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Publications (112)
Compared to the prevailing sustainability strategies of efficiency and consistency, sufficiency is poorly represented both in scientific literature and in political debate but has increasingly gained attention in recent years. However, the discussion lacks a uniform understanding on sufficiency policy and how to conceptualize it. Furthermore, the s...
Mehrjährige Forschungsarbeiten der WSL zu erneuerbaren Energien können Antworten liefern auf Fragen wie die folgenden: Wovon hängt die Akzeptanz von Anlagen für die Erzeugung erneuerbarer Energie ab und wie lässt sich die Akzeptanz steigern? Was vereinfacht die Planung solcher Anlagen und wie fördert der Einbezug der Bevölkerung ihren Ausbau? Was k...
Les travaux de recherche que mène le WSL sur plusieurs années peuvent fournir des réponses à diverses questions, par exemple: de quoi dépend l'acceptation des installations d'énergie renouvelable et comment peutelle être améliorée? Quels sont les facteurs qui simplifient la planification de telles installations et comment la participation de la pop...
Green growth has emerged as a dominant narrative within environmental policy, holding out the prospect that technological progress will enable an absolute decoupling between economic growth and natural resources usage. To achieve such decoupling, digital technologies are considered particularly promising.
The degrowth movement criticizes the green...
![Typology of societal transformations based on [22], modified](publication/371882778/figure/fig2/AS:11431281276653265@1725694180015/Typology-of-societal-transformations-based-on-22-modified_Q320.jpg)
Transformations–defined as deep, radical, non-linear, multi-dimensional, systemic processes of change–are required to avert serious threats to humanity and the environment. In this study, we have analysed past transformations in Switzerland in four environmental domains, with the aim to draw conclusions for current challenges, such as the net-zero...
Unter dem Titel »Transforming our World« verabschiedeten die Vereinten Nationen 2015 ihre Agenda 2030 mit 17 Nachhaltigkeitszielen. Diese Vision auf globaler Ebene gilt es vor allem auf regionaler Ebene zu realisieren. Verantwortung, Vernetzung und Vertrauen sind dabei wesentliche Prinzipien. Vor dem Hintergrund der Fridays for Future-Bewegung foku...
This paper contributes to an emerging discussion about transformative enterprises, which are increasingly seen as change agents in sustainability transformations. Some scholars have hitherto described them as pioneering enterprises that strive for fundamental changes towards sustainability at different scales. Economic geography has, however, so fa...
Vor 50 Jahren erschien der Bericht des Club of Rome zur Lage der Menschheit mit dem programmatischen Titel „Die Grenzen des Wachstums“. Die resultierende Diskussion ist bis heute relevant, insbesondere für die Aufgabe der Dekarbonisierung.
Unter dem Titel »Transforming our World« verabschiedeten die Vereinten Nationen 2015 ihre Agenda 2030 mit 17 Nachhaltigkeitszielen. Diese Vision auf globaler Ebene gilt es vor allem auf regionaler Ebene zu realisieren. Verantwortung, Vernetzung und Vertrauen sind dabei wesentliche Prinzipien. Vor dem Hintergrund der Fridays for Future-Bewegung foku...
Post-Growth Geographies examines the spatial relations of diverse and alternative economies between growth-oriented institutions and multiple socio-ecological crises. The book brings together conceptual and empirical contributions from geography and its neighbouring disciplines and offers different perspectives on the possibilities, demands and cri...
In this article we investigate the role of social innovations in territorial development. More specifically we examine the ways in which social innovations can contribute to growth-independent local and regional development. By growth-independent territorial development we understand the ways in which a society, including its economy and its instit...
Post-Growth Geographies examines the spatial relations of diverse and alternative economies between growth-oriented institutions and multiple socio-ecological crises. The book brings together conceptual and empirical contributions from geography and its neighbouring disciplines and offers different perspectives on the possibilities, demands and cri...
