We hope you had a good start into 2012! We are pleased to be in contact with you again in order to inform you about the following RIMAS news and activities:
News from projects of the Research Institute for Managing Sustainability (RIMAS)
RESPONDER - Linking Sustainble Consumption and Growth Debates
RESPONDER is a European project funded within the 7th EU Framework Programme aiming to link research and policy making in the area of Sustainable Consumption with the debates about economic growth. During the next months a series of knowledge brokerage events are scheduled, each of them dealing with specific areas of sustainable consumption.
Sustainable Food Consumption and Growth 25-27 January 2012, Centro Cultural de Belém, Lisboa, Portugal
We will welcome several outstanding keynote speakers at this knowledge brokerage event:
Jeroen Van Laer joined the European Commission’s Directorate General for Health and Consumers (DG SANCO) in 2010 where he works in the ‘Consumer Strategy, Representation and International Relations’ unit as policy officer dealing with issues on consumer integration and sustainable consumption.
Roberta Sonnino is Senior Lecturer at the School of City and Regional Planning, Cardiff University, UK. Her research focuses on the theory and practice of sustainable development, sustainable agri-food chains, urban food planning, sustainable rural development and public procurement. Roberta is currently involved with two other EU funded projects, FOODLINKS and PUREFOOD, which deal with sustainable food production and consumption.
Arnold Tukker is programme manager for Sustainable Innovation at TNO, The Netherlands and professor of Sustainable Innovation at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. Arnold was the coordinator of the international project SCORE – Sustainable Consumption Research Exchanges. He currently manages a research program on transitions and system innovations.
In the course of this knowledge brokerage event we will apply participatory system mapping to improve the mutual understanding between different communities as e.g. researchers and policy makers, pro-growth and beyond growth, sustainable consumption and economic growth. In moderated interactive sessions we will deal explore topics like:
Which factors influence the global environmental effects of a shift to a Mediterranean diet (less meat) in Europe?
Could healthier and more sustainable diets lead to increased food waste in European households?
How does increasing consumption of regional products affect the employment in domestic agriculture?
Sustainable Consumer Electronics and Growth 15-17 February, 2012, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria
Also for this event we successfully approached several outstanding keynote speakers:
Lorenz Hilty is professor of Informatics at the University of Zurich and Head of the Informatics and Sustainability Research (ISR) Group, an interdisciplinary team which is shared between the University of Zurich and Empa, the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology. His research focus includes the assessment of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) with regards to sustainability, ICT applications in sustainability research as well as methodologies of modeling and simulation. Lorenz Hilty is also the author of many articles and monographs in his field of expertise.
Peter Johnston is currently Senior Policy Advisor in the European Policy Centre in Brussels, an active Member of the Club of Rome, and Chairman of the International Advisory Council. He chaired the European Task Force on Innovation and the transition to a Green economy, and was a member of the core group of the Club of Rome advising the GLOBE group of legislators and the G20 on an integrated approach to energy, climate, development and bio-diversity challenges. Peter Johnston has been active in linking science, business and policy development for over 35 years. He has worked with the European Commission, the British Government and the OECD in energy, environment, research and innovation policy analysis.
Inge Røpke is an ecological economist and associate professor at the Technical University of Denmark, Department of Management Engineering, Section for Innovation and Sustainability. She has published widely on technology in everyday life, ecological economics, and the relationship between consumption and the environment. Her latest research has been focused on consumption in a practice theory perspective, energy use and information technology as well as consumers’ role within the growth engine.
Vida Rozite is an analyst at the International Energy Agency. She is currently involved in a project on networked standby that deals with policies and measures needed to address the issue of increasing excess energy consumption due to network-connectivity of appliances. Vida Rozite has also worked as a consultant at UNIDO, a senior advisor at Nordic Energy Research and an active researcher at Lund University, Sweden. She has been involved in projects on green markets and cleaner technologies with a focus on innovation and energy efficiency.
