The Schweighofer Prize rewards innovative ideas, technologies, products and services along the entire value chain with the aim of increasing the competitiveness of the European forestry and timber industry.
The Schweighofer Prize has been awarded every two years since 2003 and is endowed with a total amount of € 300,000 before taxes. The Schweighofer Prize is divided into a main prize and several innovation prizes.
All natural persons and groups of persons, irrespective of their age, level of education or employment status, who have performed a service in accordance with the tender conditions are eligible to participate. Organisations may also submit entries. However, the main focus should be on people who have already achieved great things for the European forestry and timber industry or who are currently developing innovative solutions.
Making life in the neighbourhood more ecologically, socially, economically and culturally sustainable together with the residents; that is the aim of "Real-world laboratory 131: KIT finds the city" at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). In Karlsruhe's Oststadt district, researchers in this laboratory are looking for ways to reduce CO2 emissions, conserve resources, strengthen neighbourhoods and improve the health of people in the district. The project has now been honoured twice by the German Council for Sustainable Development (RNE).
"The special thing about this project is that we work directly with the people living and working on the ground at eye level and can therefore not only incorporate specific local knowledge and think ahead. Rather, this makes it possible to take action for sustainable development," says Alexandra Quint from the project team at the Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS). Ways to make neighbourhoods more pedestrian-friendly are being researched, as are new methods for energy-efficient building refurbishment, and services for sustainable living and sustainable mobility behaviour are being developed. The researchers' work is highly interdisciplinary: "Architects, philosophers, landscape planners, cultural scientists, environmental scientists and geoecologists work together in this team," says the urban geographer.
This is not just research, but also very practical work: "For example, there is a newly developed energy concept for increasing the proportion of renewable energies in existing buildings or initiatives for slowing down our increasingly hectic everyday lives," reports Dr Oliver Parodi, Head of Reallabor 131. In the "Beds and Bees" project, citizens and scientists have jointly designed a snack bed with herbs, fruit and vegetables in public spaces and set up a hive as a home for bees. Quint explains that this not only serves to raise environmental and nutritional awareness, but above all to build community. All of this is done in co-operation with civil society groups, the city administration, associations, businesses and, above all, the local citizens who regularly take part.
A series of events also provides approaches and ideas for alternative consumer behaviour. Parodi mentions plant swaps, clothes swap parties and a regular repair café. "Reallabor 131 is designed as a platform for participation and has a strong networking character." The project's own "Future Space for Sustainability and Science", a former shop, combines the characteristics of a neighbourhood office, a science shop and a community centre and is now a popular meeting point, event and educational venue.
According to Quint, the concept is attracting worldwide interest: "The laboratory is a model, is designed to be transferable and has so far been researched by scientists from the Netherlands, Spain and Australia, with requests for cooperation coming from Mexico, Russia, Switzerland, the USA, Estonia, Portugal and Spain."
Honoured as a transformation project
The German Council for Sustainable Development (RNE), which advises the German government on sustainability issues, has now honoured the Reallabor twice: with the "Project Sustainability 2017" seal of quality and as one of four "transformation projects" nationwide. With this seal, the RNE recognises initiatives from society that make a special contribution to sustainable development in Germany and the world. Around 240 projects applied for the award. According to the jury, the transformation projects honoured have particularly great potential to make the world more sustainable. The awards were presented at the end of May at the RNE's annual conference in Berlin.
The website provides information on all the activities of the real-world laboratory: www.quartierzukunft.de
The 88th Conference of Environment Ministers has just passed a resolution in Bad Saarow on the "Promotion of Building with Wood", which was introduced by Rhineland-Palatinate. The document calls on the federal government to improve the framework conditions for timber construction. The German Timber Industry Council e. V. (DHWR) expressly welcomes this initiative.
According to the Rhineland-Palatinate Minister of the Environment, the positive climate protection properties of renewable raw materials are to be taken into account in building energy law, among other things.
This would be more than desirable, because the draft bill for the Building Energy Act (GEG) recently presented by the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB) missed the opportunity to finally take the entire life cycle of buildings into account in the amendment.
In the manufacturing, recycling and disposal process of certain building materials, a large amount of CO2 is released - often more than is consumed in the entire use. In terms of climate policy, it is therefore incomprehensible that this is neither taken into account in the draft Building Energy Act, nor in the energy balance of the building according to the Thermal Insulation Ordinance, nor in the preparation of the energy certificate.
