Publications | Umweltbundesamt

Climate | Energy, Waste | Resources

Impacts of climate change on mining, related environmental risks and raw material supply

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 report offers insights on climate change impacts from five qualitative case studies, provid...read more

Climate | Energy, Waste | Resources, Sustainability | Strategies | International matters

Resource-Efficient Pathways towards Greenhouse-Gas-Neutrality - RESCUE: Executive Summary

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. Until 2050,...read more

Climate | Energy, Waste | Resources, Sustainability | Strategies | International matters

Scientific Opinion Paper: Resource-Efficient Pathways towards Greenhouse Gas- Neutrality (RESCUE)

How Germany can achieve greenhouse gas neutrality by 2050 and resulting raw materials demand

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. This publication discusses possible synergies and...read more

Air, Water, Soil | Land

Integrated nitrogen indicator, national nitrogen target and the current situation in Germany (DESTINO Report 1)

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. In order to raise public awareness to the complex problem situation and sensitivity for urgent politica...read more

Chemicals

Development of an OECD Guidance Document for the Application of OECD Test Guideline 236 (Acute Fish Embryo Toxicity Test)

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. Results of the project are directly used within OECD project 2.54 on the Development o...read more

Waste | Resources

Discussion of the environmental limits of primary raw material extraction and development of a method for assessing the environmental availability of raw materials to further develop the criticality concept (ÖkoRess I)

Summary

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. On this basis, a raw material-related evaluation model was derived and applied to five raw materials as examples. B...read more

Waste | Resources

Comparative analysis of case studies for mining sites worldwide

OekoRess II Working Report on environmental hazards and impacts, governance challenges and indicators

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. The study aims...read more

Waste | Resources

Environmental Criticality of Raw Materials

An assessment of environmental hazard potentials of raw materials from mining and recommendations for an ecological raw materials policy

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.The evaluation system consists of eight indicators on geological, technical and site-related environmental hazard potentials of mining, two supplementary indicators on...read more