In the course of this knowledge brokerage event we will apply participatory system mapping to improve the mutual understanding between different communities as e.g. researchers and policy makers, pro-growth and beyond growth, sustainable consumption and economic growth. In moderated interactive sessions we will deal explore topics like:
What does the promotion of product innovations to increase energy efficiency (e.g. through labelling) imply for energy consumption and e‐waste?
What will the diffusion of broadband imply for residential energy consumption?
Can the promotion of telework contribute to energy savings and reduce environmental pollution by minimizing travelling needs?
To avoid time conflicts with other events (such as the Rio+20 summit and the ESDN Conference) two of the upcoming RESPONDER events will be postponed:
Sustainable Household Savings and Debts (London) will take place in early May 2012 (instead of March)
The 2nd EU Dialogue in Brussels will take place early September 2012 (instead of June)
1st EU Dialogue in Berlin in retrospect – Videos of the three keynote presentations and some takes from the plenary debates are available at www.SCP-RESPONDER.eu
Monitoring Sustainable Development in Europe: EUROSTAT Monitoring Report 2011 of the EU Sustainable Development Strategy has been published
Eurostat has published its most recent edition of the EU SDS Monitoring Report, entitled “Sustainable development in the European Union – 2011 monitoring report of the EU sustainable development strategy”. The report, which Eurostat is requested to publish every two years under the EU sustainable development strategy, assesses progress towards the objectives and targets of the strategy. It draws on the EU set of sustainable development indicators maintained by Eurostat (see http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/sustainabledevelopment) using assessment techniques developed in house and with the input of the Working Group on Sustainable Development Indicators.
The data presented cover, as far as possible, the period from 1990 to 2009/2010. They therefore clearly show the impacts (both positive and negative) of the recent economic crisis on various sustainable development issues. Most striking are the reductions in energy consumption and the associated decline in emissions of greenhouse gases and other pollutants. On the other hand, many socioeconomic indicators were affected negatively, including employment, unemployment, investment, and – most notably – public debt. Other, mainly social indicators seem to be affected by the crisis in the longer term only, and so far show only slightly unfavourable signs, such as risk of poverty or exclusion, intensity of poverty, and suicides.
RIMAS has won a recent EUROSTAT call for tenders on sustainable development indicators publications
A consortium led by the Research Institute for Managing Sustainability (with partners from Germany (Ecologic Institute), Switzerland (INFRAS) and the UK (haymarket media group)), has won a recent EUROSTAT call for tenders on sustainable development indicators (SDI) publications. Over the next months, RIMAS together with its partners will prepare two SDI publications for EUROSTAT: The first will be a conceptual “Manual” describing the EU set of sustainable development indicators, which is addressed to both producers and professional users of the indicators. The second publication will be an indicator-based assessment of the progress since the so-called “earth summit” in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. This “Guide” will be dedicated to the upcoming Rio+20 conference that will take place in Rio de Janeiro in June 2012, and is targeted to the broader European public (opinion leaders, information multipliers, NGOs, etc.). The project has started in late 2011 and will be accomplished in the first half of 2012.
New project: Systemic Evaluation of "WIN - Wirtschaftsinitiative Nachhaltigkeit" (Styrian Initiative for Sustainable Business Issues)
For years most of the Austrian provinces have been implementing regional consulting programmes on corporate sustainability issues. These programmes should raise awareness, support the dissemination of new technologies and therefore lead to better environmental protection and better take-up of corporate social responsibility. One of these programmes is the Styrian Initiative for Sustainable Business Issues (WIN – Wirtschaftsinitiative Nachhaltigkeit). In order to assess its environmental and economic impacts, strengths and weaknesses we will carry out an evaluation project based on an internet database, online questionnaires and a series of interviews. We will apply systems thinking approaches and make use of cognitive mapping, system mapping and constellation work. The project starts in early 2012 will be accomplished in June 2012.
