Author: moritzbuehner

3 Alternative Ideas for Waste Management in Developing Countries

Unlike the global north, most developing countries have difficulties affording sophisticated...

26 Life-Cycle-Based Business Strategies that Matter

We’ve all heard of the sharing economy. We’re all aware of the need for double decoupling. We all...

Beyond Heavy Oil – 8 Future-Proof Cargo Vessel Technologies

Think global, buy local? The idea of limiting one’s personal consumption to national, regional or...

Chance or Catastrophe? Towards a Constructive Media Coverage of Climate Change

Instead of using the opportunity to promote a low-carbon society, media reports of global warming...

Making an LCA in 1 Hour – How to Get Going with Umberto

SimaPro and GaBi are the most commonly used software tools to conduct a professional life cycle...

The Cow, Black Sheep of Our Climate

Right after driving, flying, heating, and cooling, consuming meat and dairy products weighs the...

Sustainability Triangle? One Pillar Missing!

There is a significant growing concern in several arenas that the three-pillar model of...

Efficiency 2.0 – How to Reveal Hidden Savings Potential with Integrated Energy Management

Adjust all the details, but don’t forget the big picture. That’s the best conclusion you can draw...

From Data to Knowledge: The Power of Elegant Sankey Diagrams

Industry defines the structure of our economy, of our work environment, of our personal mobility,...

Top-Notch Sustainability Practitioner Gathering: Umberto User Workshop in Essen, Sept 11/12, 2013

When the only way to implement a satisfactory future in human development is holistic thinking...

Turning World War II History into a Renewable Present – 3 Striking Sustainable Adaptations from IBA Hamburg

Hamburg, Germany’s second-largest city, saw more than half its building stock destroyed during...

Long-Distance, Low-Impact? Inside Cargo Ship Travelling

As I sail through the English Channel and complete my last miles around the world on a reefer...

First LCA on 3D Printer Sustainability: Green Manufacturing Revolution or Overrated Gadget?

Rapid prototyping, also called 3D printing, is the name of a much praised technological innovation...

How to Get Maximum Greenhouse Gas Reductions in Emerging Economies, Part II: India, Mexico, South Africa, South Korea

Last week, I critically reviewed the term emerging economy and concluded that, given the lack of an...

How to Get Maximum Greenhouse Gas Reductions in Emerging Economies, Part I: Brazil and China

Over the course of the last two decades, most people have realized that in a rapidly changing...

5 Steps towards Maximum Resource Efficiency Part 2: Material Flow Modeling, MFCA and LCA Made Easy

Last week, I introduced you to the first three steps small and medium-sized companies need to take...

5 Steps towards Maximum Resource Efficiency: Material Flow Modeling Made Easy

When calculating and reducing business-related environmental effects, two different approaches are...

A Truly Green Building Sector? Sustainable Housing Challenges in Northern Europe

Throughout its lifespan, a building affects the environment in a multitude of ways. How our house...

5 Clear-Cut Economic Benefits of Sustainability Reporting

Business is not responsible for society. Business is society. Entrepreneur, manager, employee,...

How to Recycle Phosphorus, the Most Least-Known Scarce Resource

Picking up on “sustainable agriculture”, most people think of free range chicken. They imagine...

ISO 14051-Based Material Flow Cost Accounting in a Nutshell

The ISO 14000 series has proved to be handy for quite a while now. Companies and public...

Who’s Happier – The Proactive Lohas or the Spontaneous Hedonist?

The perception that pro-environmental behaviour has negative effects on well-being has made it...

The Truth About the Dragon: China’s Future is Inevitably Green

What if every person in India drove a car? What if all Chinese were to live in their own 3-bedroom...

Discovering All Environmental Effects: How Life Cycle Assessment with LCA Software Works

Environmental effects are extremely complex, that’s why they’re impossible to measure, so let’s not...

Cutting GHG Emissions of Industrial Parks by 35% through Corporate Collaboration

Buy local, drive less, switch to renewable energy – these are just a few of the omnipresent...

How to Invent the Right Institution to Cut Resource Conflicts

Can you resist the impetus coming from a 234 page report that has the promising title “Resource...

From Green to Blue to Gray to Black: The Chromatics of Water Footprints

Because water is the most vital element for life, many contemporary intellectuals expect it to be...

Kyoto’s CO2-Baseline Wrong by 7% – But Today’s GHG Inventories Aren’t All That Bad

Regardless of how China is perceived in the west, in the medium term, the world’s most ambitious...

When Oil Majors Embrace Material Flow Analysis, New Hope for a Sustainable 21st Century Arises

There are manifold approaches to close the apparent gap between a shrinking resource base on the...

337 Opinions on the Most Resource-Efficient Policy Instruments to Embed Ecodesign

Quite a few of the European Commission’s 23,000 civil servants devote themselves to the...

How Sustainable are Europe’s 5 Million E-Cars in 2020? New LCA Guidelines Help the Assessing

67 Quick-Payoff Measures to Reduce Urban Carbon Emissions

Transforming the energy supply from fossil to renewable sources is a goal that makes sense, but...