Auch in Brüssel ist der Glaubenssatz, Wirtschaftswachstum schaffe Arbeitsplätze und deshalb sei Wachstum unverzichtbar, unerschütterlich verbreitet. So setzt man – wie in früherenKrisen – auch in der Coronakrise wieder auf die Hoffnung Wachstum. Ein aktueller Bericht zeigt dazu Alternativen auf.
This chapter investigates the contributions to the great transformation of planning
actors and other state and non-state actors. Actors and the relationships between
them are of great significance in the transformation towards sustainability, as they
interact with structural parameters: what is the potential for changing the behaviour
of actors wit...
In diesem Kapitel werden die Beiträge von Planungsakteuren sowie anderen staatlichen und nicht-staatlichen Akteuren zur großen Transformation untersucht. Akteuren und Akteursbeziehungen kommt bei der Nachhaltigkeitstransformation eine maßgebliche Bedeutung zu, da sie in einem Wechselverhältnis mit den strukturellen Rahmenbedingungen stehen: Welches...
This chapter focuses on the governance perspective on the municipal and regional level and draws here on the five fields of action analysed in the previous chapters (cf. Chapter 5.2-5.6). Discussion addresses a number of overarching issues: the role played by planning actors and other state and non-state actors in the transformation; how state acto...
Der Band »Postwachstumsgeographien« untersucht die Raumbezüge diverser und alternativer Ökonomien im Spannungsfeld von wachstumsorientierten Institutionen und multiplen sozialökologischen Krisen. Die Beiträge greifen diesen Ansatz erstmals umfassend auf und eröffnen mit konzeptionellen und empirischen Fachbeiträgen aus der Geographie und deren Nach...
The increasingly tangible impacts of climate change, accelerating socio‐economic dynamics and growing demand of the civil society for forest ecosystem services (FES) call for an adjustment of forest management (FM) and governance practices. Responding to these challenges in a flexible and sustainable way is particularly important for small‐scale, c...
The Confederation, the cantons and the municipalities have for many years financed measures to promote biodiversity in Switzerland. Despite this, biodiversity is in a critical state. One major reason for this is the large number of public subsidies and perverse financial incentives which promote activities that can cause severe damage to biodiversi...
Pascal Tschumi, Andrea Winiger, Samuel Wirth, Heike Mayer und Irmi Seidl widmen sich in ihrem Beitrag Sozialen Innovationen, die zunehmend als Lösungen für die vielfältigen Herausforderungen in peripheren Räumen diskutiert werden. Allerdings ist offen, welche Wirkungen Soziale Innovationen haben. Eine der diesbezüglichen Fragen ist, ob Soziale Inno...
Background:
Energy cooperatives are a prominent and common form of community energy. Community energy has the potential to increase actor diversity and local acceptance of renewable energies and has therefore been highlighted to be conducive to energy transitions. While research has recognized the importance of both the national and the local gove...
Participation of citizens in local energy decisions is increasingly recognized as helpful for a successful decentralized energy transition. In this article, we focus on energy cooperatives in which private individuals jointly develop facilities to generate energy from renewable sources, thus involving citizens both politically and economically. Foc...
Wachstumspolitik wird allzu oft mit dem Erhalten und Schaffen von Arbeitsplätzen begründet. Tatsächlich beeinflussen verschiedene Faktoren, ob, wie viele und welche Arbeitsplätze es gibt. Notwendig für eine Postwachstumsgesellschaft ist es, neben Erwerbsarbeit die Vielfalt möglicher und nötiger Tätigkeiten stärker zu gewichten.
In den vergangenen Jahren sind in der Schweiz, wie in vielen anderen Ländern, zivilgesellschaftlich geprägte Organisationen entstanden, die den Ausbau erneuerbarer Energien vorantreiben. Forschungsergebnisse bestätigen vorteilhafte Wirkungen dieser Art von Organisationen auf den Ausbau erneuerbarer Energien: u. a. verbesserte gesellschaftliche Akze...
High altitude grazing is widespread around the globe and also has a long tradition in European mountain regions. One-Third of the Swiss farmland consists of summer pastures: seasonally used marginal pastures without permanent settlements, which extend between the grasslands and forests of permanent mountain settlements and unproductive mountain top...
