Energy efficiency rebound effect research of China’s coal industry

Hoping to support sustainability, countries have established policies to foster the bioeconomy (BE), based on the use of biomass and knowledge on biological principles. However, appropriate monitoring is still lacking. We estimate global key environmental footprints (FPs) of the German BE in a historic analysis from 2000–2015 and in projection until 2030. Overall, the agricultural biomass FP is dominated by animal-based food consumption, which is slightly decreasing. The forestry biomass FP of consumption could potentially shift from net import to total supply from domestic territory. Agricultural land use for consumption is triple that of domestic agricultural land (which covers half of Germany) and induced substantial land use change in other regions from 2000–2015. The FP of irrigation water withdrawals has decreased over 2000–2015 and might continue to decline in absolute terms by 2030, but the share of supply regions with water stress might increase. The climate FP of BE contributes 18–20% to the total climate FP of domestic consumption, while employment makes up 10% and value added only 8% of the total German economy. These findings imply that sufficient monitoring of the BE needs to consider both production and consumption perspectives, as well as global FPs of national economies. An analysis of the German bioeconomy between 2000 and 2015 finds that its environmental footprints are dominated by animal-based food consumption, and agricultural land use for consumption abroad is double the domestic one.

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Environmental and socioeconomic footprints of the German bioeconomy

Aiming at fostering the transition towards a sustainable climate-neutral economy, the German Federal Government (GFG) intends to promote the transition towards a sustainable knowledge-based bioeconomy (SKBBE). Bioeconomy policies are adjusted regularly, increasingly focusing on addressing the grand challenges of our time. To analyze whether the German bioeconomy policy, in terms of strategies and publicly funded research projects, actually fosters knowledge creation for the desired transformation, these strategies and projects have to be evaluated. Using a mixed-methods approach, this paper aims at investigating in what way German bioeconomy policy is dedicated to transformations towards sustainability and whether this reflects in the publicly funded research projects. Our study shows that the strategies as well as the publicly funded projects, still have a strong techno-economic orientation, focusing on technologies as problem-solvers, lacking, e.g., normative or transformative knowledge. What is more, the artificially generated R&D network does not show the necessary structure or involvement of stakeholders, lacking, e.g., the involvement of civil society or transdisciplinary research. We argue that future innovation policy has to foster all types of knowledge relevant for transformations towards sustainability, incorporating all stakeholders. Otherwise, the bioeconomy transition might become a purely technological endeavor unable to foster strong sustainability. 

Born to transform? German bioeconomy policy and research projects for transformations towards sustainability

The EU Commission has introduced the instrument of National Energy and Climate Plans (NECP) to better achieve energy and climate policy targets. In Germany, a comprehensive study was commissioned for this purpose. Its methods and main results are presented here. It starts with a set of energy system models that maps the necessary changes in the energy system, together with corresponding measures bottom-up. The results then enter the PANTA RHEI macroeconometric top-down model as scenario inputs to determine the socioeconomic effects. According to the bottom-up models, achieving the target of 55% GHG reduction by 2030 will not be easy. The macroeconomic effects are mostly positive. Driven by additional investment, GDP and the number of jobs will be higher than in the baseline. The construction and service sectors can benefit from energy and climate policy measures. The share of final consumer expenditures on energy in GDP declines by 2030 compared to today. However, the direction and magnitude of the effects are not undisputed in the literature. The results show that ambitious climate policies are possible in Germany, which can also improve the achievement of economic and social goals.

https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/11/6247/pdf

Socioeconomic Effects of Ambitious Climate Mitigation Policies in Germany

Currently, social, environmental, and economic risks and chances of bioeconomy are becoming increasingly a subject of applied sustainability assessments. Based on life cycle assessment (LCA) methodology, life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) aims to combine or integrate social, environmental, and economic assessments. In order to contribute to the current early stage of LCSA development, this study seeks to identify a practical framework for integrated LCSA implementation. We select possible indicators from existing suitable LCA and LCSA approaches as well as from the literature, and allocate them to a sustainability concept for holistic and integrated LCSA (HILCSA), based on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In order to conduct a practical implementation of HILCSA, we choose openLCA, because it offers the best current state and most future potential for application of LCSA. Therefore, not only the capabilities of the software and databases, but also the supported methods of life cycle impact assessments (LCIA) are evaluated regarding the requirements of the indicator set and goal and scope of future case studies. This study presents an overview of available indicators and LCIAs for bioeconomy sustainability assessments as well as their link to the SDGs. We provide a practical framework for HILCSA of regional bioeconomy, which includes an indicator set for regional (product and territorial) bioeconomy assessment, applicable with current software and databases, LCIA methods and methods of normalization, weighting, and aggregation. The implementation of HILCSA in openLCA allows an integrative LCSA by conducting all steps in a single framework with harmonized, aggregated, and coherent results. HILCSA is capable of a sustainability assessment in terms of planetary boundaries, provisioning system and societal needs, as well as communication of results to different stakeholders. Our framework is capable of compensating some deficits of S-LCA, E-LCA, and economic assessments by integration, and shows main advantages compared to additive LCSA. HILCSA is capable of addressing 15 out of 17 SDGs. It addresses open questions and significant problems of LCSAs in terms of goal and scope, LCI, LCIA, and interpretation. Furthermore, HILCSA is the first of its kind actually applicable in an existing software environment. Regional bioeconomy sustainability assessment is bridging scales of global and regional effects and can inform stakeholders comprehensively on various impacts, hotspots, trade-offs, and synergies of regional bioeconomy. However, significant research needs in LCIAs, software, and indicator development remain.