100% Renewables? How Germany’s Energy Transition Is Taking Shape

What happens when an entire country decides to phase out nuclear and fossil energy? When this...

Holistic Sustainability Measurement: The Composite 3-Pillar-Index

By the end of the 20th century, a deep conceptual gap had evolved between a destructive economy...

Green Jobs, 80% Renewables in 2020, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Brief season’s greetings from knowtheflow, with a thought that I was delighted to discover in the ...

10 Appropriate Indicators to Measure Green Growth in Industry

Green Growth, Sustainable Growth, Green Economy – All of these concepts require decoupling. A...

The Outweighed Efficiency Gain – 13 Rebound Effects in Detail

According to Tilman Santarius, one essential concept is missing in all the scenarios that lead...

19 Industry Reports – How Global Compact Promotes Efficiency

Energy costs are on the rise. Their increase is so steady that now even the United Nations has...

Do Universities Practice What They Preach? On Academic Sustainability

As I wrote in my articles on the future-proof Bachelor and verbiage-free Masters in sustainability,...

31 Innovations for Maximum Resource Efficiency in Manufacturing

The amount of manufacturing in Germany is vast. To guarantee survival in the global rotation of who...

4 Pressing Questions on the Ozone Hole Recovery

Two months ago, newspapers around the world happily reproduced a news headline from Reuters – the...

Burn or Bury? Analyzing Waste Management Options in Detail

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle – the waste imperative is as clear as it can get. What’s less clear,...

5-Fold Increase in Efficiency – Not Delusional at All

Some of my recent articles have circled around an apparent antagonism between different schools of...

“A Balanced Mix of Technologies and Strategies” – The Sustainable Path is a Multi-Lane Highway

When it comes to discussing ways to limit human influence on global warming, the most popular...

Why Environmental Regulation Is Not Scaring Off Industry – On Declining Evidence for Pollution Haven Theory

Some say strict environmental regulations in individual countries are useless, especially from a...

Europe’s 10 Most Verbiage-Free Master Programs in Sustainability

Almost all interdisciplinary study programs introduced to the teaching universe in the past 5 years...

Better, Different, Less – Green Economy Revisited

“Post Growth Economy or Resource Efficiency Revolution – How Should We Face the Limits of Our...

Green Ocean Hunters? The Environmental Effects of Fishing and Aquaculture, Part 2

Last week, in part one of this article, we ended with the tragedy of the commons and the question...

Green Ocean Hunters? The Environmental Effects of Fishing and Aquaculture

Shrimp farms destroy sensitive mangrove forest ecosystems, salmon escape from designated...

Carbon Neutral Online Shopping – How Green are Mail Order Companies?

In the last 150 years, three major trends have changed the way humanity consumes. First,...

LCA, CF, MFCA? What to Expect From Umberto User Workshop Hamburg, Sept 17/18

Sustainability and efficiency: a couple of terms that couldn’t be more misused and greenwashed. A...

Why and How the Manufacturing Industry Should Go 100% Renewable Now

Renewable energy has a positive connotation in society and business, that’s for sure. The Fukushima...

What’s the Greenest 1 L Packaging? Two Powerful LCAs Give the Answer

It was a month ago when I heard the surprising news that milk packaged in cartons has the best...

6 Options to Maintain Current Lifestyles with Far Less Raw Materials: “With Both Eyes Open”

There is this old, ever repeating view of humanity as a counter-productive force when it comes to...

Carbon Neutral World Cup? Green Stadiums? Really?

Fancy pictures of green stadiums have been fast to hit the media since FIFA’s decision to give the...

Integrated Reporting: How Business Can Transform Society through Serious Sustainability Communication

It goes without saying that providing investors and shareholders with financial performance data is...

Let’s Take the Green Economy in Hand Ourselves – The Conclusion From Rio+20’s Failure

Only 16.7% of Global Energy Consumption Is Renewable – Ways for Industry to Increase This Share

You know studies. You know reports. You know data collections. But you don’t know Ren21? You...

Program Highlights at ACHEMA 2012: What Not to Miss at the Green Processes Industry Conference

Green chemistry is a relatively young science in its own respect. Interest in this subject,...

More Than Ecosystem Dynamics – Understanding the Different Concepts of Resilience

There are these technical terms – complicated words with Latin origins – that experts have used for...

The 8 Most Specific LinkedIn Groups for Industrial Ecology

The social media marketing hype seems to be declining, whereas a seemingly infinite flood of mobile...

A Challenging Task: Promoting Energy Efficiency in Tajikistan

knowtheflow: Marjolaine, you work for the French organization GERES, which deals with promoting...

The Five Most Important Changes for Global Sustainability: Living Planet Report 2012

We live above our limits, the planet does not provide sufficient resources for our consumerist...

7 Measures for Efficient Climate Control on the Factory Floor

How, exactly, can a medium-sized industrial company save on energy without negatively affecting...

