35 running Projects // 370 Projects in total

• Research Activities and Core Competences Regarding Renewable Energy from Biomass and Wind Power in Berlin-Brandenburg

  In 2011, the Brandenburg Economic Development Board (ZAB) organized a conference with regional stakeholders from the energy sector to discuss and prioritize measures to support the further development in this sector. One of [...] More

• International analysis of the factors influencing the perception of nanotechnology

  While the relevance of nano-products for consumers is increasing, the level of knowledge among the general public concerning its application and potential impact remains relatively low. Yet, the public values the [...] More

• Investigation and support of two model communities for the assessment of municipal value added

  The Ministry for Climate Protection, Environment, Agriculture, Nature Conservation and Consumer Protection commissioned the IÖW to calculate the value added of renewable energies of two local authorities in the German State [...] More

• Social innovation and its diffusion: Social marketing and social entrepreneurship

  The research project aims at identifying success factors of new and target group specific marketing strategies for innovative social action. Those marketing strategies initiate both problem awareness as well as willingness to [...] More

• IÖW/future-Ranking of Sustainability Reports 2011

  The IÖW/future Ranking of Sustainability Reports regularly assesses the extra-financial reports of the 150 largest German companies on the one hand and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) on the other. The basis of the [...] More

• Revision of "Blue Angel" regulations in the field of heating rooms and buildings

  The German ecolabel “Blue Angel” (“Der Blaue Engel”) has been applied to environmentally friendly products since 1978. Space heating systems that have been awarded the Blue Angel are particularly efficient and low on [...] More

• Renewable Energies in Brandenburg 2030 - Expansion Potential and Value-added Effects

  Brandenburg seeks to reduce its energy-related CO2 emissions by 40 percent in 2020 compared to the year 1990. Furthermore, CO2 reductions of another 35 percent are planned until 2030. To achieve these objectives, the [...] More

• Development of an internet-based calculator to determine the local value added of renewable energies

  The Institute for Ecological Economy Research (IÖW) carried out the study "Local Value Added through Renewable Energies" between April and September 2010. The project was conducted on behalf of the German Renewable Energy [...] More

• Overall-effective measures for sustainable water resources management in the coastal area of Shandong Province, PR China

  Water shortage and water pollution are serious problems in China's Northern provinces which strongly influence not only socio-economic development, but also ecology and quality of life in these regions. Shandong Province and [...] More

• Converging Technologies – Socio-ecological options for shaping innovations (CONTEC)

  The growing connection between nanotechnologies, genetic engineering, information and communications technology and cognitive sciences is one of today’s most influential technological developments with far-reaching [...] More

• Evaluating Policies for Sustainable Development (EPOS)

  EPOS is a research project funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) in the framework of social-ecological research (SÖF). The main focus of the project is policy evaluation with a focus on [...] More

• Value Added by Renewable Energies in the German Federal State of Baden-Württemberg

  The Baden-Württemberg Ministry of the Environment, Climate Protection and the Energy Sector commissioned the IÖW to calculate the value added and employment effects of renewable energies in the federal state of [...] More

• Energy Efficiency and Employment

  Political targets aiming at mitigating climate change and increasing energy productivity will only be reached if companies significantly increase their energy efficiency. This can be based on efficient production processes or [...] More

• Interlinking of climate scenarios with other scenarios from the ecological and social area

  The integration of climate scenarios with other models for social and environmental development is a precondition for a reliable estimate of the future development of coupled human-environment systems under conditions of [...] More

• Policies to Encourage Sustainable Consumption

  The objective of the project is to provide policy guidance on how to change consumption patterns to make them more sustainable by using various approaches, including those based on behavioural research. To accomplish this, a [...] More

• Analysis of existing measures and development of innovative strategies to an improved application of synergies among environmental and social policy

  The project intends to analyse measures and strategies for an improved application of synergies among environmental and social policy and to develop innovative strategies for their application. Herewith, the preconditions for [...] More

• Evaluation of the NKI project "Eco-label of climate relevant products (climate angel)"

  Objective of the project is the evaluation of the elaboration of 10 additional product group requirements of the German eco-label "Blue Angle", which should strengthen the cluster "Protects the climate". In this context, [...] More

• Evaluation Utopia City Guide

  The task of the IÖW is the evaluation of a project of the Utopia AG called “Utopia City Guide”, where national yellow pages are developed, that are internet based and refer to green products and services only. The project is [...] More

• Decentralised micro biogas plants ("micro-biogas") Development of transferable concepts of sustainable biogene residue and waste materials usage for micro-biogas production in villages and rural areas.

