a legitimate approach to account for social aspects in environmental governance?

While initially hailed to be the silver bullet for tackling climate change, reducing oil dependency and providing an opportunity for rural development especially in poorer regions, severe criticism concerning the environmental and social performance of bioenergy has been raised recently. One potential solution for this problem that is increasingly discussed now is the certification of bioenergy. In the wake of this discussion, a broad range of certification initiatives emerged during the last years. However, this issue is predominantly debated in terms of the environmental implications. Accordingly, governmental approaches to this issue often neglect the need for including social aspects into sustainability principles and criteria, most prominently here the EU Renewable Energies Directive (RED). Non-state voluntary certification initiatives, by accounting for the social implications of increased bioenergy production, could therefore be seen as complementary governance instruments that are able to fill the void left by state regulations in this respect. After briefly addressing the reasons why state regulations tend to neglect social aspects concerning this matter, this paper seeks to explore whether voluntary bioenergy certification schemes could really be able to fulfill these hopes and provide the solution for the missing consideration of social criteria for sustainable bioenergy. And how could these private non-state initiatives do so in a politically and democratically legitimate way? So as to deal with these issues from a scientific perspective, a distinct analytical framework to evaluate the legitimacy of private governance is presented. Based on this framework, five voluntary bioenergy certification schemes are selected and their consideration given to its social dimension is examined. In order to address the characteristics of our conception of non-state legitimacy, the actor constellations behind these certification initiatives are analyzed with a view to determine the structural representation of social interests. Furthermore, we also give attention to the control and accountability mechanisms incorporated into the certification schemes that are supposed to safeguard the common welfare-orientation of the initiatives. The results of this analysis shed some light on the particular challenges and bottlenecks of ensuring social sustainability via non-state voluntary certification systems in the bioenergy sector. In the concluding chapter, these results are put into perspective and a more general discussion on the potential of non-state voluntary governance approaches regarding the social dimension of environmental governance are presented.early draf

Voluntary Bioenergy Certification: A Legitimate Approach to Account for Social Aspects in Environmental Governance?

Abstract While initially hailed to be the silver bullet for tackling climate change, reducing oil dependency and providing an opportunity for rural development especially in poorer regions, severe criticism concerning the environmental and social performance of bioenergy has been raised recently. One potential solution for this problem that is increasingly discussed now is the certification of bioenergy. In the wake of this discussion, a broad range of certification initiatives emerged during the last years. However, this issue is predominantly debated in terms of the environmental implications. Accordingly, governmental approaches to this issue often neglect the need for including social aspects into sustainability principles and criteria, most prominently here the EU Renewable Energies Directive (RED). Non-state voluntary certification initiatives, by accounting for the social implications of increased bioenergy production, could therefore be seen as complementary governance instruments that are able to fill the void left by state regulations in this respect. After briefly addressing the reasons why state regulations tend to neglect social aspects concerning this matter, this paper seeks to explore whether voluntary bioenergy certification schemes could really be able to fulfill these hopes and provide the solution for the missing consideration of social criteria for sustainable bioenergy. And how could these private non-state initiatives do so in a politically and democratically legitimate way? So as to deal with these issues from a scientific perspective, a distinct analytical framework to evaluate the legitimacy of private governance is presented. Based on this framework, five voluntary bioenergy certification schemes are selected and their consideration given to its social dimension is examined. In order to address the characteristics of our conception of non-state legitimacy, the actor constellations behind these certification initiatives are analyzed with a view to determine the structural representation of social interests. Furthermore, we also give attention to the control and accountability mechanisms incorporated into the certification schemes that are supposed to safeguard the common welfare-orientation of the initiatives. The results of this analysis shed some light on the particular challenges and bottlenecks of ensuring social sustainability via non-state voluntary certification systems in the bioenergy sector. In the concluding chapter, these results are put into perspective and a more general discussion on the potential of non-state voluntary governance approaches regarding the social dimension of environmental governance are presented

