Claudia R. Binder

École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne | EPFL · Environmental Engineering Institute

Action-oriented, transformative, and transdisciplinary approaches are increasingly heralded as promising tools that enable researchers not only to produce new knowledge about a situation, but also to actively engage in tackling it; however, such approaches raise critical questions about the methodological implications and conflicts involved in purs...

We present the La Mobilière insurance customers dataset: a 12-year-long longitudinal collection of data on policies of customers of the Swiss insurance company La Mobilière. To preserve the privacy of La Mobilière customers, we propose the data aggregated at two geographical levels, based on the place of residence of the customer: postal areas and...

The concept of sustainability is growing in importance for local urban governance, and indicator-based assessments represent a popular means for its operationalization. While much effort has been spent developing the technical aspects of these assessments, less attention has been given to their potential for influencing real-world governance proces...

The physical characteristics of an urban system are typically heterogeneously expressed, creating distinct neighbourhoods shaped by specific local features. Hence, spatially explicit expression of sustainability across the urban system is expected and should not be ignored. In this paper, we present an empirical study that explicitly accounts for t...

To shrink the environmental footprint of housing, reducing dwellings’ size is key. There is agreement among scholars on the measures that should be taken to achieve this goal, however their effectiveness and effects have not been sufficiently investigated. In this paper, we explore and compare the outcomes of measures for reducing housing size. We...

The interaction between residential preferences and dwellings is a complex system whose function thus far remains insufficiently explored. In this paper, we investigate housing functions as orchestrators of households’ residential mobility in the context of Swiss rental housing. We propose a theoretical multi-step model and use survey data from 878...

During the first wave of COVID-19, residents’ health and well-being were challenged as residential environments suddenly had to accommodate most of the functions of an urban system. Although scholars and practitioners have proposed reconsidering dwelling requirements, their top-down approach overlooks the agency of residents whose preferences might...

The Circular Economy (CE) concept has recently gained momentum as a perspective to tackle global challenges such as resource scarcity and waste management. Multiple types of interventions have been proposed to support the transition towards a CE. This paper aims to (i) categorize CE interventions; (ii) analyze to what extent these intervention cate...

Background: The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) crisis and the corresponding first nationwide lockdown from mid-March to 10 May 2020 engendered considerable psychological strain among people in Switzerland. This study analyzes determinants of changes in subjective levels of psychological strain experienced during the lockdown. Methods: An onlin...

The environmental footprint of housing is greatly influenced by the size of a dwelling. Housing size is the result of households’ dwelling selections; accordingly, it is critical to consider residential preferences and choices to inform efforts towards housing sustainability. This study aimed to understand tenants’ preferences for and choices of ho...

Enhancing the sustainability of cities is a timely, complex task. It involves the challenge of identifying the concerns and goals of different stakeholders in an inclusive manner and bringing into dialogue the various forms of knowledge and know-how that can address these concerns. At the moment, the lack of suitable concepts and methods for taking...

The concept of urban sustainability is growing in urgency and salience for local urban governance, and indicator-based assessments represent a popular means for its operationalization. While much effort has been spent developing the technical aspects of these assessments, less attention has been given to research concerning their potential for infl...

An integrative environmental behavior model was applied in an online survey to investigate the determinants of intentions to reduce personal air travel and corresponding perceived restrictions and options among participants in Switzerland (N = 1206). Flying habits emerged as the most powerful predictor of air travel intentions, followed by prescrip...

Cities account for 75% of resource consumption and 80% of CO2 emissions. With rising urbanization, achieving urban sustainability becomes crucial. The Circular Economy (CE) concept has been proposed to reduce resource consumption, although its link to sustainability remains unclear from theoretical and practical perspectives. This paper provides an...

With increasing urbanisation, new approaches such as the Circular Economy (CE) are needed to reduce resource consumption. In Switzerland, Construction & Demolition (C&D) waste accounts for the largest portion of waste (84%). Beyond limiting the depletion of primary resources, implementing recycling strategies for C&D waste (such as using recycled a...