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A framework for implementing holistic and integrated life cycle sustainability assessment of regional bioeconomy

Dieser Bericht wurde erstellt vom Center for Environmental Systems Research (CESR) der 
Universitat Kassel und dem Johann Heinrich von Thunen-Institut (TI), Bundesforschungsinstitut fur Landliche Raume, Wald und Fischerei mit den Fachinstituten fur Marktanalyse (TI-MA), fur Interna-tionale Waldwirtschaft und Forstokonomie (TI-WF) und fur Seefischerei (TI-SF), zusammen mit Kooperationspartnern des SYMOBIO-Projekts. 
Gesamtkoordination: Prof. Dr. Stefan Bringezu (CESR) in Kooperation mit Prof. Dr. Martin Banse (TI)

Pilotbericht zum Monitoring der deutschen Bioökonomie

Increases in energy efficiency are reduced by the rebound effect. Efficiency gains on the micro level do not lead to proportionate reductions of energy consumption on the macro level. The German en...

Energy efficiency and rebound effects in German industry – evidence from macroeconometric modeling

Many countries have set ambiguous targets for the development of a bioeconomy that not only ensures sufficient production of high-quality foods but also contributes to decarbonization, green jobs and reducing import dependency through biofuels and advanced biomaterials. However, feeding a growing and increasingly affluent world population and providing additional biomass for a future bioeconomy all within planetary boundaries constitute an enormous challenge for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Global economic models mapping the complex network of global supply such as multiregional input–output (MRIO) or computable general equilibrium (CGE) models have been the workhorses to monitor the past as well as possible future impacts of the bioeconomy. These approaches, however, have often been criticized for their relatively low amount of detail on agriculture and energy, or for their lack of an empirical base for the specification of agents’ economic behavior. In this paper, we address these issues and present a hybrid macro-econometric model that combines a comprehensive mapping of the world economy with highly detailed submodules of agriculture and the energy sector in physical units based on FAO and IEA data. We showcase the model in a case study on the future global impacts of the EU’s bioeconomy transformation and find small positive economic impacts at the cost of a considerable increase in land use mostly outside of Europe.

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Global Land Use Impacts of Bioeconomy: An Econometric Input–Output Approach

Energy efficiency programs for industry are important to reduce energy demand and GHG emissions. Rebound effects reduce intended energy savings. Against this background, various policy measures are modeled and combined for German industry to see how they can counter rebound effects. The efficiency program itself, the reinvestment requirement and carbon prices reduce energy use in industry. Higher carbon prices or energy taxes also reduce energy consumption and emissions in other sectors that are more price sensitive. Reimbursement of carbon pricing revenues via lower electricity prices can incentivize the shift towards electricity, but also towards more energy consumption. A combined set of policy measures for German industry can reduce energy use in industry by 5.2% against a baseline in 2030. The combined policy set will further reduce CO2 emissions, having only small effects on other sustainability indicators such as GDP and employment. In the future, rebound effects need to be considered in policy design. As the combined set will clearly miss the new national emission target for 2030, additional measures are needed together with a fundamental transformation of the energy system. To reach the targets of the Paris agreement, besides energy efficiency also clean energy supply, sufficiency and behavioral change are necessary. 

Modeling rebound effects and counteracting policies for German industries

Energy efficiency policies leading to energy demand reductions are a crucial component of ambitious energy transition strategies. However, rebound effects have been suggested to reduce energy demand reductions from energy efficiency improvements. Such effects have been studied extensively in the literature, but there has been less focus on the question whether (and if so, how) policy action can deliberately counter rebound effects. Also most of the existing literature focuses on households, while rebound effects also occur within industry. In order to address this knowledge gap, we build on the growing literature on policy mixes for transitions. Using a mixed methods approach combining macroeconomic modelling with qualitative stakeholder interviews and workshops, the paper investigates for Germany whether complementing an industrial energy efficiency programme with a number of other policy instruments can counter rebound effects. It assesses the economic impacts of the proposed policy mixes as well as their political acceptability. Our analysis finds that complementing a public funding scheme for industrial energy efficiency investments with other policy instruments can counteract rebounds, but faces a number of challenges in terms of acceptability. The paper argues for a more informed and honest policy and societal debate about rebound effects in order to boost problem awareness and agenda setting and to create a positive narrative around tackling rebounds. The main contribution of the paper is to show how important it is to take political factors into account in the design of policy mixes. It also showcases a mixed methods approach combining modelling with qualitative research which we see as very promising for analysing policy mixes. 

Lara Ahmann

Papers

Pilotbericht zum Monitoring der deutschen Bioökonomie

Energy efficiency and rebound effects in German industry – evidence from macroeconometric modeling

Global Land Use Impacts of Bioeconomy: An Econometric Input–Output Approach

Modeling rebound effects and counteracting policies for German industries

Designing effective and acceptable policy mixes for energy transitions: Countering rebound effects in German industry