A Matter of Opinion: How Ecological and Neoclassical Environmental Economists Think about Sustainability and Economics

The differing paradigms of ecological and neoclassical environmental economics have been described in various articles and books and are also embedded in different institutional settings. However, we cannot take for granted that the paradigm debates described in the literature are actually mirrored in exactly the same way in the perceptions and opinions of researchers looking at sustainability from an economic perspective. This paper presents empirical results from a German case study on how economists and others involved in economic sustainability research from different schools of thought think about the issues of sustainability and economics, how they group around these issues, how they feel about the current scientific divide, and what they expect to be future topics of sustainability research. Knowing that sustainability research is highly and still increasingly internationally intertwined, and assuming that the opinions of German economic sustainability researchers do not dramatically differ from those in other countries, we think that these results will be of interest to the international scientific community. We analyze the data using cluster analysis. Based on a literature survey, we generated forty sustainability-related statements and asked 196 economic sustainability researchers about their degree of agreement or disagreement with these statements. In evaluating our survey results, we discuss to what extent the clusters that we identified do - or do not - represent the two schools of thought of ecological and neoclassical environmental economics. We also propose some research concepts that can help to bridge the gaps amongst economic sustainability researchers as well as others more suitable for a scientific 'competition of ideas'. Key results of the study are: We identify two primary scientific clusters, one clearly confirming the existence of the ecological economics schools of thought, and the other largely capturing the neoclassical environmental view. Yet, there are some surprising exceptions: Both schools of thought share a conceptual definition of sustainability that is integrative in considering ecological, societal and economic dimensions ('three pillar concept') and is based on preserving the development potentials of society. We also find a shared critique of 'pure economic growth' strategies in our sample. These agreed opinions may provide bridging concepts between the schools of thought. Also both clusters agree with respect to a wide range of future fields of sustainability research. Yet, the research agenda of the ecological economics cluster contains a large number of additional topics, primarily related to social, distributional and evolutionary aspects of sustainable development as well as a strong microeconomic focus. Strong divides between the clusters that seem to be more suitable for a kind of scientific competition of ideas are primarily related to the question of how to achieve sustainability, including suitable environmental policy measures.

Applying and Extending the Sustainable Value Method related to Agriculture – an Overview

Sustainable Value is a method to measure the contribution of an economic entity, such as a farm or the entire agricultural sector, towards the sustainability (sustainable development) of a region, a country or on a global scale. A positive sustainable value is created once resources are used more efficiently than by a benchmark. It shows the excess return that is created or lost by the use of economic, environmental and social resources by an economic entity relative to a benchmark. The purpose of this paper is to give an overview on the characteristics and requirements of the SV and to provide information on (a) possible applications and (b) extensions of the SV method related to the agricultural sector. A particular emphasis is put on the choice of sustainability indicators (resource figures, welfare figure) to be included, the generic steps of SV calculation, the meaning of weighting and aggregation in the SV, the role of the Return-to-Cost Ratio in taking farm size into consideration, and the interpretation and communication of the results of an agriculture-related SV assessment. After sketching out possible extensions and variations of the SV method, the paper closes with a summary of those aspects to keep in mind when applying the SV to agriculture.sustainability contributions, value, measurement, Environmental Economics and Policy,

Energy saving effects and cost-benefit relations of energy-efficient refurbishment of buildings

Saving thermal energy and decarbonising heat consumption, is highly relevant for achieving Germany’s energy and climate policy goals. The reduction of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in the building sector is of great importance. Not only in new buildings, but above all in existing residential buildings, high savings are seen in the energy resources natural gas and crude oil. But what savings can be achieved with the different measures? Which investments pay off for building owners? Which political decisions can support the implementation of the necessary investments? The policy brief summarizes the results of the TAB report "Energiespareffekte und Kosten-Nutzen-Relationen im Gebäudesektor" on four pages

Energiespareffekte und Kosten-Nutzen-Relationen der energetischen Gebäudesanierung

Aus energie- und klimapolitischer Sicht kommt der Reduzierung des Energieverbrauchs und der Treibhausgasemissionen im Gebäudebereich hohe Bedeutung zu. Wirtschaftliche und wirksame Lösungen für die Wärmewende können auch maßgeblich zur Verringerung von Energieimporten beitragen. Für das Erreichen der energie- und klimapolitischen Ziele Deutschlands ist das Gelingen der Wärmewende, also Wärmeenergie einzusparen und den Wärmeverbrauch zu dekarbonisieren, hoch relevant. Nicht nur bei Neubauten, sondern vor allem im Wohngebäudebestand werden hohe Einspareffekte bei den Energierohstoffen Erdgas und Erdöl gesehen. Doch welche Einsparungen können mit den unterschiedlichen Maßnahmen erzielt werden? Welche Investitionen rechnen sich für Gebäudeeigentümer/innen? Welche Politikentscheidungen können die Umsetzung der notwendigen Investitionen unterstützen? Der TAB-Fokus fasst die Ergebnisse des TAB-Arbeitsberichts "Energiespareffekte und Kosten-Nutzen-Relationen im Gebäudesektor" auf vier Seiten zusammen