FP7-4-SD.eu - News on the monitoring of the FP7 contribution to SD
The EU Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development (FP7) is the biggest transnational research programme, with a budget of more than EUR 50 billion. Since 2007, more than 2,800 topics have been called for in the Specific Programme “Cooperation“. The team of the Research Institute for Managing Sustainability has been commissioned by DG Research and Innovation to monitor the contribution of FP7 to the EU’s environmental, economic and societal objectives. TU Delft’s Technology Dynamics and Sustainable Development team and a network of renowned European experts are supporting RIMAS in carrying out the extensive monitoring activities.
The FP7-4-SD monitoring system shows that about 70% of the research undertaken in the Specific Programme “Cooperation” contributes to the EU’s sustainable development objectives. This contribution mainly stems from research areas related to health, ICT, nanomaterials, and transport. The monitoring system, however, also shows that important sustainable development-relevant research is also undertaken in the field of “social sciencies and humanities”, an area in which the WU (and RIMAS) is conducting several projects (two of these projects – RESPONDER and CORPUS – are included in this newsletter).
The Internet-Platform FP7-4-SD.eu(“FP7 for Sustainable Development“) enables to identify the bulk of FP7-relevant topics, projects, project participants and EC budgetary contribution to sustainable development. It also offers an interactive database that allows producing customized analyses, by setting filter options according to your specific interests. With the most recent release in November 2011, the monitoring system has been updated with the screening results of the Work Programme 2012. The FP7-4-SD.eu database now contains information about 2,800 topics (from the Work Programmes 2007-2012). Additionally, the database has been supplemented with a “Guided Analysis” tool specifically designed for first-time users. This tool will guide users through the steps of the analysis options available in the FP7-4-SD.eu database, and, after asking them a maximum of five questions, will take them to one of the four “views” where they can carry out their analysis.
7th ESDN Workshop "Perspectives for European SD Policy and Governance in the context of recent EU policy strategies and Rio+20"
The 7th ESDN workshop, entitled “Perspectives for European SD Policy & Governance in the context of recent EU policy strategies and Rio+20”, took place in Berlin on 27-28 October 2011 and was hosted by the ESDN in cooperation with the German Federal Ministry for the Environment Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety. In total, 45 participants from 16 European countries attended the workshop, including ESDN members, representatives from the Secretariat-General of the European Commission, the EEAC, the UNEP Regional Office for Europe, and Eurostat as well as many experts from national ministries, academia and NGOs.
Currently, the framework for SD policy and governance in the European Union is in a state of change. On the one hand, the EU SDS of 2006 requires the European Council in 2011 to decide “when a comprehensive review of the EU SDS needs to be launched” (para 45); a decision on the review will also influence the future of the EU SDS. On the other hand, SD issues and targets are increasingly included in other important EU policy strategies, most notably in the Europe 2020 Strategy, Europe’s major policy strategy to achieve “smart, sustainable and inclusive growth”, and the Europe 2020 flagship initiative, “A resource-efficient Europe” (2011), and its Roadmap that was adopted on 20 September 2011. Additionally, the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) will focus as one of its major themes on the institutional framework for SD and issues of SD governance, including SD strategy processes at the national level.
The workshop focussed on questions such as: Which SD topics and targets are currently included in EU policy strategies and which governance mechanisms are applied? Which experiences have been made with SD policy and governance in Europe? What is the added-value and future of national SD strategies (NSDSs)? Which monitoring/evaluation mechanisms are necessary to assess the achievement of SD policy and governance? What is the future role of SD institutions and mechanisms in the SD governance process (i.e. ESDN, national SD councils, bi-annual progress reporting period, etc) in Europe in? How should SD policy and governance in Europe look like in the future?
New German Book on Corporate Social Responsibility
Andreas Schneider and René Schmidpeter published a new book on Corporate Social Responsibility. Among more than 60 top-notch authors, André Martinuzzi, head of the Research Institute for Managing Sustainability, contributed a chapter on CSR and competitiveness based on a project RIMAS carried out on behalf of DG Enterprise and Industry.
