Die COMPASS-Methodik: COMPAnies and sectors path to sustainability. Unternehmen und Branchen auf dem Weg zur Zukunftsfähigkeit. Zukunftsfähiges Unternehmen (5)

-- Sustainable development remains a formidable challenge for the societies of the 21st century. A number of concepts have been put forward on how to reach sustainability at a macro-economic level. These concepts are based on different points of view of economic, social and environmental systems and their behaviour, and derive their legitimacy from economic and environmental theories. An overriding priority of companies attempting to promote sustainability at enterprise and sector level is to translate these broad concepts and the indicators behind into specific concepts and measurable indicators useful in day-to-day business decisions. For companies and sectors it is important to know what kind of targets and actions they will bring on a path to sustainability. That is true for economic targets (high profit, high competitiveness, low investment payback, etc.), as for ecological (high life-cycle wide resource productivity, low toxicity, high biodiversity, low erosion, etc.) and social targets (from employee satisfaction over a low unemployment rate to overall stability in society). Therefore, COMPASS (companies' and sectors'path to sustainability) has been developed to provide decision-makers in a company or sector withsufficient information. COMPASS offers the methodological framework, the instruments and measures to operationalise the normative concept of sustainable development at micro level. The methodology aims at considering economic, ecological and social aspects throughout the whole product system in order to enable decision-makers to optimise processes, products and services towards a sustainable satisfaction of demand. It shows the sustainability performance gaps and helps to communicate possible action to reduce these gaps.COMPASS consists of five elements. Four creative and assessing elements are COMPASSprofile, COMPASSvision, COMPASSanalysis and COMPASSmanagement. The reporting element is the COM-PASSreport.Kleine und mittelständische Unternehmen,multinationale Unternehmen,Branchen,zukunftsfähige Entwicklung,Managementsysteme,MIPS,Ökoeffizienz,Ressourcenmanagement,Faktor 4/10,Humankapital,Sozialmanagement,Wettbewerbsfähigkeit,Profit,Qualifizierung,Kommunikation,dreifache Gewinnstrategie,Innovationen,Small and medium sized companies,multinationals,sustainable development,management systems,MIPS,eco-efficiency,resource management,factor 4/10,human resources,social management,competitiveness,profits,qualification,communication,triple win strategy,innovation

Towards Sustainable Production and Consumption: Preparedness for Product Service System Concept

Eco-efficiency strategies and policies, which have resulted in environmental gains that translate into increased resource efficiency and lower levels of emissions, in particular CO2 emissions along the life cycle of products and services, might be offset by rising levels of consumption on the demand side. Hence, both sides of the coin i.e. the system of production and consumption systems need to be assessed if more sustainable patterns are to be achieved. Establishing sustainable production and consumption systems can be possible via functional thinking practices. Functional thinking takes the focus from provision of resource intensive product to satisfaction of needs and wants through service systems, where material products are treated as capital assets rather than consumables. An application of functional thinking is the Product Service System (PSS) concept. Providers of PSS applications aim to generate profit not from selling as many material products as possible, but from providing a function of the product or service. Potential environmental benefits of PSS applications stemming from decreased use of virgin materials in production and lessened resource consumption at the use phase are being recognized. Applications of PSS can be seen in many sectors such as Information and Communication Technology (ICT), energy, transportation, food and in many forms such as remanufacturing, demand side management, chemical management services, car sharing schemes, functional designs, etc. However, supply and use of such applications might need considerable assessment of business practices and consumer behaviour. For business, designing and implementing PSS applications might require a new set of internal conditions such as shifting the business vision and adjusting the corporate culture to provision of functions. On the other hand, understanding of individual and social factors guiding the consumers' acceptance of PSS applications is required.This paper is an extract from a study, which is conducted with the aim of provision of a direction enhancing business ability to offer new or improved PSS applications with increased consumer acceptance and in turn enhanced resource efficiency. Applications in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector are chosen as the focus of the paper. Although it is debated that this fast developing sector can potentially contribute to dematerialisation of systems, limitations within the sector still remain unclear. Here, it is aimed to suggest an overview of the aspects for business preparedness and consumer acceptance of PSS applications providing particular functions in the ICT sector. The focus is on the company level dynamics, despite it is recognized that factors of macro level preparedness such as infrastructure availability, economic and social conditions, public support, etc. are essential to consider for system preparedness

Responsible corporate governance: An overview of trends, initiatives and state-of-the-art elements. What sort of globalisation is sustainable?

