Research Group 4: Profile

At the world summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, governments agreed to "encourage a shift to more sustainable patterns of production and consumption" (Agenda 21, 4.17). Ten years later, the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development noted that little had changed with regard to non-sustainable patterns of production and consumption, and that the threat to the natural basis of life continued to exist ("Implementing Agenda 21", report from January 2002).

In response, it was formally agreed in Johannesburg to accelerate the transition to sustainable manufacturing and consumption processes (Plan of Implementation, § 13) by means of ten-year plans.

Though important steps towards sustainability have been taken in the manufacturing process, in a paradoxical rebound effect the demand especially for ecologically improved products (e.g. automobiles with catalytic converters) has increased faster than emissions and waste per product could be decreased. This points to an interdependency between production and consumption which has not been taken into account sufficiently.

An Integrated Approach

At the Sustainable Production and Consumption Research Group, we have come to the conclusion that rendering markets and economies more sustainable requires optimising both production and consumption patterns. One possibility of achieving this is to initiate discourses between businesses and stakeholders, which could contribute towards integrated sustainability-oriented management of production and consumption. A second approach lies in modelling economic activity on natural processes by emitting ever-decreasing amounts of hazardous substances and reusing ever-increasing amounts of waste as raw materials. RG 4 studies the prerequisites for optimising production and consumption in four fields of research:

• Sustainability management along the entire product chain is the key to most of the problems of adaptation in the various areas of economic activity, be they formal (professional) or informal (at home, in civil society organisations). In many cases, people are unaware of the interdependencies between economic, ecological, social and cultural factors which influence sustainability along long product chains and product life cycles that frequently span several continents.
• Actors and areas of need are analysed to assess the conditions for more sustainable production and consumption. This concerns both the structures of organisation and communication in the realms of production and consumption and the relationships between these areas, namely, the material and monetary flows. In particular, this research approach illuminates the demands, the capabilities and the opportunities of the actors involved as well as institutional settings and trends in individual areas of need.
• Government and governance are instruments for multi-stakeholder structures that support the development and design of technology leapfrogging and advances in sustainability. They also prevent individual areas from staying behind. Science-based development of these instruments is becoming ever more important for the removal of barriers against progress in sustainability and for better dissemination of eco-efficient innovations.
• Sociocultural milieux decide how patterns of behaviour change when switching to sustainable manufacturing processes and products calls for modifications of consumer behaviour which also affect the underlying cultural values. Moreover, systematically rendering product chains more sustainable requires a different set of key competences as well as adapted organisational structures. That is why we also address how educational systems and curricula differ in different cultures.

The research of RG 4 is structured around two Focus Projects:

• The first focus project, "Resources and Sustainability Management", deals with the micro level, that is, the actors, processes and organisational/management structures in value chains (e.g. businesses, consumers) and with the areas of need. This includes hard material flow data referring to the product line, as well as product-service systems with a business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) focus.
• The second focus project, "Changing Patterns of Action in Production and Consumption", aims at the drivers of change at the meso level of production and consumption. Changes are promoted and anchored both by policies - e.g. resource policy for businesses, employment policy, policy for sustainable consumption and integrated production-consumption policies - and by education, communication and learning processes.