Key Environmental Innovations

This paper is based on empirical research on a taxonomy of technological environmental innovations. It draws on a databank with over 500 examples of new technologies (materials, products, processes and practices) which come with benign environmental effects. The approaches applied to interpreting the datasets are innovation life cycle analysis, and product chain analysis. Main results include the following: 1. Innovations merely aimed at eco-efficienc y do in most cases not represent significant contributions to improving the properties of the industrial metabolism. This can better be achieved by technologies that fulfill the criteria of eco-consistency (metabolic consistency), also called eco-effectiveness. 2. Ecological pressure of a technology is basically determined by its conceptual make-up and design. Most promising thus are technologies in earlier rather than later stages of their life cycle (i.e. during R&D and customisation in growing numbers), because it is during the stages before reaching the inflection point and maturity in a learning curve where technological environmental innovations can best contribute to improving ecological consistency of the industrial metabolism while at the same time delivering their maximum increase in efficiency as well.3. Moreover, environmental action needs to focus on early steps in the vertical manufacturing chain rather than on those in the end. Most of the ecological pressure of a technology is no rmally not caused end-of-chain in use or consumption, but in the more basic steps of the manufacturing chain (with the exception of products the use of which consumes energy, e.g. vehicles, appliances). There are conclusions to be drawn for refocusing attention from downstream to upstream in life cycles and product chains, and for a shift of emphasis in environmental policy from regulation to innovation. Ambitious environmental standards, though, continue to be an important regulative precondition of ecologically benign technological innovation.Technological innovation, Environmental innovation, Life cycle analysis, Sustainability strategies, Environmental policy

Uncertainty relations: An operational approach to the error-disturbance tradeoff

The notions of error and disturbance appearing in quantum uncertainty relations are often quantified by the discrepancy of a physical quantity from its ideal value. However, these real and ideal values are not the outcomes of simultaneous measurements, and comparing the values of unmeasured observables is not necessarily meaningful according to quantum theory. To overcome these conceptual difficulties, we take a different approach and define error and disturbance in an operational manner. In particular, we formulate both in terms of the probability that one can successfully distinguish the actual measurement device from the relevant hypothetical ideal by any experimental test whatsoever. This definition itself does not rely on the formalism of quantum theory, avoiding many of the conceptual difficulties of usual definitions. We then derive new Heisenberg-type uncertainty relations for both joint measurability and the error-disturbance tradeoff for arbitrary observables of finite-dimensional systems, as well as for the case of position and momentum. Our relations may be directly applied in information processing settings, for example to infer that devices which can faithfully transmit information regarding one observable do not leak any information about conjugate observables to the environment. We also show that Englert's wave-particle duality relation [PRL 77, 2154 (1996)] can be viewed as an error-disturbance uncertainty relation.Comment: v3: title change, accepted in Quantum; v2: 29 pages, 7 figures; improved definition of measurement error. v1: 26.1 pages, 6 figures; supersedes arXiv:1402.671

Environmental sociology in search of profile

"Die meisten Richtungen soziologischer Theorie hätten Voraussetzungen dafür mitgebracht, als Vorreiter der sozialwissenschaftlichen Umweltforschung aufzutreten - institutionelle Soziologie, Marxismus, Frankfurter Schule, die Ansätze von Parsons und Luhmann, nicht zu vergessen die Industriesoziologie. Tatsächlich erwiesen sie sich als Nachzügler. Zu lernen ist daraus u.a., dass Ideologiekritik selbst ideologische Hürden errichten kann, und dass die Analyse von gesellschaftlichen Strukturen und Funktionen in dem Maße gegenstandslos wird, wie sie die leibhaftigen und mit Bewusstsein ausgestatteten Menschen und Bevölkerungen aus dem Blick verliert. Stattdessen sollte auf eine neue Synthese von Handlungs- und Systemtheorie hingearbeitet werden. Darüber hinaus konfrontiert die Umweltforschung die Soziologie einmal mehr mit ihrem alten Dilemma, ob sie nur eine unter etlichen sozialwissenschaftlichen Disziplinen darstellt, die speziell die divisionale Struktur der Gesellschaft untersucht (Klassen, Gruppen, Institutionen, Rollen, positionaler Status), oder ob sie ihren Anspruch aufrecht erhält, allgemeine Gesellschaftstheorie zu entwickeln. Umweltsoziologie ist ihrer Eigenart nach ein allgemeinsoziologisch zu untermauerndes interdisziplinäres Unterfangen. Sie teilt fast alle ihre Forschungsthemen mit benachbarten Disziplinen, von Forschungen zum Umweltbewusstsein und -verhalten, über Umweltdiskurse, Umweltpolitik und ihre Instrumente, bis zu Aspekten der wirtschaftlichen und technologischen Entwicklung. Zugleich bedarf die Umweltsoziologie einer festen Verankerung in ihrer Mutterdisziplin. Innerhalb derselben greift sie auf eine längere Reihe von speziellen Soziologien zurück, in die sie ihre Ergebnisse rückwirkend wieder einspeist - was sich auch als Beitrag zur allgemeinen soziologischen Theorieentwicklung erweisen dürfte." (Autorenreferat)"Most schools of sociological thought could have been pioneers of social-science environmental research – institutional sociology, Marxism, the Frankfurt school, the approaches of Parsons and Luhmann, and not forgetting industrial sociology. In fact, they were laggards. There are lessons to be learned from this, e.g. that ideological criticism can create ideological barriers itself, and that the analysis of social structures and functions is pointless to the extent to which it loses sight of bodily and mindful human actors and populations. Instead, there ought to be a new synthesis of theories of human action and social systems. Furthermore, environmental research is confronting sociology once more with its long-standing dilemma of whether to be just one out of several disciplines in social sciences specializing in the analysis of the divisional structure of society (classes, groups, institutions, roles, positional status) or whether to maintain its aspirations for providing some general social theory. Environmental sociology is an interdisciplinary undertaking by nature. It shares almost all of its research topics with neighbouring disciplines, from the study of environmental awareness and behaviour, via environmental discourse lines, policies and instruments, to aspects of the economy and technology. At the same time, environmental sociology needs to be firmly rooted in its home discipline. Within sociology, environmental research draws on a wide range of subdisciplines to which in turn it feeds back particular contributions of its own – which will eventually turn out to be contributions to sociological theory in general." (author's abstract

