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Description: In recent years, policies to promote renewable energy have become increasingly popular among municipalities in different parts of the world. This article examines the case of Germany. It argues that municipalities, compared to other state and private actors, already have the potential to play a key role in German renewable energy governance. Although both private actors and the European Union have gained importance in the past 20 years, German municipalities still play a crucial role and can apply five distinct and important modes of governance in the field of renewable energy policy. In this regard, the notion of a general development towards a "cooperating and ensuring state", which increasingly delegates its tasks and thus becomes less important, cannot be confirmed in the field of municipal renewable energy governance in Germany.

Description: Another summit of change, known as Rio+20, has passed in summer 2012, nourishing the rumours of a green economy. Building up a green economy seems to be the all over recipe for different crises of capitalism, among them climate change and resource scarcity. Yet efficiency and consistency, as their main strategies, do not suffice to reach sustainable levels, as they cause rebound effects and keep stimulating economy growth. Obviously, there are limits to green growth, too. Can we conceive an economy, and respective economic institutions, that serve human needs and wealth without a built-in necessity to grow? What kind of political, mental, and individual changes does a sufficiency economy require? And what are perspectives and policies to actually start implementing it? Just before Rio +20 the symposium "Economy of Sufficiency", devoted to Wolfgang Sachs on the occasion of his 65th birthday in 2011, examined these questions in three dimensions. Accordingly this selection of contributions to the symposium follows the chapters "Wealth in diversity" (Ashok Khosla, Marianne Gronemeyer, Vandana Shiva), "Enjoyable limits" (Richard B. Norgaard, Tim Jackson) and "Creating commons" (Ezio Manzini, Silke Helfrich). The essays indicate the historical development of the ideas on a sufficiency economy. Wandering through discourses of sustainable development for several decades, the authors map the range of perspectives, practices as well as barriers and bridge them between cultures, agencies and schools.

Description: Multinational mining companies operating in Latin America increasingly publish sustainability reports which outline their contributions to sustainable development. Companies argue that reports help communities better understand the importance of the benefits created by mining. However, we argue that sustainabilityreporting can only play a role in improving a company's performance and reputation if the quality of the reported data is good enough to answer community-raised contentious issues and if such are tackled through a stakeholder engagement process which includes "anti-mining" groups. The paper examines a miningconflict in Argentina's Bajo de la Alumbrera open pit mine. The assessment is based on a content analysis of Alumbrera's Sustainability Report (SR), primarily from 2009, complemented with insights from the 2010 and 2011 reports. The study reveals that environmental and economic indicators are the most contentious and least reported. The reports examined only briefly acknowledge these issues, and fail to detail the procedures followed to identify and engage stakeholders.

Description: Our perception of design is changing, for design today is no longer concerned only with aesthetics. Now the key factors are interdisciplinary competence and approaches to problem solving. Both politicians as well as businesses recognise design's hybridity and increasingly implement it as a driver of sustainable development (see Chap. 2: Design as a Key Management Factor for Sustainability). But what exactly does "sustainability" mean? What does it mean in this specific context? People must make use of natural resources to meet their basic needs. In this process, resources are transferred into commercial circulation and usually transformed into products with a particular function. Yet the environment is limited and humanity uses more resources than the Earth can sustainably provide. It is time to rethink and generate the same usage while consuming fewer resources (see Chap. 3: Environmental Space - Challenging Transitions). Most countries have incorporated sustainability strategies into their political agendas in order to counteract the threats of climate change caused by the overuse of natural resources, high CO2 emissions, and other factors. The indicators for these strategies vary greatly from country to country (see Chap. 4: Sustainability - Challenges, Politics, Indicators). These indicators need to be taken into account if we are to successfully implement a product or service within a specific context. A concept can only be successful when country-specific indicators are taken into account and the societal context is incorporated into the plan right from the start. The goal is to develop services that support national sustainability targets in production and consumption systems (see Chap. 5: Managing Sustainable Development). When it comes to companies, these changes can simply be introduced in the form of services or products. In the end, it is the users who decide on the success or failure of innovative solutions by either integrating them into their daily lives or ignoring them. Solutions will only be integrated into users' lives when their role within the social framework remains unchallenged by behavioural transformations caused by use of the solution. In order for users to be able to adopt innovations, sustainable development must take place simultaneously on many different levels. These multi-levelled transitions allow for the transformation of society as a whole. Designers can act as agents of change by providing the needed innovations (see Chap. 6: Transition Requires Change Agents for Sustainability). If we are to develop suitable solutions and new approaches, the real needs have to be analysed at the beginning of the development process. New physical products, which frequently result in auxiliary products, are often developed without taking into account the overall context, whereas the development of service-orientated solutions is ignored. A physical product is not absolutely necessary. A service (which is naturally dependent on physical products) can usually fulfil the need just as well - or perhaps even better and at a lower cost – while using fewer or no resources (see Chap. 7: Needs & Services - An Approach). There are a variety of possible approaches to integrate sustainability into the design process (see Chap. 8: Design Process). Precisely which solution is "most or more sustainable" (this is dependent on the defined targets and the indicators used) is often not immediately obvious, and we must turn to a set of methods for a transparent and tangible assessment (see Chap. 9: Sustainability Assessment in Design - Overview and Integration of Methods).