Energiespareffekte und Kosten-Nutzen-Relationen der energetischen Gebäudesanierung. Endbericht zum TA-Projekt »Energiespareffekte im Gebäudesektor«

Für das Erreichen der energie- und klimapolitischen Ziele Deutschlands kommt der Reduzierung des Energieverbrauchs und der Treibhausgasemissionen im Gebäudebereich hohe Bedeutung zu. Nicht nur bei Neubauten, sondern vor allem im Wohngebäudebestand werden hohe Einspareffekte bei den Energierohstoffen Erdgas und Erdöl gesehen. Doch welche Einsparungen können mit den unterschiedlichen Maßnahmen erzielt werden? Welche Investitionen rechnen sich für Gebäudeeigentümer/innen? Welche Politikentscheidungen können die Umsetzung der notwendigen Investitionen unterstützen? Hierzu zeigt der TAB-Bericht "Energiespareffekte im Gebäudesektor" konkret und praxisnah Grundlagen und Handlungsoptionen auf. Der TAB-Bericht richtet sich damit nicht nur an Entscheider/innen in der Politik und Wohnungsunternehmen, sondern kann auch Besitzer/innen von Mehr- und Einfamilienhäusern grundlegende Orientierung geben

The Lanczos potential for Weyl-candidate tensors exists only in four dimensions

We prove that a Lanczos potential L_abc for the Weyl candidate tensor W_abcd does not generally exist for dimensions higher than four. The technique is simply to assume the existence of such a potential in dimension n, and then check the integrability conditions for the assumed system of differential equations; if the integrability conditions yield another non-trivial differential system for L_abc and W_abcd, then this system's integrability conditions should be checked; and so on. When we find a non-trivial condition involving only W_abcd and its derivatives, then clearly Weyl candidate tensors failing to satisfy that condition cannot be written in terms of a Lanczos potential L_abc.Comment: 11 pages, LaTeX, Heavily revised April 200

Von Schadens- zu Opportunitätskosten

Der Sustainable Value zeigt, welchen Beitrag Unternehmen zur nachhaltigen Entwicklung leisten, indem sie ein Ressourcenbündel mehr oder weniger effizient nutzen als ein Referenzwert. Die Methode verbindet die Opportunitätskostenlogik mit einem breiten Ressourcenkonzept und ist mit dem Konzept der starken Nachhaltigkeit vereinbar

Old and new results for superenergy tensors from dimensionally dependent tensor identities

It is known that some results for spinors, and in particular for superenergy spinors, are much less transparent and require a lot more effort to establish, when considered from the tensor viewpoint. In this paper we demonstrate how the use of dimensionally dependent tensor identities enables us to derive a number of 4-dimensional identities by straightforward tensor methods in a signature independent manner. In particular, we consider the quadratic identity for the Bel-Robinson tensor ${\cal T}_{abcx}{\cal T}^{abcy} = \delta_x^y {\cal T}_{abcd}{\cal T}^{abcd}/4$ and also the new conservation laws for the Chevreton tensor, both of which have been obtained by spinor means; both of these results are rederived by {\it tensor} means for 4-dimensional spaces of any signature, using dimensionally dependent identities, and also we are able to conclude that there are no {\it direct} higher dimensional analogues. In addition we demonstrate a simple way to show non-existense of such identities via counter examples; in particular we show that there is no non-trivial Bel tensor analogue of this simple Bel-Robinson tensor quadratic identity. On the other hand, as a sample of the power of generalising dimensionally dependent tensor identities from four to higher dimensions, we show that the symmetry structure, trace-free and divergence-free nature of the four dimensional Bel-Robinson tensor does have an analogue for a class of tensors in higher dimensions.Comment: 18 pages; TeX fil

Linear connections with propagating spin-3 field in gravity

We show that Fronsdal's Lagrangian for a free massless spin-3 gauge field in Minkowski spacetime is contained in a general Yang--Mills-like Lagrangian of metric-affine gravity (MAG), the gauge theory of the general affine group in the presence of a metric. Due to the geometric character of MAG, this can best be seen by using Vasiliev's frame formalism for higher-spin gauge fields in which the spin-3 frame is identified with the tracefree nonmetricity one-form associated with the shear generators of GL(n,R). Furthermore, for specific gravitational gauge models in the framework of full nonlinear MAG, exact solutions are constructed, featuring propagating massless and massive spin-3 fields.Comment: References added. Minor corrections and clarifications. To be published in Phys. Rev.