333.7 Natürliche Ressourcen, Energie und Umwelt
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In kleinen und mittleren Unternehmen (KMU) werden Energieeffizienz-Potentiale in geringerem Maße ausgeschöpft als in Großunternehmen. Zugleich bilden KMU den überwältigenden Anteil deutscher Unternehmen. Die Steigerung der Energieeffizienz verspricht einen substanziellen Beitrag zur Umweltentlastung. Energiemanagement wird gemeinhin als wesentlicher Treiber von Energieeffizienz Maßnahmen in Deutschland betrachtet. Im Kontext von Unternehmen wird Energiemanagement üblicherweise synonym mit dem Energiemanagement-standard ISO 50001 betrachtet. Problematisch zeigt sich diese Perspektive mit Blick auf KMU, für die eine aufwändige Implementierung eines solchen System in den überwiegenden Fällen nicht infrage kommt. Vor diesem Hintergrund darf sich eine Förderung von Energiemanagement in KMU jedoch nicht entmutigen lassen. Im Rahmen des Projekts wurde ein bedarfsgerechtes und an den Bedürfnissen von KMU orientiertes Konzept von Energiemanagement für KMU entwickelt. Die Ausarbeitung erfolgte in einem sogenannten Reallabor, das gleichsam als Partner-Netzwerk die Ergebnisse des Projekts kooperativ produziert hat. Das Reallabor setzte sich zusammen aus den koordinierenden Partnern aus der Wissenschaft (REZ Hochschule Reutlingen, Institut für Energieeffizienz in der Produktion EEP), sechs KMU aus der Region Reutlingen und einem Sounding-Board bestehend aus vier weiteren Partnern.
Im Rahmen des Reallabors wurden jene Bausteine definiert, die Energiemanagement für KMU ausmachen. Sensibilität und Basiswissen ist für KMU unumgänglich in den Bereichen: 1. Motivation für Energieeffizienz & Klimaneutralität, 2. Organisation-Entscheiden-Verhalten, 3. Energie-Daten Management und 4. Energieeffizienz-Maßnahmen (Querschnitt-Technologien). Den vier festgelegten Bausteinen wurden unterschiedliche Inhalte Schwerpunkte zugeordnet. Die Bausteine und Schwerpunkte wurden jeweils begründet und mit konkreten Lehr-, Lern- und Sensibilisierungszielen benannt. Parallel zur Festlegung der Bausteine und Schwerpunkte von Energiemanagement wurden Lehr-, Lern- und Sensibilisierungs-Materialien ausgearbeitet, bestehend aus Leitfäden und Checklisten. Die Ausarbeitung wurde jeweils mit Themen-Workshops parallel begleitet. Die entwickelten Lehr-, Lern- und Sensibilisierungs-Materialien wurden in und mit den Partnerunternehmen getestet. Alle Materialien stehen mit Abschluss des Projekts für die Verbreitung zur freien Verfügung.
Der zukünftige Beitrag zur Umweltentlastung hängt von der breiten Umsetzung außerhalb des Projektkontexts ab. Die Sensibilisierung und Qualifizierung für Energiemanagement schafft eine nachhaltige Energiesparkultur in KMU. Eine breite Anwendung des entwickelten Konzepts im Rahmen von moderierten Unternehmens-Netzwerken fördert die nachhaltige Befähigung von KMU Energieeffizienz zu planen und umzusetzen.
The food system represents a key industry for Europe and Germany in particular. However, it is also the single most significant contributor to climate and environmental change. A food system transformation is necessary to overcome the system’s major and constantly increasing challenges in the upcoming decades. One possible facilitator for this transformation are radical and disruptive innovations that start-ups develop. There are many challenges for start-ups in general and food start-ups in particular. Various support opportunities and resources are crucial to ensure the success of food start-ups. One aim of this study is to identify how the success of start-ups in the food system can be supported and further strengthened by actors in the innovation ecosystem in Germany. There is still room for improvement and collaboration toward a thriving innovation ecosystem. A successful innovation ecosystem is characterised by a well-organised, collaborative, and supportive environment with a vivid exchange between the members in the ecosystem. The interviewees confirmed this, and although the different actors are already cooperating, there is still room for improvement. The most common recommendation for improving cooperation is learning from other countries and bringing the best to Germany.
