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The Black Forest offers renewable energy as a specific tourist destination in the form of bioenergy villages (BEV). Particularly expert tourists tend to visit them. The results of two quantitative surveys on the supply and demand side show that there is, up to now, an untapped potential among experienceoriented
tourists for this type of niche tourism.
Research Report
(2024)
Digitization and sustainability are the two big topics of our current time. As the usage of digital products like IoT devices continues to grow, it affects the energy consumption caused by the Internet. At the same time, more and more companies feel the need to become carbon neutral and sustainable. Determining the environmental impact of an IoT device is challenging, as the production of the hardware components should be considered and the electricity consumption of the Internet since this is the primary communication medium of an IoT device. Estimating the electricity consumption of the Internet itself is a complex task. We performed a life cycle assessment (LCA) to determine the environmental impact of an intelligent smoke detector sold in Germany, taking its whole life-cycle from cradle-to-grave into account. We applied the impact assessment method ReCiPe 2016 Midpoint and compared its results with ILCD 2011 Midpoint+ to check the robustness of our results. The LCA results showed that electricity consumption during the use phase is the main contributor to environmental impacts. The mining of coal causes this contribution, which is a part of the German electricity mix. Consequently, the smoke detector mainly contributes to the impact categories of freshwater and marine ecotoxicity, but only marginally to global warming.
In the last decade, both sustainability (Green &
Blue Economies) and business models for sustainability
(BMfS) have increased in importance. Social life cycle
sustainability assessment has not fully achieved goal,
mainly because sustainability‐oriented business is very
complex and dynamic. System Dynamics (SD) is a powerful
methodology and computer simulation modeling technique
for framing, understanding and discussing complex issues
and problems. This paper responds to the urgent need for
a new business model by presenting a concept for dynamic
business modeling for sustainability using system dynamics.
The paper illustrates the key operating principles through
an application from the smartphone industry with help
from STELLA® software for simulation. Simulations
suggest that dynamic business modeling for sustainability
may contribute to sustainable business model research and
practice by introducing a systemic design tool that frames
environmental, social, and economic drivers of value
generation into a dynamic business model causal feedback
structure, therefore overcoming shortcomings of current
business models when applied to complex systems.
In the last decade, both sustainability and business models for sustainability have increased in importance. Sustainability issues have become the focus of discussion. These issues are interlinked and often negatively impact each other. They are complex and include socio-ecological dilemmas, exist in almost every aspect of our society (economic, environmental, social), and are hard to formulate. They may have multiple, incompatible solutions, competing objectives, and open timeframes. Previous research has not developed satisfactory ways to comprehend and solve problems of this nature. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) the widely used method to assess sustainable development has reached its limitation to achieve sustainable social goals. System Dynamics (SD) is a valuable methodology that enhances understanding of the structure and internal dynamic behaviours of large, complex, and dynamic systems, leading to improved decision-making. It offers a philosophy and set of tools for modelling, analysing, and simulating dynamic systems. This research applied system dynamics methods in conjunction with simulation software to assess the potential impact of a solution on environmental, social, and economic aspects of a complex system, aims to gain insights into the system's behaviour and identify the potential consequences of interventions or policy changes across multiple dimensions. This paper responds to the urgent need for a new business model by presenting a concept for an adapted dynamic business modelling for sustainability (aDBMfS) using system dynamics. Case studies in the smartphone industry are applied.
It is widely recognized that sustainability is a new challenge for many manufacturing companies. In this paper, we tackle this issue by presenting an approach that deals with material and substance compliance within Product Lifecycle Management in a complex value chain. Our analysis explains why, how and when sustainable manufacturing arises, and it identifies, quantifies and evaluates the environmental impact of a new product. We propose (I) a Life Cycle Assessment tool (LCA) and (II) a model to validate this approach and evaluate the risk of noncompliance in supply chain. Our LCA approach provides comprehensive information on environmental impacts of a product.
Product and materials cycles are parallel and intersecting, making it challenging to integrate Material Selection Process across Product Lifecycle Management, Integration of LCA with PLM. We provide only a foundation. Further research in systems engineering is necessary. LCA is sensitive to data quality. Outsourcing production and having problems in supplier cooperation can result in material mismatch (such as property, composition mismatching) in the production process due to that may cause misleading of LCA results.
This paper also describes research challenges using riskbased due diligence.
Urban car-free mobility
(2021)
Across the globe, urban areas experience the phenomena of rising road-congestion, air pollution and car accidents. These are just a few popular quantified effects that arise due to rapid, uncoordinated urbanization on a car-centric city layout. There is an urgent need to consider new concepts of urban mobility development to combat these negative effects. Car-free mobility is one notion adopted in diverse formats by numerous cities to create a more inclusive, just, healthy and sustainable urban life. The focus of this thesis is to ex- amine whether a car-free mobility concept is applicable to the Maun Science Park, Bot- swana. Therefore, the idea of car-free mobility, its positive aspects as well as its con- straints, are described first. This illustrates the complexity of urban transport planning as it is intertwined with urban land-use, political vision and people’s perceptions and behav- iors. Secondly, examples and strategies on how to change existing structures are pre- sented. Following this, the smart developments in the field of sustainable urban mobility are considered to provide an insight into their assets and drawbacks. Then the local mo- bility conditions are examined before the car-free concept is exemplarily applied to the Maun Science Park via scenario construction. These scenarios give a first vision of how a car-free concept can be applied to the MSP and additionally provide a starting point for future strategic planning as well as inspiration for other cities to follow along.
SDG Voyager - A practical guide to align business excellence with Sustainable Development Goals
(2018)
By now, an inflationary high number of international publications on the topic “Agenda 2030” exist. But unanswered to this day seems to be the question of how the CSR-management of a company can make a concrete contribution to the SDGs. Instead of unilaterally demanding the reporting of companies’ sustainability activities, the SDG Voyager starts earlier in the process with the intention of encouraging companies of all sizes to become familiar with the fields of action for corporate responsibility and to attend to these issues without feeling overwhelmed. Many companies will find that they are already making a big contribution to sustainable development in a number of fields. In other areas, however, there will still be an urgent need for action. The SDG Voyager aims to acquaint companies with these topics and support them to fulfill their responsibilities towards their stakeholders and society.
This paper presents the current state of development and selected technological challenges in the application of ecologically and economically sustainable nets for aquaculture based on ongoing development projects. These aim at the development of a new material system of high-strength stainless steel wires as net material with environmentally compatible antifouling properties for nearshore and offshore aquacultures. Current plastic netting materials will be replaced with high-strength stainless steel to provide a more environmentally friendly system that can withstand more severe mechanical stresses (waves, storms, tides and predators). A new antifouling strategy is expected to solve current challenges, such as ecological damage (e.g., due to pollution from copper-containing antifouling substances or microplastics), high maintenance costs (e.g., cleaning and repairs), and shorter service life. Approaches for the next development steps are presented based on previous experience as well as calculation models based on this experience.