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Highlights • Renewable energy technologies use non-renewable resources (rare earth elements) • Interactions among nature and society lead to an energy-mineral-society nexus. • Nexus is analysed by a social LCA scenario based on Human Development Index. Abstract Renewable energy technologies such as direct-drive wind turbines based on permanent magnets need non-renewable resources such as rare earth minerals. The analysis of this nexus requires a better understanding of the complex interactions not only between these two sectors, but also between the natural environment and human society, characterized as the energy-mineral-society nexus (EMS nexus). The EMS nexus is analysed using an extended social life cycle assessment (sLCA) model and scenario approach. For this new social LCA the Social Hotspots Database (SHDB) is used to analyse rare earth production in Australia, Malaysia (Mount Weld process), USA (Mountain Pass process II), and China (Bayan Obo process). On the basis of the Social Hotspots Database (SHDB), the sLCA model allows to determine the social footprint of the production of rare earth elements based permanent magnets for 2012. Furthermore the social LCA model approach also enables a new interpretation of the societal life cycle costing (sLCC). The social risks are monetized for the three rare earth production chains. By integrating the Human Development Index (HDI), the new approach allows a novel scenario estimation of the social footprint and the social risk intensity for the three rare earth production sites. In addition to the scientific contribution, the results provide a central input for the public discussion about corporate social compliance, according to which companies try to improve the social standards along their global value chains in line with the social accountability 8000 (SA8000) standard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Complex system innovations require the concurrent implementation of trans-sectoral co-innovations. The case of fuel cell vehicle development in Germany may serve as an expedient example for this necessity to develop multiple innovative components within largely disconnected ‘technology islands’. The diagonal cooperation among organisations from formerly non-cooperating industries (i.e. from within those technology islands) that so far have not shared a common knowledge base, however, is hindered by structural information deficits, making it difficult to identify the ‘right’ cooperation partners. Based on the requirements as identified in the case study, we therefore propose a ‘matchmaking platform’ that aims at fostering a trans-sectoral dialogue by providing systematically generated corporate capability profiles of organisations with promising cooperation potential. The matching is grounded on factors derived from resource- and market-based theory. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The current global developments have the potential to cause a 'perfect storm' at the core of the Anthropocene: the Food-Energy-Water-Nexus. To discuss the ethical consequences of these developments, i.e., insufficient access to the life sustaining nexus resources, the analysis is focused on Rawls' theory of justice and its implementation in Germany with a special focus on the FEW nexus. Rawls stresses in his theory of justice the prominent meaning of institutions for a fair society to meet societal challenges and to meet the challenge of our time: a stable and just society. Hence, the realization of his ideas in Germany is scrutinized and income tax and value added tax are interpreted in the sense of Douglas North and John Rawls as institutions and formal rules of society. This paper focuses on taxes as the most important institutional incentive to organize and structure the political, social and economic cooperation and analyses how these incentives affect selected German households (all households, singles, single man and woman, and couples) with respect to income and FEW expenditures. The relevant income and usage data sample (Einkommens- und Verbrauchsstichprobe (EVS)) for Germany is used for the analysis of the distribution of income types, FEW expenditures and the revenues of income tax and value added tax, i.e., the main instruments to manage the challenges of the FEW nexus. Therefore two distribution measures have been used: the dispersion of income, taxes and FEW expenditures and their skewness. Five household groups were selected for this analysis: All households, all single households, the single women households, the single men households, as well as the households of couples. The EVS data sample allows the analysis of consequences of the current societal conditions on the various households and thus serves to provide a deeper understanding of the differences between singles and couples but also between single women and men., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

The UN Sustainable Development Goals formulated in 2016 confirmed the sustainability concept of the Earth Summit of 1992 and supported UNEP's green economy transition concept. The transformation of the energy system (Energiewende) is the keystone of Germany's sustainability strategy and of the German green economy concept. We use ten updated energy-related indicators of the German sustainability strategy to analyse the German energy system. The development of the sustainable indicators is examined in the monitoring process by a vector analysis performed in two-dimensional Euclidean space (Euclidean plane). The aim of the novel vector analysis is to measure the current status of the Energiewende in Germany and thereby provide decision makers with information about the strains for the specific remaining pathway of the single indicators and of the total system in order to meet the sustainability targets of the Energiewende. Within this vector model, three vectors (the normative sustainable development vector, the real development vector, and the green economy vector) define the resilience space of our analysis. The resilience space encloses a number of vectors representing different pathways with different technological and socio-economic strains to achieve a sustainable development of the green economy. In this space, the decision will be made as to whether the government measures will lead to a resilient energy system or whether a readjustment of indicator targets or political measures is necessary. The vector analysis enables us to analyse both the government's ambitiousness, which is expressed in the sustainability target for the indicators at the start of the sustainability strategy representing the starting preference order of the German government (SPO) and, secondly, the current preference order of German society in order to bridge the remaining distance to reach the specific sustainability goals of the strategy summarized in the current preference order (CPO)., (Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)