of where the EU should go in terms of land and soil management by 2020 and beyond, and for that purpose, a robust set of indicators is required. Moreover, the implementation of targets based on some of these indicators could be considered by the EC.

This study assesses the feasibility of setting up a suitable framework for measuring and tracking the status and progress towards a more sustainable use of land as a resource. Indicators, targets, monitoring processes and knowledge base improvement actions are discussed. The study identified and assessed possible indicators and targets to promote the multi-functionality of land and preserve its environmental functions, and to reduce the impacts of EU demand on global land degradation. Consequently, the study covered the following main aspects:

• Land take

• Land recycling

• Land degradation

• Land use functions

• Global impacts of EU demand for land-based products

OECD MF II (Comparison of material footprint methodologies)

This project, commissioned by the Environment Directorate of the OECD, compares various methodological approaches to calculate demand-based measures of raw material use, also known as material footprints. The project team, consisting of WU’s Sustainable Resource Use research group, researchers from the Institute for Social Ecology, Vienna, as well as from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), Canberra, Australia, will compare approaches based on input-output analysis with methodologies which also use information from life cycle assessments on the product level. The project team also assists the OECD Secretariat in preparing and organising an international expert workshop on demand-based measures of material flows and resource productivity, which takes place in Paris in September 2015. At this expert workshop, the key results from the study will be presented and discussed with various stakeholders from statistics, international organisations and academia.

UBA Land

Robust land footprint indicators can potentially extend the consumption-based resource use indicator of the German sustainability strategy, which focuses on abiotic resources including fossil fuels, metals, and construction and industrial minerals and decidedly excludes biotic resources. This study provides a review of the current state of the art in measuring land footprints and gives clear recommendations for the further development of land flow accounting methods, particularly highlighting the advantages of hybrid accounting approaches as a framework for the robust and transparent assessment of land footprints associated with global biomass flows. We set up an accounting model according to the derived recommendations and apply it to calculate land footprint indicators for Germany and Europe. The study furthermore discusses and evaluates options of impact-oriented land footprint indicators (measuring e.g. biodiversity loss related with the land footprint) and calculates selected indicators for Germany.

DESIRE (Development of a System of Indicators for a Resource efficient Europe)

DESIRE develops and applies an optimal set of indicators to monitor European progress towards resource-efficiency. A combination of time series of environmentally extended input output data (EE IO) and the DPSIR framework to construct the indicator set is proposed. This approach will use a single data set that allows for consistent construction of resource efficiency indicators capturing the EU, country, sector and product group level, and the production and consumption perspective including impacts outside the EU. The project significantly contributes to the further development of multi-regional input-output (MRIO) analysis. Role and responsibilities of the WU team in the project:

• Analysis of resource efficiency policies

• Development of an indicator framework for resource efficiency

• Calculate material and land footprint indicators with MRIO methods

Link: http://fp7desire.eu/

www.materialflows.net – MFA VII

www.materialflows.net is an online portal for material flow data, providing access to material flow data sets on the national level. The website is based on the worldwide first comprehensive database on global resource extraction - the SERI/WU Global Material Flows Database, set up and administrated by SERI (Sustainable Europe Research Institute) and the Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU Vienna), in cooperation with the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IFEU) and the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment, Energy.

The database comprises data for more than 200 countries, the time period of 1980 to 2010, and more than 300 different materials aggregated into 12 categories of material flows. The scientific community as well as policy makers increasingly demand analyses that go beyond the pure presentation of MFA data and indicators. Thus, the basic intention of this online portal is to provide easy access to MFA data to be applied in further policy-oriented analyses, as well as background information, trend analyses and visualisation tools for a better comprehension of MFA data and the conclusions to be drawn.

In this project the research group Sustainable Resource Use is updating the database to the year 2011. Furthermore, the website content is revised, trends and figures adapted and the whole website content updated.

Material- und Rohstoffinputindikatoren (Raw Material Input Indicators)

The over-arching goal of this project is to support the German Federal Government in the further development of indicators of raw material usage and resource efficiency on the European level. This goal must be understood in relation to the Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Europe and ProgRess – the German programme for resource efficiency. Both of these initiatives aim to increase resource efficiency in production and consumption. Indicators are essential for performance measurement and communication of goal achievement.

The goals of this research project are:

• The facilitation of methodological harmonization through greater exchange between researchers and official statistics offices.

• The investigation of existing indicators and their underlying methodologies for their need for further development.

• The harmonization of available datasets and through it the reduction of existing data-related inconsistencies between the individual raw material input metrics.

• The establishment of a process of increased cooperation among relevant stakeholders with the goal of reaching harmonisation and quality improvement regarding applied calculation methodologies and resource use indicators.

UWD Wassergebühren (Water fees)

In this project the research group Sustainable Resource Use is contributing to a project targeting the design of fees for water use in the context of Article 9 of the Water Framework Directive, which states that “Member States shall take account of the principle of recovery of the costs of water services, including environmental and resource costs […] in accordance in particular with the polluter pays principle. The research group is responsible for the compilation and illustration of data regarding water use in Austria and its development over time. This will be done by means of case studies such as the industry sector, agriculture, and energy industry. Further possible models for cost-benefit analyses of different fee systems will be analysed and applied to the case studies with the aim of supporting related policy making.

UNEP MFA

In this project the research group Sustainable Resource Use collaborates with partner institutions in Germany and Australia to set up a global database on worldwide material extraction. The data compilation builds on the principles of economy-wide material flow analysis (EW-MFA). The dataset comprises data for all countries of the world and the years 1990-2010. In the second part of the project, on the basis of the dataset a UNEP report on global resource sue and efficiency will be compiled.

WWF Food

In this project the research group Sustainable Resource Use carries out a study for the WWF Austria on sustainable diets and land use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions related to Austrian diets. In this context, the land and GHG intensities of different food products and diets are evaluated, key supply chains identified and the historical development of Austria’s land footprint described:Land use and land use change in relation to Austrian biomass demand: food, feed (meat), energy, other non-food; e.g. between 1990 and 2012.A further focus is set on healthy diets and the issue of food waste.

RESET 2015

"Wissenssupport RESET 2015" - 4 Projekte in den Themenfeldern "Regionale Kreislaufwirtschaft", "Nachhaltiger Konsum", "Rebound Effect" und "Nachhaltige Beschaffung".