This standard work of CSR management literature sheds new light on the relationship between business and society. 67 renowned authors from almost all German-speaking regions (Germany, Austria, Switzerland and South Tyrol) cover the complete spectrum of responsible management ("Corporate Social Responsibility - CSR") in some 50 contributions. The holistic perspective on CSR adopted in the book paves the way for prospective and senior managers to both operate in a responsible way and at the same time increase the company’s value. The various contributions provide innovative approaches for how to develop a consistent CSR strategy in a company and at the same time generate competitive advantages. With its approach to understand business and society not as areas of conflict, but to see sustainable businesses as investment for the future, the book will certainly set a new standard in management literature.
Schneider / Schmidpeter: „Corporate Social Responsibility - Verantwortungsvolle Unternehmensführung in Theorie und Praxis“, Springer/Gabler, ISBN: 978-3-642-25398-0, 812 Seiten, Hard-Cover. Please click here to order the book.
The international happy projects’12 events will take place from May 10th – 12th 2012 in Vienna. This project management highlight is organized by the ROLAND GAREIS CONSULTING in cooperation with the PROJEKTMANAGEMENT GROUP, Vienna University of Business and Administration, and brings together more than 300 project managers and experts every year.
The topic of the happy projects’12 conference is PROJECTS & (re-thinking) RISKS , which provides more in-depth information about the topic PROJECTS & SUSTAINABILITY of the happy projects’10 conference. The conference will focus on risk reduction and risk management which form an important objective of sustainable development. A series of outstanding presentations and cutting-edge issues can be expected:
Roland Gareis, Roland Gareis Consulting [AT] – Projects & (re-thinking) risks
Andre Martinuzzi, WU Vienna [AT]: Systems-thinking & resilience in projects: Why sustainability is more than risk management
Jairo Cardoso De Oliveira, Siemens Ltda. [BRA] & Martina Huemann, PMG [AT]: Integration of sustainability principles into project management: A case of a wind farm project
Lynn Crawford, Bond University [AU]: Risks & sustainable development
Alan Harpham, The APM Group [UK]: The spirit of project management
Ed Hoffman, Director NASA Academy of Program/Project & Engineering Leadership [USA]: Social risk & critical impact on project performance of NASA
Herwig Kohla, OMV AG [AT]: Managing project risks in projekt-oriented organizations
Heinz Kindlhofer, Anton Paar GmbH & Stefan Fiedler, RGC [AT]: Management of Risks in M&A-Projects
Andrea Pal, Northern Capital Gateway LLC [RU]: Risk management in transforming the Saint Peterburg Airport
Presentations in German will be interpreted into English simultaneously.
Following the conference, the happy projects’12 expert seminars will take place on May 12th and deal with the following issues:
PROJEKT MANAGEMENT AUSTRIA and Project Management Institute accredit the happy projects’12 events for re-certification! For faculty members as well as students, we offer special conditions for participation. Please find more information about the program and the registration at www.happyprojects.at
CORPUS is a European project funded within the 7th EU Framework Programme aiming to develop and implement a knowledge hub in the area of Sustainable Consumption. It will stimulate community-building among the involved researchers and policy-makers to arrive at a self-sustaining process of knowledge management in sustainable consumption policies. During the next months three science meet policy workshops are scheduled:
Sustainable Housing Workshop II (policy instruments and policy assessment), Helsinki/Finland, 15-16 March 2012
Sustainable Mobility Wokshop III (scenarios, future challenges), Szentendre/Hungary, 19-20 April 2012
Sustainable Housing Workshop III (scenarios, furture challenges), Helsinki/Finland, 7-8 June 2012
Since its start in January 2010, 6 science-meets-policy workshops have been organised. The workshop series in Sustainable Food Consumption has already been completed: a full documentation of the workshop series can be found at the CORPUS website at http://www.scp-knowledge.eu. One important result of this workshop series is the Research Agenda on Sustainable Food Consumption that has been developed by policy-makers and researchers and can be downloaded here. It has been compiled by staff members of RIMAS. Moreover, a Special Issue on Sustainable Food Consumption, co-edited by a RIMAS staff member, will be published later this year in the academic journal “Sustainability: Science, Practice, and Policy”.