Das vorherrschende Wirtschaftssystem mit dem Ziel des ständigen Wachstums stößt auf die bio-physikalischen Begrenzungen des Erdsystems und kollidiert mit der Schöpfung. Zwar blickt Wachstumskritik auf eine lange Geschichte zurück, doch sie war immer nur marginal in Umfang und Einfluss. Die langjährigen politischen Diskussionen und politischen Bemüh...
Sprawl, as a particular characterisation of spatial extension of urbanised areas, is a contested issue. In this paper we provide an analysis of the major socio-economic determinants of changes in those urban patterns considered as sprawl in Switzerland. Our analysis covers the years 1980–2010, and has been conducted for all of the 2495 Swiss munici...
Alpine summer pastures – the seasonally used mountain grasslands just below unproductive rock and ice
– are a distinctive feature of the cultural landscape of many European countries. In many locations, those
marginal grasslands are associated with “High Nature Value” farming, which is often threatened by either
abandonment or by intensification (O...
In Switzerland as a mountain country, elevated grasslands and pastures are an important feature of the
cultural landscape. In many locations, the traditional extensive management is changing due to
environmental impacts (climate change), technological changes (breeding progress, new farm machinery
for steep grasslands, irrigation), socio-economic p...
Zusammenfassung
Energiegenossenschaften haben für den dezentralen Ausbau der erneuerbaren Stromproduktion in Deutschland im neuen Jahrtausend eine wichtige Rolle gespielt: Sie bündeln das Kapital von Privatpersonen und erschließen damit eine weitere Finanzierungsquelle für das Erreichen der Energiewende. Dabei gelten ihre regionale Orientierung und...
Von Beginn an haben die modernen Wirtschaftswissenschaften gesellschaftliche Prozesse nicht nur beobachtet und beschrieben, sondern diese auch selbst katalysiert und beeinflusst. Da-mit haben sie einer Entwicklung den Weg gebahnt, die neben unbestrittenen Erfolgen zu ökologischen Zerstörungen, sozialen Verwerfungen und immer wiederkehrenden ökonomi...
The revision of the federal act on spatial planning in 2013 and the adoption of the popular initiative on second homes in 2012 reveal – among other issues – that the Swiss population is concerned about land use developments. There is a widespread claim for stricter legal enforcement, further regulations and innovative instruments to tackle land-use...
Future land use necessitates a new approach for action (essay)
Future land use may well lead to increasing conflicts between the competing demands for this scarce and limited resource given demands, interests and societal developments. Three approaches to dealing with land use are proposed: multifunctionality, quality of land use and sufficiency. A...
In Switzerland, the decreasing significance of agriculture has led to prominent processes of land abandonment in mountainous areas where the maintenance of open land relies on human intervention. At the same time, urbanisation in Switzerland is increasing at a rapid rate at the expense of other land use types, particularly open land agriculture. In...
French version under: http://www.wsl.ch/info/mitarbeitende/kruse/KruseSeidl_Secheresse_AFS_2015_fr.pdf
Drought in fruit-growing. Survey among farmers
in Northeast and Northwest Switzerland
According to current climate scenarios, drought
could become a major challenge for agriculture
in Switzerland. To better understand the
practitioner’s perspect...
Transferable development rights (TDR) are discussed or applied in various countries for a wide variety of purposes: notably to increase building densities, preserve natural areas, compensate reduced development possibilities, and control land use in rural areas. In Switzerland, TDR, a market-oriented planning instrument, might be used to reduce the...
Drought in fruit-growing. Survey among farmers in Northeast and Northwest Switzerland According to current climate scenarios, drought could become a major challenge for agriculture in Switzerland. To better understand the practitioner's perspective, we surveyed fruit-growers in Northeast and Northwest Switzerland to investigate the previous impact...
According to current climate scenarios, drought could become a major challenge for agriculture in Switzerland. To better understand the practitioner’s perspective, we surveyed fruit-growers in Northeast and Northwest Switzerland to investigate the previous impact of drought and the countermeasures taken, as well as the information requirements and...
