Resources, economies and resilience

A sustainable economy needs innovations that enable prosperity and social justice in harmony with planetary boundaries. This requires decoupling resource consumption from economic growth, new production and consumption practices and new models of prosperity.

The Sustainable Development Goals of the UN Agenda 2030 and the guiding principles of sustainable management point the way. Within these development corridors, concepts and practices of decarbonisation, circular economy, bioeconomy, zero waste, green IT, sustainable consumption and industrial ecology represent important guiding and implementation principles.

For the transformation to succeed, the task is to implement and apply these concepts in various economic sectors. The early recognition, monitoring and evaluation of technological, market, political and social developments, the analysis of development paths and the development of sustainable action strategies as well as the integration of users and stakeholders are of great importance.

Answers to the diverse challenges also require a long-term perspective on change processes that strengthens the resilience of the economy and society to crises. The research results provide orientation for corporate, municipal, civil society and political decision-makers and are developed in close exchange with them.

Projects

A selection of projects from the past five years is presented below. A complete overview is available via the search.

preview agrotech valley forum

2019 - 2024

Agro-Northwest. Experimental field for digital transformation in agricultural crop production
project n preview

2021 - 2023

Roadmap Future of Water Management

2021 - 2023

Crisis radar - Strengthening the resilience of society, politics and the economy through crisis prediction

2020 - 2021

Public transport between the common good and commerce. Changing value creation structures through new mobility services

2020

CiBER: Circular City Berlin - Pathways from Potential to Implementation

2019

Implementation concept for the establishment of a repair quality community in Berlin

2019 - 2020

Ad papers and sustainability

2021

bio:fictions. Co-creative design fictions of the bioeconomy with innovators, stakeholders and influencers

2017

Comparative economic and ecological evaluation of innovative, stationary energy storage technologies in industrial production

2015 - 2018

Evolution2Green - Transformation Pathways to the Green Economy: Shaping the Path Change

2001 - 2002

Ecological optimisation of used appliances - Technical solutions for energy-efficient upgrading of used washing machines

2015 - 2018

Peer-to-peer sharing - Internet-based business models for collaborative consumption as a contribution to sustainable economic activity

2014 - 2017

Substitution as a strategy to reduce the criticality of raw materials for environmental technologies - potential identification for second-best solutions

2018

Feasibility study on the establishment of a repair quality community in Berlin

2016 - 2019

From pioneers to urban practice - potentials of communal living to solve demographic and social challenges. Laboratory City Potsdam

2013 - 2016

Sustainability 2.0 - Modernisation approaches to the guiding principle of sustainable development

2019

Economies of Transformation. Approaches to sustainable economic development

2016 - 2019

KliReX - Identifying and evaluating the greenhouse gas reduction potential of resource efficiency policies

2020

[bio'nd] Outlooks into biobased futures

2020

Re-Use Berlin 2020: Actions and measures to strengthen the reuse of second-hand goods in Berlin

2018 - 2021

Environmental opportunities and risks of digitalised services of general interest in suburbanised areas - A concept study using the example of the district of Wolfenbüttel

2019

Re-Use Berlin 2019: Actions and measures to strengthen the reuse of second-hand goods in Berlin
izt project

2023 - 2025

Rebound effects through digital services and products