During the first half of 2012, the workshop series on Sustainable Mobility and Sustainable Housing will also be finished. For each of the two policy domains, a Research Agenda, commonly developed by policy-makers and researchers, will be developed. We will keep you updated on the further progress of the project.
Andre Martinuzzi awarded with the "Senator Wilfling" price for his outstanding research performance
On 19 December 2011, André Martinuzzi, director of the Research Institute for Managing Sustainability, has been awarded with the “Senator Wilhelm Wilfling Förderungspreis” for his excellent research performance. The price is awarded once a year to persons who have contributed considerably to the WU’s research profile. André Martinuzzi has received his doctor’s degree in business administration at WU Vienna, and was awarded with the venia docendi (“Habilitation”) in “environmental management and sustainable development policy” in 2006. Since the year 2000, he has successfully built up the Research Institute for Managing Sustainability at WU. Together with his interdisciplinary team, André Martinuzzi has positioned WU in international networks, and has made it to an important player when it comes to integrating sustainable development issues in economy, policy, and administration.
Ursula Kopp und Michal Sedlacko awarded by WU Vienna for coordinating the EASY-ECO project
Between 2002 and 2010, the Research Institute for Managing Sustainability has coordinated three “EASY ECO – Evaluation of Sustainability” projects, all of which were funded by the European Union’s “Marie Curie” Programme. In the course of the EASY-ECO projects, about 400 Young Researchers were trained to Sustainability Evaluators. Additionally, an e-learning platform was set up, and numerous case study trainings were held all across Europe. More than 700 researchers, clients and evaluators from all over the world have attended the seven EASY-ECO conferences. The project results have been documented in the book series “Evaluating Sustainable Development” edited by André Martinuzzi and Peter Hardi and published by Edward Elgar. Two new books are currently in preparation and will be published in the coming months.
Ursula Kopp was in charge of the EASY-ECO project from the very beginning, played an important role in the successful prolongation (two times!), and has coordinated the European-wide network of EASY-ECO partners and experts. Michal Sedlacko has elaborated the didactical concept of EASY-ECO, has set-up the EASY-ECO e-learning platform, and has overseen several groups of Young Researchers during the EASY-ECO training courses. Ursula and Michal were now awarded by WU Vienna for their excellent work.
RIMAS becomes multilingual - Booklet in spanish, turkish and chinese available
The members of the Research Institute for Managing Sustainability (RIMAS) work across Europe and beyond. RIMAS therefore covers several European languages, e.g. German, English, Spanish, French, Italian, Polish and Czech. In order to disseminate our findings among an even broader audience, we are have prepared a set of multilingual booklets with project abstracts and publication lists in the following languages:
Welcome at RIMAS: Hermine Huber, Barbara Krumay, Sabine Remmel
We are happy to welcome three new team members at the Research Institute for Managing Sustainability:
Hermine Huber studied psychology at Vienna University and graduated a master programme in Communication, PR and EU-Projectmanagement. She co-ordinated EQUAL projects in the area of Diversity Management and was Head of the Executive Support Team to the Vice Rector for Research at Danube University Krems for more than five years. Since summer 2011, she is co-ordinating the RESPONDER project at RIMAS.
Barbara Krumay studied Business Informatics at WU Vienna with a specialisation in environmental management, organisation and e-commerce. Her dissertation, entitled “The Impact of Online Customer Support on Customer Loyalty”, has been awarded with the Award of Excellence (2010) and the Stephan Koren Preis (2011). Before joining RIMAS, Barbara was working in the private sector in the areas of consulting and project management. Additionally, she was and is a lecturer at several universities and higher education colleges. Her research areas at RIMAS include Corporate Social Responsiblity and ICT.