Global sustainability relies on our capacity of understanding and guiding urban systems and their metabolism adequately. It has been proposed that bigger and denser cities are more resource-efficient than smaller ones because they tend to demand less infrastructure, consume less fuel for transportation and less energy for cooling/heating in per cap...

Worldwide, there is an urgent imperative to provide a housing supply that is environmentally sustainable as well as acceptable and desirable for its users. A holistic and integrative understanding of the relationship between households' residential preferences and dwellings is needed to achieve this goal. This paper addresses this gap by conceptual...

The availability of reliable socioeconomic data is critical for the design of urban policies and the implementation of location-based services; however, often, their temporal and geographical coverage remain scarce. We explore the potential for insurance customers data to predict socioeconomic indicators of Swiss municipalities. First, we define a...

We present results of a survey conducted with researchers and practitioners involved in a Swiss National Research Programme on steering energy consumption. We analyse what motivates practitioners and researchers to engage in a collaborative research project, their perception of the collaboration intensity in different project phases, and the extent...

A survey of 1206 participants investigated determinants of positive environmental behaviors (PEBs) in Switzerland. Based on a principle component analysis on data for 23 different PEBs, three behavior types were distinguished: (i) public sphere PEBs with politically mediated impacts; (ii) socially salient private “lighthouse” PEBs that convey a pro...

Today, the centrality of cities in the global sustainability challenge is widely acknowledged, and numerous initiatives have been developed worldwide for monitoring and comparing the sustainability performance of urban areas. However, the escalating abundance of indicators makes it difficult to understand what really counts in urban sustainability...

A survey of 620 Swiss households was conducted to investigate the determinants of purchases of organic fruits and vegetables and identify subjectively perceived requirements for more environmentally friendly and healthier food consumption. An integrative behavior model incorporating various psychological and socio-structural variables was applied t...

Nos últimos anos, a nova Ciência das Cidades se estabeleceu como uma abordagem quantitativa fértil para o entendimento dos fenômenos urbanos. Um de seus pilares é a proposição de que os sistemas urbanos apresentam comportamentos universais de escala de variáveis socioeconômicas, de infraestrutura e de serviços básicos individuais. Este artigo discu...

A modal shift away from the private car onto low-carbon transport modes is an essential part of decarbonising the transport sector. The dynamics of modal shifts are, however, not yet well understood. In particular the interrelations between structural and individual dynamics require further investigation. Furthermore, a better understanding is need...

In the context of an initiative to become a carbon neutral campus, an online survey (N = 1864) of students, scientists, and administrative and technical staff of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) was conducted to measure pro-environmental behaviors and potentially influential factors. Fema...

Sustainability Assessment of Urban Systems - edited by Claudia R. Binder March 2020

Sustainability Assessment of Urban Systems - edited by Claudia R. Binder March 2020

Sustainability Assessment of Urban Systems - edited by Claudia R. Binder March 2020

Sustainability Assessment of Urban Systems - edited by Claudia R. Binder March 2020

Sustainability Assessment of Urban Systems - edited by Claudia R. Binder March 2020

Sustainability Assessment of Urban Systems - edited by Claudia R. Binder March 2020

Sustainability Assessment of Urban Systems - edited by Claudia R. Binder March 2020

Sustainability Assessment of Urban Systems - edited by Claudia R. Binder March 2020

Sustainability Assessment of Urban Systems - edited by Claudia R. Binder March 2020

Sustainability Assessment of Urban Systems - edited by Claudia R. Binder March 2020

Abstract The participation of practitioners in transdisciplinary sustainability research has been heralded as a promising tool for producing ‘robust’ knowledge and engendering societal transformations. Although transdisciplinary approaches have been advanced as an effective avenue for generating knowledge positioned to question and transform an uns...

Global sustainability relies on our capacity of understanding and guiding urban systems, and their metabolism, in an adequate way. It has been proposed that bigger and denser cities are more resource-efficient than smaller ones because they tend to demand less infrastructure, consume less fuel for transportation and less energy for cooling or heati...