This paper aims at presenting a solution that enables end customers of the energy system to participate in new local micro-energy-markets by providing them with a distributed, decentralized, transparent and secure Peer to Peer (P2P) payment system, which functions automatically applying new concepts of Machine to Machine (M2M) communication technologies. This work was performed within the German project VK_2G, funded by the DBU. The key results were: Providing means to perform microtransactions in a P2P fashion between end consumers and prosumers in local communities at low cost in a transparent and secure manner; Developing a platform with pre-defined smart contracts able to be tailored to different end customers ‘needs in an easy way and; Integrating both the market platform as well as the local control of generation and loads. This solution has been developed, integrated and tested in a laboratory prototype. This paper discusses this solution and presents the results of the first test.
CODE RED FOR HUMANITY. The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable: greenhouse-gas emissions from fossil-fuel burning and deforestation are choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk. Global heating is affecting every region on Earth, with many of the changes becoming irreversible. (Guterres 2021)
The digitalisation ongoing in households and sustainability-related challenges are multifaceted and complex. The introducing quote of the United Nations Secretary-General refers to the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), emphasising the urgency to act – now. As of today, becoming a sustainable population is still a distant destination. As outlined in the previous chapters, the challenges associated with that transformation remain huge, complex, and largely unsolved. Recent dramas such as the power incident in Texas (2021), the floods in Germany (2021), or the drought in sub-Saharan Africa (2020s) – are just a few of the uncountable issues stirring up the debate about fossil-fuel abandonment and the timing of climate neutrality. Business research can actually be accused of referring to the persistent focus on gains and growth, despite early warnings for society at large (e.g., Meadows et al., 1972; Kölsch & Veit, 1981; Veit & Thatcher, 2023). However, academic researchers, corporations, and society are now waking up, as shown by the climate change conference. In fact, it appears that the information systems (IS) discipline just began tackling mammoth challenges around climate change within the last decade (Melville, 2010; Watson et al., 2010). The central discussion in emerging work revolves around the role and use of digital technologies on the path to a healthy planet. But while early studies have focused on organisational settings (e.g., Gholami et al., 2016; Seidel et al., 2013), increasingly research addresses private settings (e.g., Wunderlich et al., 2019).
This article studies the renewed interest surrounding sustainable public finance and the topic of tax evasion as well as the new theory of information inattention. Extending a model of tax evasion with the notion of inattention reveals novel findings about policy instruments that can be used to mitigate tax evasion. We show that the attention parameters regarding tax rates, financial penalty schemes and income levels are as important as the level of the detection probability and the financial penalty incurred. Thus, our theory recommends the enhancement of sustainability in public policy, particularly in tax policy. Consequently, the paper contributes both to the academic and public policy debate.
Up to now biorefinery concepts can hardly compete with the conventional production of fossil-based chemicals. On one hand, conventional chemical production has been optimised over many decades in terms of energy, yield and costs. Biorefineries, on the other hand, do not have the benefit of long-term experience and therefore have a huge potential for optimisation. This study deals with the economic evaluation of a newly developed biorefinery concept based on superheated steam (SHS) torrefaction of biomass residues with recovery of valuable platform chemicals. Two variants of the biorefinery were economically investigated. One variant supplies various platform chemicals and torrefied biomass. The second variant supplies thermal energy for external consumers in addition to platform chemicals. The results show that both variants can be operated profitably if the focus of the platform chemicals produced is on high quality and thus on the higher-priced segment. The economic analysis gives clear indications of the most important financial influencing parameters. The economic impact of integration into existing industrial structures is positive. With the analysis, a viable business model can be developed. Based on the results of the present study, an open-innovation platform is recommended for the further development and commercialisation of the novel biorefinery.
