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Veröffentlichung Mapping the anthropogenic stock in Germany: Metabolic evidence for a circular economy(2016) Schiller, Georg; Müller, Felix; Ortlepp, RegineThe worlds industrialised nations have accumulated a wealth of assets in the form of buildings, infrastructure and other durable goods. These assets constitute a valuable reservoir of secondary raw materials. This "anthropogenic material stockŁ should be understood as a future capital stock that must be systematically managed and exploited. Yet this capital stock has hitherto been largely ignored in discussions on resource efficiency, which instead have focused on inputs of primary raw materials. This is partly due to insufficient knowledge of the size and constitution of this material stock as well as its dynamics. Therefore, a project was set up by Germanys Federal Environment Agency to provide the missing information. Project results offer a comprehensive view of material stocks, inflows and outflows connected to durable goods. Thus we note an annual per capitagrowth in Germanys anthropogenic material stock of 10 t. In the last 50 years an estimated 42 billion tons of material has been added to the anthropogenic stock. Not all of this can be classified to primary groups of goods. Around 28 million tons of material has been consumed by buildings, infrastructure, building services as well as durable consumer goods. Of this figure, over 99% can be located in the built environment. This mass is approximately 79 times larger than the material mass currently consumed every year by these sectors. Annual outflow from the stock is around 0.8%. The annual rate of growth of the observed stock of goods is 0.5%. The various figures can be further broken down according to individual groups of goods and material groups. This knowledge provides the necessary foundation for the long-term monitoring of the anthropogenic stock and, moreover, is an important step in the evidence-based development of a model to incorporate and to improve closed-loop material flows as well as to support politics of securing supply of raw materials.Quelle: http://www.sciencedirect.comVeröffentlichung Analysis and exploitation of resource efficiency potentials in industrial small and medium-sized enterprises - Experiences with the EDIT Value Tool in Central Europe(2017) Dobes, Vladimir; de Graaf, Daniel; Fresner, Johannes; Krenn, Christina; Dorer, Conrad; Grevenstette, PhilippMaterial and energy costs represent about 50% of the operating costs incurred by European small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Although the potential for resource efficiency improvements is high, the necessary awareness and human resource capacities to explore this potential are limited. Existing tools for exploration of resource efficiency improvement potentials have several shortcomings: they are either tool-driven, of a solely qualitative nature or do not address all levels of a business. Users of such tools therefore miss important improvement opportunities. In order to overcome these limitations and to systematically identify, quantify and fully explore resource efficiency improvement potentials, an international team developed and tested a new comprehensive, needs-driven and quantitative diagnosis tool named the ĺEDIT Value Tool.̷ This tool can be used to perform initial diagnoses for companies. The EDIT Value Tool was piloted in eighteen manufacturing SMEs in six Central European countries. Evaluation of the test results showed that the tool is effective in helping company personnel to identify the main weaknesses and the potentials for company improvements. The tool achieves this by evaluating a business's characteristics: its stakeholder values, the corporate strategy to implement its mission and vision, assessment of the effectivity of the company's management systems, processes and products. The benefits of using the EDIT Value Tool that were of most benefit to the companies were the proposed changes to corporate technology and management. The collection of quantitative and qualitative data helped company personnel to develop new perspectives on how to monitor and to improve resource efficiency and to increase awareness of and commitment to more sustainable manufacturing systems. Quelle: http://www.sciencedirect.com/Veröffentlichung Towards a resource efficient and greenhouse gas neutral Germany 2050(2018) Günther, Jens; Lehmann, Harry; Lorenz, Ullrich; Pfeiffer, David; Purr, Katja