  The project "micro-biogas" aims to develop transferable concepts of sustainable usage of biogene residue and waste materials for micro-biogas production in villages and rural areas. Technical concepts and feasibility studies [...] More

• Effects of self-consumption and grid parity of photovoltaic systems

  Many actors in the photovoltaic (PV) industry often proclaim the forthcoming “grid parity” as an important moment in the market development of PV. However, the exact meaning of this terminus and its potential effects on [...] More

• New Target Groups for the Blue Angel Eco-Labelling Scheme

  The Blue Angel faces a further changing environment: competition with other labels increases and the label's visibility on retailers' shelves declines. Against this background, the expertise aims to develop proposals for the [...] More

• Value added and employment creation of renewable energies in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania 2010 and 2030

  The IÖW develops in conjunction with the Center for Technology and Society (CTS), TU Berlin, and Rostock Energie-Umwelt-Beratung e.V./Institut (EUB) as part of a scientific study, a mission statement for "Mecklenburg-Western [...] More

• Value added and employment effects of wind energy in Baden-Wuerttemberg in the years 2010 and 2020

  Greenpeace commissioned the Institute for Ecological Economy Research (IÖW, Berlin) to determine value added and employment effects of wind energy (onshore) in Baden-Wuerttemberg for the years 2010 und 2020. Additionally, the [...] More

• Bioeconomy – Comment on the statement of the BioEconomy Council

  The BioEconomy Council has presented a study which deals with the perspectives and the action approaches to promote bio-economy. The basic orientation of bio-economy is that a fundamental change from the use of non-renewable [...] More

• SPICOSA (Science and Policy Integration for Coastal System Assessment)

  The overall objective of SPICOSA is to develop a self-evolving, holistic research approach for integrated assessment of Coastal Systems so that the best available scientific knowledge can be mobilized to support deliberative [...] More

• Stakeholder Dialogues: Adaptation to Climate Change

  Six stakeholder dialogues are conducted that aim at discussing challenges resulting from climate change and possible adaptation strategies. The dialogues are organised on different topics such as coastal areas (May 2009), [...] More

• Literature Review: Biomimetics in Economics and Business

  The project aims to investigate the current state of the art of biomimetic applications in economic sciences. Therefore, relevant literature will be reviewed and summed up. Suggestions for prospective biomimetic activities [...] More

• Material Efficiency and Resource Conservation (MaRess)

  Environmental burdens due to the extraction and use of resources, the related emissions and the disposal of waste lead directly to ecological and subsequently also social and economic problems. Insecurity of supply, a [...] More

• Evaluation of heating surveys from a campaign of CO2online Target groups and buildings, consumer satisfaction and effect of the measure

  Based on a short questionaire and the last heat cost billing CO2online compiles heating surveys for landlords and lodgers. Due to the heat cost billing and the reply of the questionaire, the heating survey includes [...] More

• Investments of Germany's four big energy companies in the field of renewable energies - update 2010

  The big four German energy suppliers - E.ON, RWE, Vattenfall and EnBW - are also committed to developing renewable energies. This impression is at least supported by television commercials, billboards and other marketing [...] More

• Cohesion Policy and Sustainable Development

  The aim of the study is to: define sustainable development (and in particular the integration of economic, social and environmental objectives) in the context of Cohesion Policy, which will remain primarily an economic and [...] More

• Concept of a product-related toprunner model on EU level

  The eco-design of products gets increasing importance. Also on EU-level, it is to a large extent agreed that environmental regulation with dynamic standards is needed which gives strong incentives for resource-efficient [...] More

• Energy-efficient modernisation of the housing stock of detached and semi-detached houses (Enef house)

  Domestic space heating and hot water account for over a quarter of final energy requirements in Germany. An energy-efficiency refurbishment of buildings could reduce this energy consumption and the related CO2 emissions by up [...] More

• Employment and training and qualification requirements for innovation environmental technologies

