Publications

Since Summer 2007, Öko-Institut (Institute for Applied Ecology) and IFEU (Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, a non-profit limited liability company, Heidelberg) are carrying out the project “Development of Strategies and Sustainability Standards for the Certification of Biomass for International Trade (Bio-global)” on behalf of Umweltbundesamt (Federal Environmental Agency) .

The propellant gases of OCF – first CFCs, then HCFCs, finally HFCs – have been subject to environmental legislation.

On the CD-ROM you will find the complete contents of the internet application ‘Data on the Environment’ (in German, 2009). The brochure is designed to tell you about selected significant trends within five important areas of environmental protection.

Carbon dioxide emissions decrease almost continuously. The reductions are in equal parts due to economic restructuring in the new Federal States followed by a decrease in lignite use, and the active climate protection policy of the Federal Government.  

In fact, the WTO admissibility of introducing environmentally motivated border tax adjustments (BTAs) via import taxes has not yet been definitively clarified neither by the WTO Panel and the Appellate Body nor in the jurisprudential literature.

Perfluorinated und polyfluorinated chemicals (PFC) are the subject of increasing public debate. Particular interest has been focussed on studies carried out by the Ruhr University in Bochum, which show that certain of these chemicals are absorbed into the human body through drinking water, where they accumulate. 

In Germany, emission allowances (European Union Allowances, EUAs) for the first trading period (2005-2007) were allocated completely free of charge. In the second trading period (2008-2012) annual volumes of 40 million EUAs will be sold (Article 19 ZuG (Zuteilungsgesetz – The German Allocation Act) 2012).

The investigations performed on laser printers essentially served as a revision of the test method for the determination of emissions from hardcopy devices for the environmental awar 'Blue Angel' for office devices according to RAL-UZ 62, 85 and 114 of Juni 2003. The resulting test procedure according to RAL.UZ 122 was prviously published in Juni 2006.

It is the purpose of Directive 2002/95/EC on the restriction of the use of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment (RoHS Directive) to regulate the exclusion of certain harmful substances from being used in electrical and electronic equipment (EEE).

It is important to define requirements and quality criteria for sustainable chemistry and provide for possible solutions to be measurable, assessable and practicable. Hence, the concept of sustainable chemistry has to develop and propagate successful approaches.

The refrigerant commonly used in mobile air conditioning (MAC) systems is tetrafluoroethane, R134a for short. R134a has a high global warming potential (GWP), 1,300 times higher - according to more recent calculations by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), even 1,430 times higher – than that of CO2.

Fluxes of reactive nitrogen compounds1 caused or massively changed by human activity constitute a cross-cutting problem in environmental protection. The intensification of the nitrogen cycle makes it possible to supply a growing world population with protein-rich food, but has considerable adverse effects on the environment and human health.