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The increasing awareness of sustainability issues in industrialized countries has resulted in an unprecedented rise in the number of environmental innovations produced worldwide. However, while this is a general tendency, the amount and importance of environmental innovations is far from consistent across industrialized countries. The influence of countries' policy network styles – referring to which and how interest groups participate in making public policy choices is a dimension that has been subject to growing interest and controversy. We propose that companies from pluralistic countries will generate more environmental innovations, but the importance of environmental innovations will be higher in neo-corporatist countries. Our analysis, based on a longitudinal analysis of 84,274 environmental patents from the United States, Japan, Germany, and the UK during the period 1976–2003, indicates support for our prediction that neo-corporatist countries tend to generate more important environmental innovations than pluralistic countries. Yet, our findings do not support our hypothesis suggesting that pluralistic countries are more likely to generate a higher number of environmental innovations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green spaces provide urban residents with numerous environmental and social benefits and are regarded as a fundamental part of sustainable urban development. However, the spatial distribution of green spaces is uneven in most cities and urban regions, which has been considered as an issue of environmental injustice. We present a study in which the spatial variation of green space equity and its relationship with socioeconomic variables were analyzed across different municipalities in the region of Munich, southern Germany. The Gini coefficient was applied as an indicator of green space equity and its relationship with socioeconomic variables was explored by using a geographically weighted regression (GWR) model. Moreover, the impacts of different urban dynamic scenarios on green space equity were comparatively assessed at both the regional and sub-regional zone levels by incorporating a multiple urban dynamic scenario modeling approach. The results indicate that the relationships between green space equity and socioeconomic variables are not always consistently significant over space and the coefficients of GWR reflect great spatial heterogeneity indicating the relationships are locality-specific. At both levels, a higher housing demand scenario tends to increase the spatial inequality of green space distribution. Polycentric urban spatial structure scenarios are found less limiting than monocentric ones in terms of green space equity at the regional scale. Among different urban growth form scenarios (“sprawl”, “compact sprawl” or “compact”), “compact” growth is most favorable at both levels in terms of green space equity. However, the other two growth form scenarios perform differently in each sub-regional zone. Therefore, the physical and socioeconomic heterogeneity across space should be considered thoroughly in the process of developing policies for urban development that effectively safeguard access to sufficient green space. This implication is not only crucial for this study region but also of great significance for other urban regions which aim to achieve successful green space planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nitrogen runoff from agricultural fertilisation causes serious environmental damage to surface waters. Environmental and consumer advocates demand government intervention to mitigate these externalities. The present study examines the effects of nudge-based regulatory strategies. Using an incentivised single-player, multi-period business management game as an experimental device, we study how nudges affect compliance with the minimum-distance-to-water rule in a sample of German farmers. We investigate two different nudge treatments: a nudge with information and pictures showing environmental and health damages that are presumably caused by breaching the minimum-distance-to-water rule, and a nudge with an additional social comparison suggesting that the majority of farmers in the same region comply with the rule. Three core experimental outcomes are observed: first, nudging has a preventive effect and reduces not only the share of non-compliant participants, but also the total area that is illicitly fertilised. Second, against all expectations, the preventive effect of the nudge with an additional social comparison is not stronger than that of the nudge with information and pictures alone. Third, despite the overall positive effects of nudging, the nudge with social comparison even increased the severity of non-complying behaviour in the deviant subpopulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The high level of nitrogen emissions over the last decades and their adverse impact on the natural environment and human health are a pressing environmental issue. A nitrogen tax can be a cost-efficient and effective policy instrument to reduce nitrogen emissions. However, adverse effects on low- and middle-income households might lead to societal and political frictions that could end up in resistance. In this paper we investigate how a hypothetical nitrogen tax covering the specific external costs of nitrogen could be implemented and estimate its short-term distributional effects on household income groups in Germany. The findings show that the proposed tax would be regressive. However, if the tax rate is set equal to the true cost of nitrogen, the monetary impacts would overall be small, ranging from 1.15% of income for the first income quintile to 0.66% for the fifth. Complementary policy measures to lower the burden on low-income households, farmers and the energy sector could preempt social resistance against the tax. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tackling fuel poverty has become an increasingly important issue on many European countries’ political agendas. Consequently, national governments, local authorities and NGOs have established policies and programmes to reduce the fuel poverty vulnerability of households. However, evaluations of such policies and programmes show that they barely reach those who are most in need. The reasons for this failure are diverse and include fuel poverty measurement metrics, local scale data availability and policy design. This raises the question of how fuel poor homes can be more effectively identified and targeted to ensure that limited local and national budgets are used to benefit those who most need help. Area-based approaches, which pinpoint spatial units highly affected by fuel poverty due to their specific characteristics, offer an opportunity for creating more tailored policies and programmes. In this study, the author developed a GIS-MCDA (Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis), using an AHP (Analytical Hierarchy Process) and applied the approach to the German city of Oberhausen. The overall issue of fuel poverty was broken down into three vulnerability dimensions (heating burden, socio-economic and building vulnerability), the relative importance of fuel poverty criteria and the dimensions were evaluated by experts, and an overall Fuel Poverty Index was created to assess the relative fuel poverty vulnerability of 168 urban neighbourhoods. The analysis offers insights into the spatial pattern of fuel poverty within a city and thus provides an opportunity to channel efforts towards households in those neighbourhoods most in need. It also demonstrates that a trade-off between ecological and social targets should be considered in the development of future policies for tackling fuel poverty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The perception of risks associated with climate change appears to be a key factor for the support of climate policy measures. Using a generalized ordered logit approach and drawing on a unique data set originating from two surveys conducted in 2012 and 2014, each among more than 6000 German households, we analyze the determinants of individual risk perception associated with three kinds of natural hazards: heat waves, storms, and floods. Our focus is on the role of objective risk measures and experience with these natural hazards, whose frequency is likely to be affected by climate change. In line with the received literature, the results suggest that personal experience with adverse events and personal damage therefrom are strong drivers of individual risk perception. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Netherlands and Denmark are the two biggest pig meat exporters in Europe, both with a strong focus on the German market. The structure of pig farms is very different: an average Danish pig farm has 3500 pigs, 170 ha of agricultural land on which a major part of the feed cereals are grown, whereas a typical Dutch pig farm has 2500 pigs with only 10 ha. As a consequence, Dutch pig farmers have to purchase all feedstuff and need to dispose nearly all the manure off-farm. A literature based study revealed that the main factors for the contrasting development were a stronger competition for land, resulting in higher land prices, and stimulation of intensive animal husbandry in the Netherlands, while in Demark environmental policies more strongly coupled manure production to land area. As a result the Dutch pig farmers have focused on intensification of livestock production on small holdings using external sources of feed supply, and Danish farmers on efficient production of feed cereals on large holdings. Due to a gradual lowering of manure and fertiliser application standards, Dutch farmers increasingly have to process manure and export manure, further increasing the total costs of pig production. Manure disposal costs per kg of slaughter weight in 2011 were on average 3.5 times higher in the Netherlands than in Denmark. Manure is exported mainly to Germany and France, which also supply the feed cereals. Therefore manure export contributes to closure of nutrient cycles. Danish pig farmers are less sensitive to nutrient policies and feed prices than those in the Netherlands, but the high debt rate makes the sector vulnerable to low pig prices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Target 2, Action 5 of the EU Biodiversity Strategy requests member states “to map and assess ecosystems and their services” (Mapping and Assessment of Ecosystems and their Services – MAES initiative). The objective of this paper is to present and discuss the preliminary outcomes of the approach taken to define indicators for implementing MAES in Germany. The paper introduces the requirements for using indicators from a perspective of nature conservation policy, in particular the need to discern the demand and supply of ecosystem services, including their potentials, actual and future use, as well as the natural contributions and human inputs to the generation of