Description: The 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami, and the consequent accident at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, have had consequences far beyond Japan itself. Reactions to the accident in three major economies Japan, the UK, and Germany, all of whom were committed to relatively ambitious climate change targets prior to the accident are examined. In Japan and Germany, the accident precipitated a major change of policy direction. In the UK, debate has been muted and there has been essentially no change in energy or climate change policies. The status of the energy and climate change policies in each country prior to the accident is assessed, the responses to the accident are described, and the possible impacts on their positions in the international climate negotiations are analysed. Finally, the three countries' responses are compared and some differences between them observed. Some reasons for their different policy responses are suggested and some themes, common across all countries, are identified. Policy relevance: The attraction of nuclear power has rested on the promise of low-cost electricity, low-carbon energy supply, and enhanced energy independence. The Fukushima accident, which followed the Japanese tsunami of March 2011, has prompted a critical re-appraisal of nuclear power. The responses to Fukushima are assessed for the UK, Germany, and Japan. Before the accident, all three countries considered nuclear as playing a significant part in climate mitigation strategies. Although the UK Government has continued to support nuclear new build following a prompt review of safety arrangements, Japan and Germany have decided to phase out nuclear power, albeit according to different timescales. The factors that explain the different decisions are examined, including patterns of energy demand and supply, the wider political context, institutional arrangements, and public attitudes to risk. The implications for the international climate negotiations are also assessed.

Description: The Sino-German project "Low Carbon Future Cities" (LCFC) aims to develop a low carbon strategy for its Chinese pilot city Wuxi. The strategy primarily focuses on carbon mitigation, but also considers links with the issues of resource efficiency and adaption to climate change. This report written by Daniel Vallentin, Carmen Dienst and Chun Xia offers strategic examples of good practice and makes recommendations to Wuxi city government about the changes that key sectors can adopt in order to comply with its low carbon targets. The recommendations are based on scientific analyses which were undertaken earlier in the LCFC project.

Description: Aufgabenstellung des "Folgeprojekts CCS-Kommunikation" war es, die Bedeutung unterschiedlicher Einflussfaktoren und deren Wechselwirkungen für die Akzeptanz mit Hilfe multivariater statistischer Analysen zu untersuchen. Dabei standen folgende zentrale Fragestellungen im Mittelpunkt der Untersuchungen: Welche Faktoren sind ausschlaggebend für die 1. spontane Einstellung zu CCS? 2. Stabilität spontaner Einstellungen zu CCS? 3. Risiko- und Nutzeneinschätzungen von CCS? 4. Akzeptanz der drei CCS-Prozessschritte? Diese Fragestellungen wurden mit unterschiedlichen multivariaten statistischen Verfahren und differenziert für unterschiedliche Ebenen oder Sachverhalte untersucht.