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Accounting, Analysis and Scenario Formulation
Many scientists today recognize that the scale of the economy
is a central determining factor for ecological sustainability of economic
activities. Scale is a shorthand for the aggregate matter-energy-throughput
of the industrial metabolism.
While the quality of material flows (meant to include energy carriers)
plays a decisive role for the ecological resilience of concrete eco-systems,
their quanity can be regarded as a very rough but directionally safe indicator
of anthropogenic interventions into nature, which should be reduced: this
is how dematerialisation can be defined. By including "ecological
rucksacks" or "hidden flows", material input is the total
material and energy flow and includes not only the materials converted
within the economy but also those "left aside".
Adding the dimension of appropriated land area to material flows enables
a comprehensive accounting of natural resource inputs into socio-economic
systems.
The intended research strategy within this research area
is to link data of resource inputs to input-output-type models in order
to
- account and analyse for the economic sectors and regions
by which these material flows and appropriated land areas are activated
- formulate and evaluate scenarios of changes towards dematerialisation
on the path toward sustainable development.
These analyses will be undertaken on all levels of economic
activities, comprising the local, regional, national, EU-wide and global
level.
The
research activities are carriedout in co-operation with IIASA
(International Institute for Applied System Analysis), Laxenburg, Austria.
Other research institutions are invited to join this co-operation.
Planned Activities
Data collection
- Data collection of world-wide material inputs
- Data collection of world-wide appropriated land areas
Regional level
- Indicators and scenarios for regions world-wide
EU-level
- Submission of a project proposal to the 3rd Call in the
Environment and Sustainable Development Program
Global level
- Former project "Global material flows": integration
of global physical data in the COMPASS model (B. Meyer/GWS and University
of Osnabrück)
Workshops
- International workshop on the interrelations of monetary
and bio-physical flow
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Service
Project-Overview
Publications
Links
Contact
Friedrich
Hinterberger
Stefan
Giljum
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