Transnational corporations' (TNCs) economic operations cover numerous countriesand can be diverted between several continents. These units have reached a level ofsignificance, having not only economic, but also social and environmental implications. This justifies that they shall be treated separately as a social phenomenon,when considering strategies for the development towards sustainability.This paper presents the concept of Responsible Corporate Governance (RCG), asa strategy to govern TNCs. RCG is suggested as a stakeholder based policyinstrument, which aims at allocating responsibilities to societal actors aiming atcorporate accountability. RCG recognises that the process of societal change isstrongly based on what can be called as bottom up-processes. Learning processestake place through the interaction of the different societal members, whicheventually leads to macro changes. Therefore, governing TNCs towards sustainability improvements is considered to be a collective process including all stakeholders. Firstly, the paper places the concept of RCG in the ongoing debateof political modernization based on the fact that society develops overtime and thepolitical system must correspondingly modernize. In this context, politicaloverload developed as a consequence of increased resource interdependencies isexplained and as a resolution, network approach is discussed. Secondly, demands on the orientation of the TNCs in terms of accountability and innovative actionare brought forward. Here, the paper also lists down corporate elements (stakeholder empowered corporate governance, management and performanceevaluation systems, transparency enhancement and accountability verification), which need to be in place to attain an accountable orientation in the society.Following, using an analytical framework, the orientation and capabilities of each societal actor (environmental non-governmental organisations, financial institutions, intergovernmental organisations) to affect improvements in the corporateresponsibility elements are investigated and recommendations for their effectiveorientation are listed. --

On non Fundamental Group Equivalent Surfaces

In this paper we present an example of two polarized K3 surfaces which are not Fundamental Group Equivalent (their fundamental groups of the complement of the branch curves are not isomorphic; denoted by FGE) but the fundamental groups of their related Galois covers are isomorphic. For each surface, we consider a generic projection to CP^2 and a degenerations of the surface into a union of planes - the "pillow" degeneration for the non-prime surface and the "magician" degeneration for the prime surface. We compute the Braid Monodromy Factorization (BMF) of the branch curve of each projected surface, using the related degenerations. By these factorizations, we compute the above fundamental groups. It is known that the two surfaces are not in the same component of the Hilbert scheme of linearly embedded K3 surfaces. Here we prove that furthermore they are not FGE equivalent, and thus they are not of the same Braid Monodromy Type (BMT) (which implies that they are not a projective deformation of each othe

Application of the MIPS method for assessing the sustainability of production-consumption systems of food

The article estimates the natural resource consumption due to nutrition from the supply and demand sides. Using the MIPS (Material Input per Service Unit) methodology, we analyzed the use of natural resources along the supply chains of three Italian foodstuffs: wheat, rice and orange-based products. These figures were then applied for evaluating the sustainability of diets in 13 European countries. The results outline which phases in food production are more natural resource demanding than others. We also observed different levels of sustainability in the European diets and the effect of different foodstuffs in the materials, water and air consumption

Resource intensity in global food chains : the hot spot analysis

Purpose - The Hot Spot Analysis developed by the Wuppertal Institute is a screening tool focussing on the demand of reliable sustainability-oriented decision-making processes in complex value chains identifying high priority areas ("hot spots") for effective measures in companies. This paper aims to focus on this tool. Design/methodology/approach - The Hot Spot Analysis is a qualitative method following a cradle-to-cradle approach. With the examples of coffee and cream cheese hot spots of sustainability indicators throughout the entire life cycle are identified and evaluated with data from literature reviews and expert consultations or stakeholder statements. This paper focuses on the indicator resource efficiency as an example of how the methodology works. Findings - The identified hot spots for coffee are the raw material procurement phase in terms of abiotic material, water and energy consumption, the production phase concerning biotic material and the energy consumption in the use phase. For cream cheese relevant hot spots appear in the raw material procurement phase in terms of biotic materials and water as well as biotic materials and energy consumption during the production phase. Research limitations/implications - Life cycle analyses connected to indicators like resource efficiency need to be applied as consequent steps of a Hot Spot Analysis if a deeper level of analysis is eventually aimed at which is more cost and time intensive in the short term. The Hot Spot Analysis can be combined with other sustainability management instruments. Practical implications - Research and management can be directed to hot spots of sustainability potential quickly which pays off in the long term. Originality/value - The paper shows that companies can address sustainability potentials relatively cost moderately

Towards a Multi-Agent Logistics and Commercial Transport Model: The Transport Service Provider's View

AbstractIt is widely recognized that micro-simulation and agent-based approaches can successfully be applied in transport policy analysis. However, logistic decisions and the complex relationships among freight actors make this a challenging task and a reason why the development of freight models is still behind the development of passenger models. In this paper, we present a multi-agent freight transport model in which logistics decisions are separated into two different roles: Transport service providers, which create transport chains, and carriers, which plan tours and schedule vehicles. Both agent types can consolidate on their respective level and realise economies of scale. The lowest tier of the model, which contains individual freight vehicles, is integrated into the MATSim traffic simulation to create an integrated model for freight and passenger traffic. Changes in passenger demand, disturbances in the traffic system or policy measures can be picked up by freight drivers and propagated upwards to influence decisions on the levels of vehicle scheduling and transport chain building. As proof of concept, we set up a scenario with a fictitious freight operator serving a set of customers. We demonstrate that freight traffic can be simulated under different traffic conditions and policy measures