Research Fields
Corporate Environmental Management
Environmental protection and company success can indeed go together very well as the research field Corporate Environmental Management has shown through numerous successful projects. In this connection, the IÖW develops and tests innovative methods and environmental protection instruments. These enable companies to recognise, utilise and extend their own framework of action in the interest of the environment.
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Ecological Economics and Environmental Policy
The speed of economic and social transformation processes has increased in recent years. Not only with respect to ecology have "old certainties" been put into question. Reorientation is necessary on various levels: what possibilities for ecological structural change are there under the conditions of globalisation? How can a sustainable economy be achieved? And which new forms of governance does society need for the change necessary? The research field Ecological Economics and Environmental Policy is strongly involved in working out solutions for these new questions.
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Sustainable Energy and Climate Protection
"The energy system currently in use is not a sustainable one." That is one of the key conclusions arrived at in a report by the Enquête Commission on Sustainable Energy Supply set up by the federal parliament of Germany.
How can this development be changed for the better? What kind of innovations, government policies, societal prerequisites will necessitate improvement? These are core questions, the possible answers to which are the subject of examination by IOeW's Sustainable Energy and Climate Protection research Area. This division has been producing expertises and surveys which are highly practice-relevant and politically applicable for several years now.
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Ecological Consumption
Ecological Consumption is an important prerequisite for sustainable development in the sense of agenda 21. It is necessary for this, firstly, to consume the information of the consumer about sustainable products and its practical possibilities in a sustainable manner and then, concrete offers of products and services should be developed which take the different needs of consumers into consideration. The corresponding infrastructures for ecological consumption have also to be created and extended in a sustainable manner. The research field Ecological Consumption offers the scientific support for this. The IÖW is active here from the evaluation of political consumption instruments up to the accompaniment of innovative steps in the retail trade.
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Ecological Product Policy
For their whole life, products are a burden on the environment - from the removal of resources to the elimination of waste. Re-thinking is necessary here to make management more future-orientated. Resources have to be used more intensively and longer and the production of waste hast to be reduced. The research field Ecological Product Policy therefore works out innovative concepts, strategies and measures with the goal of improving the ecological profile of products and services.
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