"The Federal Government and the Länder have an equal role to play in sustainable management and the future-oriented use of resources. We see the current resolution of the Conference of Environment Ministers as an important step in the right direction - this should serve as a signpost for both the current and the future federal government."
Read more:
Press release of the Ministry of Environment, Energy, Food and Forestry of Rhineland-Palatinate (May 5, 2017)
More rail transport, reformed motor vehicle tax and less fossil heating needed
Germany can still achieve its climate targets by 2030. This is shown in a new analysis by the Federal Environment Agency (UBA). This would require, among other things, more rail transport, a reform of the motor vehicle tax and the restriction of fossil heating. In addition, all emissions would have to be priced and charged to the polluter. In the so-called Climate Protection Instruments Scenario 2030 (KIS-2030), the UBA has examined how additional emissions can be saved in the building, mobility, energy and industry sectors. "The model calculation clearly shows that we have a lot of catching up to do in some sectors," says UBA President Dirk Messner. "We now urgently need a constructive dialogue about where emissions can be reduced, otherwise we will miss the legal savings targets. We also need to talk honestly about how to cushion the financial burden on lower-income groups and distribute it more fairly. Currently, low-income households are often asked to pay disproportionately. Understandably, this does not exactly increase acceptance for more climate protection.
The German Climate Protection Act (KSG) provides for a 65 per cent reduction in climate-damaging emissions by 2030 compared to 1990. By 2040, emissions are to be reduced by 88 percent and net greenhouse gas neutrality is to be achieved in 2045. To this end, the KSG sets annual reduction targets by 2030 for the individual sectors. The latest projection report of theUBAfrom 2021 has shown that with the currently planned climate protection instruments, both the climate targets in 2030 and the annual savings targets will be missed.
UBA's cross-sectoral CIS-2030 now shows which concrete instruments the individual sectors can use to achieve their annual savings targets by 2030 after all. With price instruments, support programmes and new and stricter legal regulations, the course can be set at an early stage to achieve the legally prescribed savings.
In the transport and building sectors, for example, significantly greater efforts will be needed in the future to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years. The climate protection instruments used in the model calculation in these sectors only fulfil the minimum requirements. In the case of transport and buildings, the prescribed targets will probably not be met, even with a mix of very ambitious instruments and measures. In order to achieve the interim targets on the path to 2030, additional instruments that are effective in the short term would therefore be necessary.
At the same time, the HIS-2030 shows concrete options for action with which the sectoral climate targets can still be achieved: The measures described in theScenarioThe predominantly economic instruments modelled in the transport sector should be flanked by a comprehensive expansion of rail transport and a strengthening of the environmental network of primarily buses and trains.
The KIS-2030 is based on instruments similar to those currently under political discussion - such as mandatory municipal heating planning or the minimum efficiency standards for buildings currently under discussion at EU level. The KIS-2030 also assumes a ban on new monovalent oil (from 2023) and gas boilers (from 2025), which goes beyond the current government drafts for the Building Energy Act.
Based on the scenario, it is recommended for the industrial sector to use subsidies for CO2-and -free technologies. Support programmes should be designed in such a way that they do not lead to negative environmental effects due to incorrectly set framework conditions or incentives.
344 pages, softcover,
ISBN 978-3-96238-199-8,
22,00 € (D).
Also available as an e-book.
Cities without growth - a vision hardly imaginable so far. But climate change,
waste of resources, growing social inequalities, and many other
Future threats are fundamentally calling into question the previous panacea of growth. How do we
we live together today and tomorrow? How do we design a good life for everyone in the city?
While in individual niches these questions are already being answered to some extent, there is a lack of
still lacking comprehensive designs and transformation approaches that would fundamentally
contour a different, solidary city. The project Post-Growth City dares to make this attempt.
In this book, conceptual and pragmatic aspects from different areas of
of urban policy are brought together, pointing out and linking new paths. The contributions
discuss urban growth crises, transformative planning, and conflicts over
design power. Last but not least, the question of the role of urban utopias will be revisited.
is being put forward. This is intended to initiate a long overdue debate on how necessary
urban turnarounds can be realized through a socio-ecological reorientation on the ground.
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