The recently completed research programme AlpFUTUR studied Swiss summer grazing and Alpine farming in its vast complexity in order to provide information and means to take informed decisions given internal and external developments and pressures. Though the first issues and questions were raised by researchers, these were soon complemented by invol...
We critically question some arguments Jakob and Edenhofer (2014) put forward in their article Green Growth, Degrowth and the Commons: Is the idea of “a-growth" reasonable? Will the proposed concept of welfare indicators fulfil its promises? Is the claim realistic to finance the implementation of welfare indicators by environmental economic instrume...
Seit wenigen Jahren erlebt die Kritik am Wirtschaftswachstum eine Renaissance. In diesem Beitrag geht es darum, das Konzept der Postwachstumsgesellschaft und weitere aktuelle wachstumskritische Diskussionen vorzustellen und die Post- wachstumsgesellschaft darin zu verorten. Der Beitrag zeigt einzelne Gemein- samkeiten in der Begründung der Wachstum...
In recent years Switzerland has experienced some unprecedented drought situations. At a political level solutions have been requested for early recognition of hydrological droughts. A prototype information platform has been developed to guide water resources management during situations where water resources drop below critical levels. The developm...
This paper analyses the social capacities for drought risk management from
the perspective of national and regional water users and policy- and
decision-makers in Switzerland. The analysis follows five dimensions of
social capacities as prerequisites for drought risk management. Regarding
information and knowledge (1), basic data is available, howe...
Regional policies across Europe aim at stimulating regional development in non-core regions through fostering entrepreneurship. However, the policies applied in non-core regions and the concepts of entrepreneurship these policies are based on differ. Therefore, the goal of this review is to identify different understandings of entrepreneurship and...
This paper analyses the social capacities for drought risk management and
gaps from the perspective of national and regional water users and policy
and decision makers in Switzerland. The analysis follows five dimensions of
social capacities as prerequisites for drought risk management. Regarding
information and knowledge (1), basic data is availab...
Erst wenn das Funktionieren vieler Institutionen, Strukturen und Subsysteme vomWachstumsparadigma abgekoppelt wird und Alternativen erkennbar sind, wird die Politik von ihrer Wachstumsfixierung abrücken.
Der zunehmende Druck auf die Landschaft durch Flächeninanspruchnahme und Zersiedelung führt in der Schweiz zu einer lebendigen öffentlichen Debatte über Massnahmen zur Förderung einer nachhaltigen Raumentwicklung. Während Bevölkerungswachstum, steigende Einkommen und steigende Pendlerdistanzen als Haupttreiber angesehen werden, werden Flächeninansp...
Die Grenzen des Wachstums von Meadows et al. (1972) holen uns nach 40 Jahren ein. Doch inzwischen hat das Wirtschaftswachstum die Funktionsweisen vieler gesellschaftlicher Systeme durchdrungen und diese wachstumsabhängig gemacht. Ziel muss es sein, diese Abhängigkeit aufzulösen und Perspektiven für eine Postwachstumsgesellschaft zu entwickeln.
Alpine products and services - supply situation in selected Swiss regions Alpine products are niche products that generate public interest. In an investigation of the supply situation in six Swiss case study regions, 262 producers from summering farms were surveyed. The results show that the most important of the produced and marketed alpine produc...
Regional and rural development policies in Europe increasingly emphasize entrepreneurship to mobilize the endogenous economic potential of rural territories. This study develops a concept to quantify entrepreneurship as place-dependent local potential to examine its impact on the local economic performance of rural territories in Switzerland. The s...
Abandonment of agricultural land has resulted in forest regeneration in species-rich dry grasslands across European mountain regions and threatens conservation efforts in this vegetation type. To support national conservation strategies, we used a site-selection algorithm (MARXAN) to find optimum sets of floristic regions (reporting units) that con...
Dieses Buch nimmt die Wachstumskritik auf und geht über sie hinaus. Es zeigt die systemischen Zwänge auf, die uns am Wachstumspfad festhalten lassen, und stellt alternative Entwicklungsmöglichkeiten für eine Gesellschaft vor, die nicht auf Wachstum angewiesen ist – für eine Gesellschaft, in der es sich auch ohne Wachstum gut leben lässt. Es will zu...