ecosystem services. An adapted, differentiated, ecosystem services terminology is presented and a first set of indicators is introduced and explained. The paper closes with an estimate of potential benefits of information produced by implementation of a national MAES for various fields of policy (e.g. local and regional landscape planning) and proposes some recommendations for further research and practical exploration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Renewable energy is a cornerstone of German climate change policies. Germany has adopted particularly ambitious renewable energy targets, and is now implementing an Energiewende – a transition to a nuclear-free and low-carbon energy system. The transition could be eased through European cooperation. This article investigates the economic, political, environmental and technological factors that act as drivers and barriers to renewable energy cooperation between Germany and Norway. The article finds that German actors see Norwegian electricity as a means for enhancing the stability of their electricity system as Germany shifts to a greater reliance on renewables. In Norway the picture is more mixed. Norwegian state-owned electricity producers and grid operators are interested in cooperation largely out of profit motives, but expect Germany to create a favorable environment for investors. Energy-intensive industries and consumers on the other hand, are afraid that more electricity cooperation with Germany will raise electricity prices. The Norwegian environmental movement is split on the issue. Parts of the movement see renewable energy cooperation as an important step towards a European low-carbon energy future. Nature and outdoor organizations, however, argue that new renewable energy infrastructure, including pumped-storage hydropower, will result in major environmental impacts. If cooperation is to be achieved, these economic and environmental concerns will have to be taken seriously. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Based on data of more than 3700 citizens in Germany, this paper empirically examines the relevance of several groups of explanatory factors for electricity consumption. Besides controlling for individual housing and dwelling characteristics as well as socio-demographics, we analyze the effect of environmentally-related values and norms. Since behavioral economics reveals the importance of economic preferences for many individual activities, we additionally consider time and risk preferences, altruism, trust, and reciprocity in our econometric analysis. With respect to the latter factors, only patience has a significantly negative effect on electricity consumption. Instead, our estimation results suggest a high relevance of several individual housing and dwelling characteristics and socio-demographics. The most interesting result is probably that neither environmentally-related values such as ecological policy identification and environmental awareness nor environmentally-related personal and social norms have a significant effect. In contrast to the USA and to the demand for green electricity in Germany, these estimation results suggest that citizens with strong environmentally-related values and norms in Germany do not consider low electricity consumption as an important direction for environmental and climate protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The increased use of renewable energy is the declared objective of the European and German climate policies. According to the German government, renewable energies will contribute to 35 percent of electricity production by 2020. In a bid to meet these ambitious targets, the Germany government implemented the EEG 2000. This policy guaranteed a fixed tariff for 20 years to all renewable energy plant operators providing electricity to grid. Following this policy implementation, significant market growth could be verified for nearly all renewable energy sectors. Approximately 20 percent of Germany's electricity today is met be renewables. In order to ensure an efficient growth and encourage technology providers to optimize and develop new innovative technologies a constant market monitoring and periodic amendments to the feed-in tariffs are required. In order to monitor the impact of the EEG and the development of the solid biofuels within the German energy supply system a comprehensive database with about 10 000 datasets has been accumulated over the last decade. This inventory database with various types of information is continuously updated, integrated and validated for data quality. It has emerged that this represents now the most complete and relevant database in Germany. Through the analysis of this database it can be shown, that the enactment of the EEG in 2000 has resulted in a tenfold increase in the number, as well as in the installed capacity of biomass CHP plants. These biomass CHP plants now contribute approximately 9 percent of the total electricity generated from renewable energy sources. The database analysis has also identified that there is a correlation between technology options, stakeholders and biomass sources, as these have changed in line with the changes in framework conditions over the last three EEG periods. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Here, we discuss the scientific rationale behind the identification and selection of marine protected areas (MPAs) for birds in the German Exclusive Economic Zones of the North Sea and the Baltic Sea, based on the European Union (EU) Birds Directive. Seabird distributions were determined using internationally standardised transect counts from ships and aircraft. Their distributions were analysed using geostatistical interpolation methods to derive concentration areas for each species. Two Special Protection Areas (SPAs) were proposed based on the distributions of all species. These were subsequently evaluated by the relevant nature conservation authorities and finally designated by the Federal Environmental Ministry. Long-term data on seabird abundance and distribution collected during and after the SPA designation process revealed the same major concentration areas as in the preceding years, indicating that the overall observed patterns were stable and reproducible, despite small-scale spatial and inter-annual variations. The designation concepts provided by the EU Birds Directive thus appear to be suitable for the appropriate designation of MPAs for birds in offshore waters. However, adequate management tools for European offshore MPAs for birds, e.g. the regulation of fisheries and shipping, still remain to be developed and implemented. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Residential buildings strongly contribute to global CO2 emissions due to the high energy demand for electricity and heating, particularly in industrialised countries. Within the EU, decentralised heat generation is of particular relevance for future climate policy, as its emissions are not covered by the EU ETS. We conducted a choice experiment concerning energy retrofits for existing houses in Germany. In the experiment, the approximately 400 sampled house owners could either choose a modern heating system or an improved thermal insulation for their home. We used standard and mixed logit specifications to analyse the choice data. We found environmental benefits to have a significant impact on choices of heating systems. However, they played no role in terms of insulation choices. Based on the estimated mixed logit model, we further obtained willingness-to-pay (WTP) measures for CO2 savings. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In cities there is a variety of economic and spatial forces that may influence to what extent a travel-related CO2 emission pricing can be an effective instrument to contribute to the achievement of CO2 reduction goals. Therefore, we examine the effectiveness and impact of CO2 emission charges using a spatial general equilibrium model of an urban economy, calibrated according to an average German city. Our analyses suggest that the imposition of a Pigouvian type CO2 emission charge on urban passenger travel may be able to reduce emissions by about 1%–11%, depending on the estimated social damage cost of carbon dioxide. Such a policy increases urban welfare mainly on account of a reduction of congestion costs. However, pricing congestion directly not only provides higher urban welfare but also higher emission reductions. Pricing congestion and CO2 emissions simultaneously allows to achieve a wide range of emission reduction goals. If, however, the reduction goal is very ambitious the emission charge must be raised to higher levels. Then, distortions in the urban markets and in spatial travel decisions lower labor supply and thus urban production, income of city residents, federal tax revenue, income of landowners outside the city, all together implying losses in welfare. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Road transportation is a strongly growing source of CO2, and use of biofuels represents one option to reduce end-of-pipe emissions of the existing car fleet. In this contribution, the implementation of the EU Biofuels Directive (2003/30/EC) and related voluntary measures at the local level are examined in Germany, UK, Italy and Finland and the cities of Berlin, London, Milan and Helsinki. Even though they are not directly involved in the implementation of the biofuel directive, all four cities studied have played an important role in emissions reduction by voluntarily participating in research and demonstration projects and by using biofuels in their own fleet. An analysis of the numerous causes and driving forces leading to different local level measures is provided. The environmental sensitivity, usually examined at national level, and the national level implementation of the EU Biofuels Directive (2003/30/EC) were not directly correlated with the city-level activities Instead, support from local businesses and acquisition of EU funds were considered to be valid explanatory factors for the city-level activities. In addition, through horizontal networking cities are starting to exchange know-how gained in their projects, contributing in this way to the accumulation of experience for future policies and technologies. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper examines the impact of environmental innovations on company competitiveness of both the environment industry and related sectors in the region of Munich. The focus is on the drivers of these innovations and their respective effects on innovating companies. Not only innovations in the area of end-of-pipe technologies, but also the development of integrated products and production methods are examined. In a regional case study approach, a sample of 14 manufacturing and service companies in Munich (Southern Germany) was interviewed. Essentially, environmental innovation is driven by a mixture of factors internal and external to the firm: not only regulatory pressure, but also cost pressure, competitive advantages, technological lead and customer pressure are important drivers. Regulatory pushed innovations contribute to the competitive performance of sample companies in a similar way as environmental innovations which are carried out voluntarily. That would yield proof for the so-called Porter hypothesis which assumes that environmental legislation stimulates innovation and leads to “win–win” opportunities where simultaneously pollution is reduced and productivity increased. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Based on empirical evidence, the paper discusses the impact of a consulting and information program for the improvement of material productivity with regard to economic and environmental targets for Germany. The instrument used in the analysis is the integrated economic-environmental model PANTA RHEI, which is parameterized econometrically. The paper presents the model and shows in a baseline forecast that without policy changes, sustainability will be violated in both the economic and the environmental dimensions. This applies to the latter particularly with regard to land use and material consumption. The alternative simulation that introduces a consulting and information program for the improvement of material productivity yields a win–win result: growth rates of GDP and employment are rising, the public debt is reduced, and material consumption is much lower than in the baseline and remains at the actual level, which means that a decoupling of growth and material consumption is possible. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Naturally, before funding an environmental program on a large scale, decision makers would like to know whether or not a program will be successful in terms of, first, ecological efficacy and, second, economic efficiency. With particular focus on methodological issues regarding the evaluation of environmental programs, this paper provides an introductory and didactic survey of experimental and observational approaches to the evaluation of the ecological efficacy, as suggested by modern evaluation research. While the evaluation of environmental programs on the basis of these approaches is standard in the US, this course outlined by other applied fields, such as labor and health economics, is obviously rather unusual in Germany and other EU countries. We would like to emphasize that, whenever possible, one should consider conducting an experimental study: In an ideal experiment with a randomized assignment into treatment and control groups, the simple difference in mean outcomes across both groups would yield an unbiased estimate of the true program effect. When controlled experiments are not a viable option, observational approaches might succeed. In any case, environmental regulators and utilities have to work more closely together with researchers already at the stage of designing the interventions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Environmental policy requires increasing monitoring and reporting and Europe''s GMES initiative offers good prospects in this regard. With this in mind, the potential to use remote sensing data for tasks mandatory for the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, and its assigned agencies was analysed. The general potential of satellite data applications was studied for a total of 13 departmental issues, concentrating on nine specific remote sensing products and services important to the agencies, with the emphasis on the monitoring of land cover and land use. Product costs were estimated for an efficiency analysis and an independent product appraisal was performed by thematic experts. The evaluation showed most products to be of paramount importance for mandatory tasks in the fields of environmental observation and the Federal Environmental Specimen Bank; soil protection; water management (implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive); and air pollution control (impacts on sensitive ecosystems). Concluding recommendations discuss the harmonisation, implementation and shared funding of a stock of satellite data for federal and state agencies, the German position on further implementation of GMES, and the continuity of data provision to be secured by operational satellite missions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This article reports on the plan of the German government to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases by 40 percent below the level of emissions of 1990. The government will initiate the plan if the European Union reduces the emissions by 30 percent at the same time. The government will support comprehensive climatic protection concepts and accompanying advice. According to the Guideline on the Support of Retrofitting of Commercial Refrigerating Plants, the investigation of the energetic state of a plant, measures to retrofit the plant and measures to use the exhaust heat will be supported.

This section presents updates on the safety and environmental legislation in Great Britain and Germany. In Great Britain, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is reaching out to all kinds of industries in the North East that use chemicals to advise them about new regulations for managing them. the HSE has also warned companies to protect employees from flammable cleaning liquids. In Germany, the law on the Design of Electrically Operated Products Considering Environmental Requiremens implements the European Guideline into German legislation.