Sabine Remmel studied Biology with a specialisation in human ecology at the University Vienna and at the Tor Vergata University in Rome. She will be working on topics related to sustainable consumption.
RESPONDER is a European project funded within the 7th EU Framework Programme aiming to link research and policy making in the area of Sustainable Consumption with the debates about economic growth. During the next months a series of knowledge brokerage events are scheduled, each of them dealing with specific areas of sustainable consumption.
Eurostat has published its most recent edition of the EU SDS Monitoring Report, entitled “Sustainable development in the European Union – 2011 monitoring report of the EU sustainable development strategy”. The report, which Eurostat is requested to publish every two years under the EU sustainable development strategy, assesses progress towards the objectives and targets of the strategy. It draws on the EU set of sustainable development indicators maintained by Eurostat (see 
For years most of the Austrian provinces have been implementing regional consulting programmes on corporate sustainability issues. These programmes should raise awareness, support the dissemination of new technologies and therefore lead to better environmental protection and better take-up of corporate social responsibility. One of these programmes is the Styrian Initiative for Sustainable Business Issues (WIN – Wirtschaftsinitiative Nachhaltigkeit). In order to assess its environmental and economic impacts, strengths and weaknesses we will carry out an evaluation project based on an internet database, online questionnaires and a series of interviews. We will apply systems thinking approaches and make use of cognitive mapping, system mapping and constellation work. The project starts in early 2012 will be accomplished in June 2012.
The EU Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development (FP7) is the biggest transnational research programme, with a budget of more than EUR 50 billion. Since 2007, more than 2,800 topics have been called for in the Specific Programme “Cooperation“. The team of the Research Institute for Managing Sustainability has been commissioned by DG Research and Innovation to monitor the contribution of FP7 to the EU’s environmental, economic and societal objectives. TU Delft’s Technology Dynamics and Sustainable Development team and a network of renowned European experts are supporting RIMAS in carrying out the extensive monitoring activities.
The 7th ESDN workshop, entitled “Perspectives for European SD Policy & Governance in the context of recent EU policy strategies and Rio+20”, took place in Berlin on 27-28 October 2011 and was hosted by the ESDN in cooperation with the German Federal Ministry for the Environment Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety. In total, 45 participants from 16 European countries attended the workshop, including ESDN members, representatives from the Secretariat-General of the European Commission, the EEAC, the UNEP Regional Office for Europe, and Eurostat as well as many experts from national ministries, academia and NGOs.
The topic of the happy projects’12 conference is PROJECTS & (re-thinking) RISKS , which provides more in-depth information about the topic PROJECTS & SUSTAINABILITY of the happy projects’10 conference. The conference will focus on risk reduction and risk management which form an important objective of sustainable development. A series of outstanding presentations and cutting-edge issues can be expected:
CORPUS is a European project funded within the 7th EU Framework Programme aiming to develop and implement a knowledge hub in the area of Sustainable Consumption. It will stimulate community-building among the involved researchers and policy-makers to arrive at a self-sustaining process of knowledge management in sustainable consumption policies. During the next months three science meet policy workshops are scheduled:
On 19 December 2011, André Martinuzzi, director of the Research Institute for Managing Sustainability, has been awarded with the “Senator Wilhelm Wilfling Förderungspreis” for his excellent research performance. The price is awarded once a year to persons who have contributed considerably to the WU’s research profile. André Martinuzzi has received his doctor’s degree in business administration at WU Vienna, and was awarded with the venia docendi (“Habilitation”) in “environmental management and sustainable development policy” in 2006. Since the year 2000, he has successfully built up the Research Institute for Managing Sustainability at WU. Together with his interdisciplinary team, André Martinuzzi has positioned WU in international networks, and has made it to an important player when it comes to integrating sustainable development issues in economy, policy, and administration.