Fiscal instruments and land consumption
Even though promoting sustainable spatial development is part of official Swiss federal policy
and law, land consumption and urban sprawl in Switzerland are progressing at an unsustainable
pace. Recent settlement developments tend to be associated with increases in trafficrelated
pollution, the degradation of...
Estimating the costs of providing legal conservation for biotopes of national importance
The starting point of the present study is the fact that the quality of biotopes in Switzerland that are nationally protected is deteriorating and some are also shrinking in size. There are nearly 6000 biotopes in Switzerland, covering about 2% of the country’...
Although the national research programme NRP48 "Landscapes and Habitats of the Alps" dealt intensively with the Swiss mountain area, rather less research had been devoted to the alpine pastures. Therefore, many open questions remained in this area. In a preliminary study, stakeholder interviews allowed identifying the standard of knowledge, current...
There is currently a debate in Switzerland about the future of peripheral rural areas and adequate policies for maintaining the decentralized settlement patterns of the country. This article presents an interdisciplinary analysis of the issues of decentralized settlement by focusing on the challenges faced in this realm by the region of Surselva in...
There is currently a debate in Switzerland about the future of peripheral rural areas and adequate policies for maintaining the decentralized settlement patterns of the country. This article presents an interdisciplinary analysis of the issues of decentralized settlement by focusing on the challenges faced in this realm by the region of Surselva in...
Vor dem Hintergrund der fortschreitenden Siedlungsflächenausdehnung, an der Wohnzonen wesentlichen Anteil haben, wird unter
anderem diskutiert, welchen Beitrag ökonomische Instrumente wie Lenkungsabgaben zu einer haushälterischen Bodennutzung in
Wohnzonen leisten können. Um die Lenkungswirkung von Abgaben beurteilen zu können, sind Informationen da...
Universelle 7 - Beiträge zur Gleichstellung. Zürich: Uni-Frauenstelle
Abstract
Peer-Mentoring in eigener Regie meint das selbstorganisierte Ratgeben und gegenseitige Unterstützen von Peers in der akademischen Gemeinschaft. Dabei tauschen sich Nachwuchswissenschaftlerinnen untereinander über Anforderungen an eine akademische Laufbahn und ihre eigen...
A basic tenet of socio-economics is that economic behavior is shaped by social bonds and cultural context. A relevant controversy in evolutionary biology is group selection and the related issue of altruistic behavior, that is, behavior neutral or detrimental to the individual but positive for the survival of the group. In this paper we examine the...
This article examines the relationship between market niches and economic competition and explores the consequences of niches for economic efficiency, growth and diversity of commodities. Concepts of a niche in everyday use, ecology, economics and business management are compared. Factors giving rise to market niches, some of which are institutiona...
This paper discusses the protection of biodiversity by means of market-based activities in the food sector and the preconditions and context that provide fertile ground. The variables inves-tigated are the regional production factors involved, the entrepreneurship demonstrated, the kind of niche market developed, and the various kinds of support pr...
Zusammenfassung D ieser Artikel beschäftigt sich mit der Erhaltung der Biodiversität durch wirtschaft-liche Aktivitäten im Lebensmittelsektor. Anhand einer Fallstudie über den Anbau und die Vermarktung von Emmer in der Region Schaffhausen wird gezeigt, welche Be-dingungen für die Entstehung von vergleichbaren regionalökonomischen Aktivitäten notwen...
The destruction of soil and biodiversity are preeminent global problems. The interdependence of soil and biodiversity, and consequently, of soil and biodiversity destruction, is now gradually being recognised. Yet, the collaboration and interaction of various groups, concerned with either biodiversity protection or soil protection, has not been rea...
Biodiversity is under major pressure, as are the substantial services it provides to society. Although the protection of biodiversity must be encouraged at different political and spatial levels, a particularly appropriate starting point is the regional level. In order to provide incentives for the relevant political bodies, it is proposed that bio...