  The markets for the future are green and have considerable growth potential. Green technologies have become one of Germany's key exports and the high specialised and innovative companies expect further rapid growth. At the [...] More

• Meta-Analysis – Strategies of Sustainability in Politics and Economics

  In the project a Sustainability Atlas will be developed, in which a national and international comparative overview is given on selected governmental and business strategies of sustainable development. Thereby, the underlying [...] More

• Local value added by renewable energy technologies

  Communities are important drivers in the development of renewable energies. They can benefit at the same time because, as a rule, previously imported energy feedstocks or final energy will be replaced by local energy sources, [...] More

• Social Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility in German TNCs

  The project starts from the hypothesis that trade union and CSR actors currently operate in strongly demarcated and differently constituted policy arenas and that the mutual rapprochement of the two arenas can both support [...] More

• ICZM Oder – Research for an Integrated Coastal Zone Management in the Oder Estuary Region

  The Oder Estuary is a rural region at the German-Polish border. It has great ecological and recreational potential. The region suffers from economic and social problems and a steep gradient between West and East and between [...] More

• Climate mitigation via peat land management Assessment of the effects of alternative peatland management on climate mitigation potentials, on farm-level economics and on macro economics.

  The purpose of the network-project is to identify synergies between peatland protection and climate protection, to quantify the contribution of alternative peatland management to climate protection, and to determine the [...] More

• Combating climate change and moorland management strategies

  In the debate about alternative strategies for combating climate change and the emission of climate-relevant gases, agricultural land use plays a significant role both as an emitter and with regard to potential avoidance [...] More

• Implementing the EU Action Plan ETAP

  The Environmental Technologies Action Plan (ETAP) was presented by the EU Commission in 2004 with the aim of comprehensively exploiting the potential of environmental technologies to improve ecology and sustainability. In the [...] More

• Potentials of renewable energy sources in Berlin 2020 and in the long term - Quantification and generation of measures to reach ambitious expansion targets

  The city of Berlin is developing an integrated energy concept for 2020. In cooperation with the Berlin Energy Agency the IOEW will identify realizable technical potentials for renewable energy sources up until 2020 and [...] More

• IÖW/future-Ranking der Nachhaltigkeitsberichte deutscher Großunternehmen 2009

  Das IÖW/future-Ranking der Nachhaltigkeitsberichte bewertet die gesellschaftsbezogene Berichterstattung der 150 größten deutschen Unternehmen. Die Basis der Bewertung bildet ein umfassendes Kriterienset, das seit 1994 ständig [...] More

• Socio-ecological evaluation in politics

  The importance of evaluation in political decision-making and planning processes is growing. This results on the one hand from the increasing pressure to justify political measures and programmes, the legitimacy and [...] More

• Development of a Platform for Deliberative Processes on Nanotechnology in the European Consumer Market (NANOPLAT)

  NANOPLAT will develop a platform for deliberative processes on Nano-science and Nano-technology (NS&T) in the European consumer market. The support action will concentrate on deliberative processes concerning human and [...] More

• Implementation of the Tunisian eco-label

  In the context of this project, a workshop has been organised which adressed the organiser of the Tunisian eco-label scheme. The main target was to transfer knowledge and experiences from different eco-label schemes to the [...] More

• Self-organising adaptive systems: an analysis of the opportunities and risks of new ICT approaches and ways to shape them

  Within the framework of an innovation and technology analysis, the opportunities and risks of self-organising adaptive systems are examined with the focus on organic computing. One of the main driving factors behind such [...] More

• Limits and possibilities of consumer information through product labelling

  Products can/could tell us a lot – for example about the environment- or health-related effects of certain product features in production, use or disposal. Various instruments have been developed which provide information [...] More

• Change dynamics in consumption and sustainable innovation paths (DYNAMIKON)

  Taking the example of leisure-time mobility, the research project DYNAMIKON examines what short- and medium-term factors are responsible for changes in consumer behaviour. Consideration is given not only to economic factors, [...] More

• Coordination Action for innovation in Life-Cycle Analysis for Sustainability (CALCAS) Koordiniertes Projekt

  ife Cycle Assessment (LCA) according to ISO has been the driving power for LCA diffusion, but it has limitations regarding empirical mechanisms, spatial/temporal aspects and economic/social parameters. To increase the [...] More