Greenhouse gas (GHG) emission inventories form the basis of evidence-based climate change planning across the local, regional, national, and international levels. In this letter, we present a consumption-based GHG accounting approach for estimating the carbon footprint (CF) comprising direct and indirect emissions of households in Switzerland for 2...

Housing plays a crucial role in the transition towards sustainability. Zero-energy or low-carbon housing solutions are key, but their success depends on their acceptance by the users. We propose a conceptual and an operational framework for understanding households’ residential choices as a base for an agent-based model, using the tenant as basic u...

In sustainability research, transdisciplinary (TD) approaches that involve practitioners in the research process have emerged as promising tools for enhancing real-world knowledge and engendering societal change. However, empirical insights into how such participation can contribute to the societal effects of TD research are scant and largely rely...

The mismatch between the supply and demand of rental apartments in Switzerland represents an obstacle to the transition towards a more sustainable society. The difficulty for the housing providers to accommodate the fast societal change of the demand brings about an increase in vacancies and, to minimize investment risks, a resistance to innovation...

Farmers can manage their crops and farms better if they can communicate their experiences, both positive and negative, with each other and with experts. Digital agriculture using internet communication technology (ICT) may facilitate the sharing of experiences between farmers themselves and with experts and others interested in agriculture. ICT app...

The concept of resilience has performed an amazing career. Starting out in some selected disciplines, such as psychology and ecology, it has been applied in a vast variety of disciplines including natural sciences, humanities, and social sciences. Resilience deals with the characteristics of individuals, units—more abstractly: entities—that enable...

Energy sectors in many European countries are turned upside down. Fundamental technological changes, debates on social justice and pressing global warming scenarios are only a few major challenges endangering the resilience of energy systems. In this contribution, we discuss how urban utility companies can support the resilience of transitioning en...

Finding ways to understand, analyze, and manage sustainability transitions is a fundamental challenge for sustainability science. In this paper, we show how we can substantially deepen our understanding of factors that determine the success of sustainability transitions by combining two key concepts from the resilience literature—stability and adap...

Small-scale farmers are highly threatened by climate change. Experts often base their interventions to support farmers to adapt to climate change on their own perception of farmers’ livelihood risks. However, if differences in risk perception between farmers and experts exist, these interventions might fail. Thus, for effective design and implement...

Housing plays a fundamental role in the transition towards a more sustainable society. In Switzerland, the unbalanced relationship between environmental, economic and social factors manifests itself in the current market trends of rental apartments, where data show a discrepancy between demand and supply. In fact, the impossibility for the supply t...

During the last years, the new science of cities has been established as a fertile quantitative approach to systematically understand the urban phenomena. One of its main pillars is the proposition that urban systems display universal scaling behavior regarding socioeconomic, infrastructural and individual basic services variables. This paper discu...

Deviations from the expected scaling regime proposed by Bettencourt [10] for all the statistically significant variables. Values for β, and its 95% confidence interval refers to the final density cut-off value. Statistically insignificant variables are not presented. (PDF)

Studied variables. Description of the studied variables containing units, expected scaling regime [10] and source. (PDF)

Exponents values for different urban indicators in the Brazilian urban system. Each dot represents the scaling exponent related to the best-fit line from the OLS regression of the population against the studied variable; vertical line segments represent 95% confidence interval (CI) of those regressions; colors are based on the proposed regime; the...

Scaling exponent β as a function of minimum density cut-off for all the variables. Each line represents the scaling exponent (y-axis) from OLS regressions of the log-transformed data of each variable as a function of the minimum density cut-off (x-axis). (PDF)

In this paper, we apply an indicator-based approach to measure the resilience of energy regions in transition to a case study region in Austria. The indicator-based approach allows to determine the resilience of the transition of regional energy systems towards higher shares of renewables and potentially overall higher sustainability. The indicator...

Addressing global climate change calls for rapid, large-scale deployment of renewable energy technologies (RETs). Such an accelerated diffusion constitutes a new phenomenon, which challenges existing analytical approaches. The implied fundamental reconfiguration of energy systems will inevitably involve adjoining shifts in the structure of energy m...