Within the last decade, research on torrefaction has gained increasing attention due to its ability to improve the physical properties and chemical composition of biomass residues for further energetic utilisation. While most of the research works focused on improving the energy density of the solid fraction to offer an ecological alternative to coal for energy applications, little attention was paid to the valorisation of the condensable gases as platform chemicals and its ecological relevance when compared to conventional production processes. Therefore, the present study focuses on the ecological evaluation of an innovative biorefinery concept that includes superheated steam drying and the torrefaction of biomass residues at ambient pressure, the recovery of volatiles and the valorisation/separation of several valuable platform chemicals. For a reference case and an alternative system design scenario, the ecological footprint was assessed, considering the use of different biomass residues. The results show that the newly developed process can compete with established bio-based and conventional production processes for furfural, 5-HMF and acetic acid in terms of the assessed environmental performance indicators. The requirements for further research on the synthesis of other promising platform chemicals and the necessary economic evaluation of the process were elaborated.
This paper explores why and how dominant international social standards used in the fashion industry are prone to implementation failures. A qualitative multiple-case study method was conducted, using purposive sampling to select 13 apparel supply chain actors. Data were collected through on-site semi-structured face-to-face interviews. The findings of the study are interpreted by using core tenets of agency theory. The case study findings clearly highlight why and how multi-tier apparel supply chains fail to implement social standards effectively. As a consequence of substantial goal conflicts and information asymmetries, sourcing agents and suppliers are driven to perform opportunistic behaviors in form of hidden characteristics, hidden intentions, and hidden actions, which significantly harm social standards. Fashion retailers need to empower their corporate social responsibility (CSR) departments by awarding an integrative role to sourcing decisions. Moreover, accurate calculation of orders, risk sharing, cost sharing, price premiums, and especially guaranteed order continuity for social compliance are critical to reduce opportunistic behaviors upstream of the supply chain. The development of social standards is highly suggested, e.g., by including novel metrics such as the assessment of buying practices or the evaluation of capacity planning at factories and the strict inclusion of subcontractors’ social performances. This paper presents evidence from multiple Vietnamese and Indonesian cases involving sourcing agents as well as Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers on a highly sensitive topic. With the development of the conceptual framework and the formulation of seven related novel propositions, this paper unveils the ineffectiveness of social standards, offers guidance for practitioners, and contributes to the neglected social dimension in sustainable supply chain management research and accountability literature.
Einige Ideen, Erfahrungen und Realitäten für die Studierenden und Bürger in Reutlingen. Zusammengestellt von 50 Studierenden 2020/21 und aus Beiträgen von 40 Institutionen und Unternehmen in und um Reutlingen.
Ein Versuch, sehr konkret am Tatsächlichen zu erklären, was zu mehr Nachhaltigkeit führt, in Reutlingen. Dabei bleibt nicht aus, auch auf Schwachstellen hinzuweisen.
Wenn Studierende und Bürger in den nächsten Jahren bewusst zu mehr Nachhaltigkeit bereit sind, so sind sie mit den Ideen und Realitäten in diesem Projekt auf einem guten Weg.
Already more than 75 countries pledged to become climate neutral by 2050 and the share of global emissions falling into an emission pricing scheme has steeply increased over the past two years. Even where there are no direct implications for industry (yet), there is a series of subtle pressure points driving an increasing number of companies across the globe to work towards climate neutrality and pledging ambitious carbon reduction goals.
This article sheds light on what the pressure points are, what the subtle triggers and what the underlying considerations, as well as hoped-for benefits of industrial companies to achieve decarbonisation. The observations and ideas presented in this paper are derived from quantitative and qualitative data. The quantitative data was collected within the framework of Energy Efficiency Index of German Industry (EEI). The qualitative data has been collected from interviews in industrial organisations and media documents as well as from professional practice.
Not only societal, work force, supply chain and investor expectations play a large role, but also many strategic considerations which have the potential to make the business more resilient and profitable. Those companies that do not move towards decarbonisation on the other hand may face a costly late mover disadvantage.
This piece uncovers subtle interconnections helping stakeholders from industry and beyond to grasp opportunities and challenges ahead. Taking account of these calls for rethinking economic viability calculations and investment decision making. Doing so may subsequently lead to on-site carbon reduction measures being prioritised to decarbonise effectively.