Towards industrial ecology: sustainable development as a concept of ecological modernization

"This paper deals with core aspects of ecological modernization, and how these have been received in the debate on sustainable development during the Rio process particularly by two social milieus, one being industry and business, the other milieu representing the red-green current of the ecology movement, which at the Rio conference in 1992 was part of the group of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The NGOs' understanding of sustainable development has been formulated by themselves as an anti-industrial and anti-modernist strategy of "sufficiency", meaning selflimitation of material needs combined with "industrial disarmament", withdrawal from free world market economy and an egalitarian distribution of the remaining scarce resources. Contrary to that, the industry’s understanding of sustainable development is the 'efficiency-revolution". Industry and business are looking for a strategy that would allow for further economic growth and ecological adaptation of industrial production at the same time. The means for achieving this goal is seen in the introduction of environmental management systems aimed at improving the environmental performance, i.e. improving the efficient use of material and energy, thus increasing resource productivity in addition to labour and capital productivity. There are good reasons for both sufficiency and efficiency. Nevertheless I will argue that both strategies do have important shortcomings, so that even if combined they will not yet represent a sustainable answer to the ecological challenge. In order to open up a truely sustainable development path an additional third kind of transformational strategy needs to be pursued. In the present name-giving context one can call it the strategy of "consistency". A term with a similar meaning in the current discussion is "industrial ecology" (Socolow et al. 1994, Ayres&Ayres 1996). Industrial ecology aims at an industrial metabolism that is consistent with nature's metabolism. The transformation of traditional industrial structures, which are environmentally often unadapted, to an ecologically modernized consistent industrial metabolism implies major or basic technological innovations, not just incremental efficiency-increasing change and minor modifications of existing product-chains.The content of this contribution can be seen as a piece of policy design. It is of conceptual nature, i.e. it is not mere theoretical analysis, nor is it a report on empirical research work. It should be stressed, however, that things discussed here were not worked out by voluntaristic "scenario-writing", but closely correspond to empirical, practical and historical knowledge." (Textauszug

Plain money: a proposal for supplying the nations with the necessary means in a modern monetary system

"The following text consists of brief introductory lectures prepared for seminars, hence its at times colloquial character. The content concerns a proposal for modifying the monetary system; a modification being a modernisation of money in line with the ongoing evolution of the monetary system which would be easy to make from a technical point of view and with considerable advantages for both private and public budgets. To begin with, a description of the proposal, called plain money, will be given. To do that, it is necessary to look into a number of issues relating to monetary and financial theory, concerning the understanding of money, the creation and circulation of money, and the role of the banks and the central bank in the two-tier banking system. In discussing these and related issues the monetary questions which the proposal can give an answer to will be explained. In the later sections the focus will be more on explaning why the proposal is useful in practice and which economic and political problems the proposal can provide a solution to." (author's abstract)Kern des vom Verfasser vorgestellten Modell des "einfachen Geldes" ist der Vorschlag, die gesamte Geldbasis - Bargeld wie Buchgeld - ausschließlich von der Zentralbank ausgeben zu lassen. Die Zentralbanken erhalten in diesem System ein allgemeines, exklusives Geldschöpfungsrecht, wohingegen den Geschäftsbanken die Möglichkeit der Geldschöpfung über Sichteinlagen genommen wird. Der Verfasser verspricht sich von einer solchen grundlegenden Reform des Geldwesens drei Vorteile: (1) Beseitigung der sich öffentlicher Kontrolle entziehenden privater Geldschöpfung, (2) Belebung der Wirtschaft, (3) finanzielle Stabilität. Der Verfasser skizziert Grundzüge der bestehenden Finanzordnung und ordnet seinen Vorschlag in die historischen Traditionen der Geldtheorie ein. Er zeigt, wie eine Reform des Geldwesens in dem vorgeschlagenen Sinne in die Praxis umgesetzt werden kann und welche wirtschafts- und sozialpolitischen Perspektiven sich damit eröffnen. (ICE