Estimating the Life Course Dynamics of Asset Poverty

Poverty can be conceptualized and measured in several different ways. The most common approach has been to rely on a scarcity of income as the basis for poverty. This paper analyzes poverty using a relatively new and alternative measuring stick—that of asset poverty. Using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we examine the extent to which individuals have enough assets to allow them to live for three months above the official poverty line. Households that fail to have the necessary amount of assets are considered asset poor. Three different measures of counting assets are used in this paper—net worth; financial wealth; and liquid wealth. We construct a series of life tables that allow us to examine the period, cohort, and age patterns of asset poverty from 1984 to 2004. Our results indicate that asset poverty is widespread across the life course. The vast majority of those in early adulthood will experience asset poverty in terms of their net worth, financial wealth, and liquid wealth. For those in the middle and later stages of the life course, there remains a substantial risk of encountering financial wealth and liquid wealth asset poverty. In addition, individuals who have less education, are not married, are black, and who do not own a home, are all significantly more likely to experience asset poverty. The policy implications of these findings are discussed

Homeownership Across the American Life Course: Estimating the Racial Divide

Homeownership has historically been viewed as a fundamental piece of the American Dream, with up to 70 percent of households owning their home as of 2006. Yet it has also been demonstrated that nonwhites are less likely to own a home and that the value of their homes is much less than that for whites, even when social class is taken into account. This paper explores the overall life course patterns of homeownership and the importance of racial differences in understanding those dynamics. Based upon a life table methodology, we examine the homeownership patterns for individuals between the ages of 25 to 55 using 36 waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Our findings indicate that although the vast majority of nonwhites will eventually become homeowners, there is nevertheless a significant racial divide in the patterns of homeownership. Nonwhites are less likely than whites to become homeowners, are more likely to purchase their first home at a later age, are less likely to have acquired as much equity in their home, and are less likely to own their home outright. The implications of these findings are discussed within the overall context of racial stratification in America

American Poverty as a Structural Failing: Evidence and Arguments

Empirical research on American poverty has largely focused on individual characteristicst o explain the occurrence and patternso f poverty. The argument in this article is that such an emphasis is misplaced. By focusing upon individual attributes as the cause of poverty, social scientists have largely missed the underlying dynamic of American impoverishment. Poverty researchers have in effect focused on who loses out at the economic game, rather than addressing the fact that the game produces losers in the first place. We provide three lines of evidence to suggest that U.S. poverty is ultimately the result of structural failings at the economic, political, and social levels. These include an analysis into the lack of sufficient jobs in the economy to raise families out of poverty or near poverty; a comparative examination into the high rates of U.S. poverty as a result of the ineffectiveness of the social safety net; and the systemic nature of poverty as indicated by the life course risk of impoverishment experienced by a majority of Americans. We then briefly outline a framework for reinterpreting American poverty. This perspective incorporates the prior research findings that have focused on individual characteristics as important factors in who loses out at the economic game, with the structural nature of American poverty that ensures the existence of economic losers in the first place

Soziale Kriterien in der freiwilligen Zertifizierung von Biokraftstoffen

Die heftig debattierte soziale Dimension der Biokraftstoffproduktion spielt in der Nachhaltigkeitsverordnung der Europäischen Union nur eine untergeordnete Rolle. Abhilfe könnten hier private Zertifizierungssysteme schaffen. Doch wie ist die Reichweite und Legitimität dieser freiwilligen Ansätze zu bewerten

Misserfolg statt Musterbeispiel?

Als vor fünf Jahren die Nachhaltigkeitszertifizierung für Biokraftstoffe auf EU-Ebene verabschiedet wurde, galt dies als ein wichtiger Schritt für einen nachhaltigeren Verkehrs- und Agrarsektor. Inzwischen ist die Euphorie jedoch einer Ernüchterung gewichen. Eine kritische Zwischenbilanz

Internationale Klimapolitik nach Cancún – Zwischen Euphorie und Enttäuschung

Einführung in das Schwerpunktthem

Das Dilemma der Europäischen Kommission

Verbindliche Kriterien sollen die Klimafreundlichkeit der in Europa genutzten Biokraftstoffe sicherstellen. Vermehrt wird eine Überarbeitung dieser Kriterien gefordert, insbesondere wegen der Effekte indirekter Landnutzungsänderungen. Die EU-Kommission kann diese Forderungen nicht ignorieren. Allerdings steckt sie dabei in einem Dilemma

Biokraftstoffe

Einführung in das Schwerpunktthem