WP 3: Resource Policy to Design Framework Requirements

Aims and Projected Results

Work Package 3 focuses on the structural conditions - at regional, national, European and international levels - for promoting material efficiency and the conservation of resources and supporting their integration into a multi-layered system. These conditions include environmentally intelligent regulation, lead market strategies, increase in resource efficiency, reduction of subsidies / taxes that encourage resource use, bio-mass strategy / "NaWaRo" (renewable raw materials) support programme, global resource security policy, research and innovation policy and dialogue-based contractual agreements.

The aim is to develop in-depth studies and a specially-adapted policy mix for three specific areas of application:

• Phosphorus imports,
• Information and communication technologies,
• Housing, construction and domestic living.

The starting-point for Work Package 3 is the insight that an effective and efficient strategy for conserving resources depends on contributions from many policy fields. Its planning and implementation requires a multi-layered system and the co-operation of key players in business and society.

Method

Unlike Work Package 4 (Businesses) and 12 (Consumers), Work Package 3 is primarily about the contributions of various sub-units of the state and the horizontal and vertical integration of aspects of material and resource efficiency in different policy fields. The impulses coming from economic and innovation policies, infrastructure policies, tax, trade and research policies, etc., must be considered within a comprehensive strategic approach. Work Package 3 will therefore examine which instruments and strategies are used in other policy fields to integrate environmental issues in general and issues of material efficiency strategy in particular. These are, on the one hand, overall strategies, e.g. sustainability strategies, environmental industrial policy, energy and climate protection policies and targeted material efficiency strategies. On the other hand, the project also incorporates an analysis of the mechanisms and instruments of procedural integration, e.g. the "Green Cabinet", inter-ministerial working groups, processes monitoring the effects of laws, evaluation programmes, information systems and reporting. It will also examine how a national material efficiency strategy may be harmonised with European and international political processes. The aim is to address the question whether, and how, the multi-layered political system - from regional to international levels - can be harnessed effectively.

Participators Work Package 3:

• Freie Universität Berlin
• UNEP/Wuppertal Institute Collaborating Centre on Sustainable Consumption and Production (CSCP)
• Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung (ZEW)
• Institut für Energie- und Umweltforschung Heidelberg GmbH (ifeu)
• RWTH Aachen
• Hochschule Pforzheim
• SRH Hochschule Calw
• Institut für Ökologische Wirtschaftsforschung (IÖW)
• Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN)
• Wuppertal Institut für Klima, Umwelt, Energie