Report 2008: Preface and Focus of Research:
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International Perspectives on Transdisciplinary Research Approaches:
The 1st international conference within the funding programme Social-Ecological Research of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research “Long-Term Policies: Governing Social-Ecological Change” took place at the end of February in Berlin. Its aim was to create a forum for transdisciplinary research with respect to long-term policies from various fields. Within the semi-plenary session “Transdisciplinarity Research Approaches to Social-Ecological Change – an International Perspective” organized by ISOE, the Social-Ecological funding programme and included subjects, concepts and approaches were introduced and discussed. http://web.fu-berlin.de/ffu/akumwelt/bc2008/papers/bc2008_Jahn.pdf
The conference papers respectively presentations are available for download on the conference’ website: http://web.fu-berlin.de/ffu/akumwelt/bc2008/download.htm
Energy Saving by Intelligent Measuring and Feedback Systems:
By
receiving an energy bill only once a year one is hardly able to track the
reasons for an increase in consumption. The principle of feedback might be
of great help to the customers giving short-term information on energy
consumption and costs. A specific display or internet information could
show when the energy consumption is increasing or when it is at a low
level. By monthly comparisons of energy consumption one could also learn
to deal more efficiently with domestic appliances. Within a new joint
project three research institutes work together with nine practice
partners investigating the question how user-friendly information and
communications systems can help private customers to expand their
knowledge for "intelligent" handling and behaviour towards a more
sustained energy consumption.
Further information on the new
project
Pharmaceutical Residues:
How to Effectively Lower Occurrence in the
Environment: At the international conference “Sustainable Pharmacy” at
the end of April experts met from science and industry as well as
representatives from administration, water management, health care and
environmental research to discuss how pharmacy can become more sustainable.
The growing problem of environmental impacts of pharmaceuticals can only
be solved with an integrated strategy that combines the development of
more sustainable products, with the environmental-conscious handling of
medicine on the part of physicians, pharmacists and patients and the
optimisation of municipal waste water treatment. This conclusion was drawn
by the conference organisers from “Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt DBU”
(German Federal Foundation for the Environment), University Hospital
Freiburg and ISOE.
Find out more within the
press release following up the conference. Conference contributions
can be downloaded at:
http://www.dbu.de/550artikel27307_147.html
Further information on the research "Management Strategies for Pharmaceuticals in Drinking Water – start"
Year of Sanitation:
To put the spotlight on sanitation, the UN General Assembly declared the year 2008 the International Year of Sanitation. Its goal is to raise awareness and to accelerate progress towards the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) to reduce the proportion of the 2.6 billion people without access to basic sanitation by 2015 by 50%. Northcentral Namibia which has been hit by floods in the first quarter of 2008 shows exemplarily the importance of flood secure sanitation concepts in order to cope with climate change effects emerging today. The international research project 'CuveWaters' is working on the development and implementation of a concept for an Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM), in order to improve the living conditions for the population in the Cuvelai-Etosha Basin via innovative and adapted water technologies. You will find further information on the project “Integrated Water Resource Management in the Cuvelai-Etosha-Basin” on the project’s website: http://www.cuvewaters.net
Motivating and Enabling Private Home Owners for Energy Efficient Refurbishment:
Around 14.5 million single and double occupancy houses in Germany are holding a considerable potential to save energy and cut down CO2-emissions. But until now many private home owners appear to be reluctant to energy efficient refurbishment. Besides insufficient market transparency the lack of information and inadequate incentives for investments constitute major obstacles in this respect. To tackle these obstacles a new joint research project will develop an integrated and target group oriented policy and advisory approach aiming to activate and motivate private home owners to carry out energy efficient measures to modernise their buildings. Further information on the new project
Sustainable Consumption and Production:
The 12th European Roundtable on Sustainable Consumption and Production (erscp2008) in September 2008 in Berlin will be part of the 5th Forum for Sustainability organised by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research. The overall goals of the international conference at the interface of science, industry, public authorities and politics are to facilitate innovations and to promote sustainable consumption and production by challenging participants’ projects, ideas and approaches and by stimulating debate regarding their contribution to sustainable development. The main issues of the conference will be sustainable housing and construction in Europe, sustainable supply chain management, sustainable production and resource efficiency and sustainable energy supply and consumption. More information on the upcoming conference: http://www.fona.de/en/6067
CITY:mobil: A Model for Integration in Sustainability Research
by Matthias Bergmann and Thomas Jahn, Chapter 6 in G. Hirsch Hadorn et al. (eds.) (2008): Handbook of Transdisciplinary Research, 89–102. Bern, © Springer 2008. 1,1 MB pdf-file
Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt (DBU), University Hospital Freiburg, Department of Environmental Health Sciences and the Institute for Social-Ecological Research (ISOE) organise the 1st international conference on Sustainable Pharmacy on April 24 and 25, 2008, in Osnabrück, Germany. Press Release as pdf, Press Release as pdf German, Conference Flyer ... More
Hummel, Diana/Alexandra Lux (2007):
Population decline and infrastructure: The case of the German water supply. Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, Volume 5 (2007), pp. 167-191 (http://www.oeaw.ac.at/vid/publications/VYPR2007/Yearbook2007_Hummel-Lux_pp167-191.pdf)