Technological environmental innovations

"This paper is based on empirical research on a taxonomy of technological environmental innovations. It draws on a databank with over 500 examples of new technologies (materials, products, processes and practices) which come with benign environmental effects. The approaches applied to interpreting the datasets are innovation life cycle analysis, and product chain analysis. Main results include the following: 1. Innovations merely aimed at eco-efficiency do in most cases not represent significant contributions to improving the properties of the industrial metabolism. This can better be achieved by technologies that fulfill the criteria of eco-consistency (metabolic consistency), also called eco-effectiveness. 2. Ecological pressure of a technology is basically determined by its conceptual make-up and design. Most promising thus are technologies in earlier rather than later stages of their life cycle (i.e. during R&D and customisation in growing numbers), because it is during the stages before reaching the inflection point and maturity in a learning curve where technological environmental innovations can best contribute to improving ecological consistency of the industrial metabolism while at the same time delivering their maximum increase in efficiency as well. 3. Moreover, environmental action needs to focus on early steps in the vertical manufacturing chain rather than on those in the end. Most of the ecological pressure of a technology is normally not caused end-of-chain in use or consumption, but in the more basic steps of the manufacturing chain (with the exception of products the use of which consumes energy, e.g. vehicles, appliances). There are conclusions to be drawn for refocusing attention from downstream to upstream in life cycles and product chains, and for a shift of emphasis in environmental policy from regulation to innovation. Ambitious environmental standards, though, continue to be an important regulative precondition of ecologically benign technological innovation." (author's abstract)Der Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit den Ausprägungen technologischer Umweltinnovationen und ihren metabolischen Vereinbarkeiten bzw. Beständigkeiten, wobei Technologie hier als die Gesamtheit des Wissens und Know-hows verstanden wird. Die Basis der Ausführungen bildet eine empirische Untersuchung der Taxonomie von technologischen Umweltinnovationen von 2001 bis 2004, die sich durch vorteilhafte Umwelteffekte auszeichnen. Sie werden einer Datenbank mit über 500 Beispielen neuer Technologien (Materialien, Produkte, Prozesse und Praktiken) entnommen. Die Studie umfasst sowohl eine Lebenszyklus- als auch eine Produktkettenanalyse. Die Auswertung der Daten führt zu folgenden Ergebnissen: (1) Innovationen mit dem Hauptziel der Öko-Effizienz repräsentieren in den meisten Fällen keine signifikanten Beiträge zur Verbesserung der Eigenschaften des industriellen Metabolismus. Dies wird besser durch Technologien erreicht, die das Kriterium der Öko-Verträglichkeit, sprich der Öko-Effektivität, erfüllen. (2) Der ökologische Druck einer Technologie ist grundlegend durch sein konzeptuelles Make-up und Design determiniert. (3) Umwelthandlungen bedürfen eines gesteigerten Fokus auf die anfänglichen Schritte in der vertikalen Herstellungskette anstatt auf jene am Ende des Ablaufs. Der umfangreichste ökologische Druck einer Technologie resultiert normalerweise nicht aus dem Ende der Kette in Form von Gebrauch und Konsum, sondern liegt vielmehr in den Basisschritten der Produktionskette. Gemäß dieser Erkenntnisse plädiert der Autor hinsichtlich der Betrachtung der Lebenszyklen und Produktketten für eine Refokussierung der Sichtweise von 'stromabwärts' zu 'stromaufwärts'. Somit gilt ein entsprechender Wandel in der Umweltpolitik von der Regulierung hin zur Innovation als wünschenswert. (ICG2

Technological Environmental Innovations (TEIs) in a chain-analytical and life-cycle-analytical perspective

"This paper is based on an empirical survey of technological environmental innovations (TEIs), i.e. new products, processes and practices that come with benign environmental effects. The survey is based on product chain analysis and innovation life cycle analysis. It turns out that most TEIs occur upstream rather than downstream, i.e. chain-upwards in the beginning rather than in the end of product chains, and in early stages of technology or product development rather than in later, more mature stages. There are conclusions to be drawn for 'upstreaming' environmental activities and for focusing environmental policy upon innovation." (author's abstract

A Historic Accomplishment: The First Blind Person to Hike the Appalachian Trail

On November 21, 1990 Bill Irwin, 50 arrived at the base of Mount Katahdin in Main’s Baxter State Park, thus completing a walk of the footpath known as the Appalachian Trail. Irwin’s goal of hiking the entire Trail began on March 8, 1990. His excursion through extensive wilderness in 14 states include 8 national forests and about 0 state parks and game lands. Unlike most through-hikers – those attempting to walk the entire 2,144 miles of the trail starting from Springer Mountain in northern Georgia to Mount Katahdin in one hiking season – Irwin’s accomplishment attracted a great deal of national attention because of his disability. Irwin, a chemist turned Christian counselor from Burlington, North Carolina, is the first blind person (light perception but lacks visual acuity) to ever complete the walking Trail