Publications

The aim of the project “Impacts of climate change on the environmental criticality of Germany’s raw material demand” (KlimRess), was to assess how climate change potentially affects the environmental risks of mining and raw material supply chains. This final report summarizes the results of the project.

The RESCUE project describes in six scenarios possible development paths towards a resource-efficient and greenhouse-gas (GHG) neutral Germany. For this, assumptions related to the roll-out of renewable energy technologies, the level of ambition for reaching GHG-neutrality, the magnitude of materials- and energy-efficiency, and the implementation of sustainable life-styles are varied.

The RESCUE study describes in six scenarios possible development paths towards a resource-efficient and greenhouse-gas (GHG) neutral Germany until 2050. The GreenSupreme scenario achieves the reduction of emissions along a global 1.5 °C path towards GHG-neutrality by 2050, while at the same time substantially lowering Germany’s material footprint.

Excessive reactive nitrogen affects the air and groundwater quality, the good condition of land and marine ecosystems, as well as the climate and biodiversity. Different economic and consumer sectors release different nitrogen compounds, which are connected to one another via the nitrogen cycle.

The project goal was to support the regulatory acceptance of data generated with the OECD Acute Fish Embryo Toxicity Test (TG 236) as alternative method to the OECD Acute Fish Toxicity Test (TG 203). TG 236 is an important contribution to animal welfare in chemical safety assessment in Europe but also worldwide.

The project "Environmental Raw Material Availability" (OekoRess I) developed methods for the assessment of environmental hazard potentials of mining. For this purpose, a mining site-related evaluation model was first developed and tested in an iterative process using 40 case studies.

One aim of the project OekoRess II was to further develop evaluation methods for environmental hazard potentials of mining projects and raw materials developed as part of the predecessor project OekoRess I. The main task of the methodology development was to identify a governance indicator which reflects best a country’s mining sector governance with regard to environmental aspects.

Within the project OekoRess II, more than 50 mineral raw materials were evaluated with regard to the environmental hazard potential of mining using and further refining the methodology developed in the predecessor project OekoRess I.

This study – provided by the Ecologic Institute Berlin and the Öko-Institute Berlin in cooperation with Prof. Dr. Sebastian Oberthür - develops options for the German government to improve international soil governance in the short, medium and long term.

The present study is a contribution to the linking discussion of emissions trading systems.

The Covid 19 pandemic is causing considerable social and economic disruption worldwide. Short and midterm financial support measures for mitigating the acute consequences of the pandemic must be structured in a way, that they support the needed longterm changes towards a sustainable and climate-neutral society. 

Software plays an important role in determining the environmental impact of ICT products. It has a measurable impact on computer-hardware energy consumption and increasing requirements can make it necessary to replace computer hardware prematurely – a phenomenon known as software obsolescence.