To Harvest Green Business, Feed Eco Incentives to the Decision Makers

Incentive-based pay isn’t new; it’s been around for centuries. Ship captains transporting...

Environmentally Harmful Subsidies: Behind the Scenes of a $400 Billion Waste

Ever since the 1980s, during the early years of the environmental movement, there has been a call...

Last Chance for a Powerful Shift – On Quarrels About the EU’s Energy Efficiency Directive

In July 2011, knowtheflow covered the possible failure to reach the EU’s energy efficiency target....

9 Months of Certified Energy Management: ISO 50001 Starts Out

In July 2011, the promising ISO 50001 energy management standard was launched. This certificate...

The OECD Turns Green – Why Saving the Planet Pays Off

Continued degradation and erosion of natural environmental capital is expected to 2050, with the...

Avoiding the Relocation of Emissions – How to Face Carbon Leakage

In the course of the last 20 years, some of the more developed countries achieved a remarkable...

Why SMEs Should Foster, Not Fear the Corporate Carbon Footprint

Most firms are occupied with selling products and meeting payroll and feel they don’t have time or...

“Everybody Should do Their Share” – The Long Road to Sustainability in Turkey

knowtheflow: Prof. Dr. Inci Gökmen, you offer a course named “Sustainable Living and Green...

Post Growth Economy or Resource Efficiency Revolution – How Should We Face the Limits of Our Planet?

Economic growth is a means of producing wealth. No doubt about that. However, there are two central...

What is an Environmental Product Declaration? And What is it Good For?

When talking about product labels that deal with the environment, it is often argued that there is...

What is Carbon Footprinting and Why Does it Facilitate Effective Energy Management?

Costs to the environment, generated throughout your company’s production process, can be assessed...

The Path to a Green Economy – Lessons From Germany

What green economy deals with is the idea of running our businesses in a sustainable way. All of...

What Conclusions Can We Draw From Tesco Dropping its Carbon Footprint Labeling?

A week ago, the Guardian published the news that the Tesco grocery store chain dropped its plan to...

Four Fit-For-Future Bachelor Programs in Europe

Remember the time when you struggled to find the right program of study? Or have you just finished...

Why the Carbon Tax Makes Sense and How to Gain a Competitive Edge From it

Instead of hoping that your lobbyist negotiates another carbon tax exemption for your industry, you...

Stayin’ Alive: Survival Strategies for 2012

If you read these lines, it is more than likely you are still alive. And if you read these lines,...

Getting it Straight: Exact Carbon Emissions From One Bottle of Wine

I bet you know how much carbon dioxide your car emits per kilometer. Maybe you are also well...

Celebrate a Carbon Neutral Christmas!

Anyone not noticed it? Yes, of course, it is December – another annual epidemic of Christmas...

ecoinvent – The Swiss Army Knife of LCA Background Databases

Background databases can be very convenient when you assess all of the impacts a product or a...

Terminating the End-of-Pipe Era by Simple Means of Process Optimization

In the course of the last three decades, more and more voices have called for cleaner industry....

Encouraging Ecological Forest Management

The inventor of sustainability, says the legend, was Hans Carl von Carlowitz, a mining...

Exploring the Environmental Effects of Electric Cars

Can you imagine the weight of 1.8 billion tonnes? I can’t. I can only try to put this number in...

Food Footprints: Subjective Consumer Perception vs. Profound LCA Data

Today is World Vegan Day. Vegans are people ethically very consequent. Even more consequent than...

Ecology’s Step Child – We Need Water Footprints!

Assessing environmental effects of human activity is something we become more and more familiar...

Refining Material Flow Analysis: The Arising of Input-Output Economics

We can be proud of the great wealth of reliable, good quality data that are being produced every...

Carbon Neutral Cities (2) – 3 Ways to Assess a City’s Emissions

Two weeks ago, in part one of this article, we got an idea of the measures that are being taken to...

4 Alternatives to Waste Disposal – Increasing Your SMB’s Resource Efficiency

It is no secret, that the Earth’s resource base is on a declining track. In the 1970s, the Club of...

Carbon Neutral Cities – Where? When? How?

The city of Seattle recently announced a new goal for 2050: Achieving complete carbon neutrality....

What’s What: Understanding the ISO 14000 Family Of Standards

Back in the year 1987, the International Organization for Standardization introduced a number of...

Social Media Users Willing to Pay More when Company is Responsible

Social media users are more ethically and environmentally aware, in relation to their pattern of...

Biomass Lagging Behind Prospering Wind and Solar Markets

The newest Country Attractiveness Index for Renewable Energy, conducted by Ernst & Young, rates...

Energy Efficiency, Policy Problem Child No.1

20% reduction of greenhouse gases until 2020 – We’re on the right track. 20% renewable energy –...

Waste Prevention vs. Recycling – Analyzing Material Flow Accounts

Why should we even bother about recycling, when we could prevent waste in the first place? Well,...