In the field of sustainability, scholars, and policy-makers herald the transformative power of participation in knowledge production. However, a discrepancy between these expectations and the limited understanding of the complex interactions constituting participation processes can be observed. With the aim of critically analysing these complex int...

During the last years, the new science of cities has been established as a fertile quantitative approach to systematically understand the urban phenomena. One of its main pillars is the proposition that urban systems display universal scaling behavior regarding socioeconomic, infrastructural and individual needs variables. This paper discusses the...

Global economies have been characterised by a large dependency of material inflows from natural stocks, an exponential growth of material stock-in-use in the built environment, and the extensive disposal of waste material outflows to anthropogenic sinks. In this context, the concept of the circular economy has emerged, promising to circulate the st...

Die soziale und technische Transition unseres Energiesystems mit dem Ziel einer größeren Nachhaltigkeit ist schon längst nicht mehr nur ein politisches Vorhaben, sondern befindet sich mitten in der Umsetzung. Während traditionelle Energieversorger und Energieproduktionstechnologien unter Druck geraten, treten neue Akteure auf den Plan und es werden...

Understanding groundwater systems is crucial to ensure their monitoring and protection. Global groundwater models and predictive tools exist to better understand them. In view of scarce groundwater data especially in developing countries, the question of how to model these systems and make them usable for groundwater management is crucial. Herein,...

Die deutsche Energiewende gilt als einer der herausforderndsten gesamtgesellschaftlichen Veränderungsprozesse unserer Zeit. Sie zieht einen grundlegenden politischen und ökonomischen Wandel in Deutschland und ganz Europa nach sich. Die fundamentalen Veränderungen, die in Folge der Energiewende stattfinden, sind besonders für Wissenschaftler im Bere...

Abstract: The transition of our current energy system from a fossil-based system to a system based on renewables is likely to be one of the most complex and long-term societal transitions in history. The need for a fundamental system transformation raises the question of how to measure the continuing progress and the resilience of this process over...

The energy transition currently taking place in Germany is recognised as being one of the most ambitious socio-technical transitions at the present time. Scholars have so far mostly studied the resilience of the current or future state of the energy system. They have neglected to analyse the resilience of the transition process itself. We present a...

Nachdem der Resilienzbegriff eine enorme Konjunktur erfahren hat, stellt sich die Frage nach seiner analytischen Qualität und Relevanz. Die These dieses Sonderhefts besteht darin, dass Resilienz das Potenzial zu einem interdisziplinären Analysetool sozialer Transformationen aufweist. Dazu muss sie jedoch einer systematischen Kontextualisierung unte...

The concept of resilience has been applied within a wide spectrum of disciplines and has become increasingly relevant for interdisciplinary research. The interdisciplinary use of the concept could be linked to the fact that the conceptualization of resilience is not so much related to a discipline, but rather to the concrete ways of posing a resear...

In the field of occupational hygiene, researchers have been working on developing appropriate methods to estimate human exposure to pesticides in order to assess the risk and therefore to take the due decisions to improve the pesticide management process and reduce the health risks. This paper evaluates dermal exposure models to find the most appro...

The framework for analyzing sustainability of social-ecological systems (SES) framework of Elinor Ostrom is a multitier collection of concepts and variables that have proven to be relevant for understanding outcomes in diverse SES. The first tier of this framework includes the concepts resource system (RS) and resource units (RU), which are then fu...

Dermal Exposure Assessment is a crucial aspect within the risk assessment of pesticide use as it may lead to the development and improvement of measures to reduce the health risk of pesticides users. Even though, tools for dermal exposure assessment are available, their implementation in developing countries is problematic as they are designed unde...

In this paper we compare 10 established frameworks for analyzing social-ecological systems. We limited ourselves to frameworks that were explicitly designed to be used by a wider community of researchers and practitioners. Although all these frameworks seem to have emerged from the need for concepts that permit structured, interdisciplinary reasoni...