Description: The goal of this dissertation is to facilitate the assessment of impacts from sustainable measures and projects with an emphasis on impact reporting for Green, Social or Sustainability Bonds in the Sustainable Finance market. It does so by providing analysts with the means to develop, depict, formulate, and assess a causal hypothesis between an intervention and its subsequent effects in an impact-chain, represented by desired environmental (E), social (S) or governance (G) changes. This is achieved by developing a methodology for so-called ESG Logic Models or ESG-LM, that combine heuristic Theories-of-Change with propositional logic and Bayesian Reasoning. Three research questions are investigated and responded to. Research Question 1 asks how such Theories-of-Change can be developed for any type of ESG-related issue and how the different process steps in a causal chain can be classified, hierarchised, and prioritised regarding their efficacy towards overarching sustainability goals and their plausibility. Research Question 2 studies (a) the means by which the analyst or any other interested third party might be warranted in believing the causal claims from an ESG-LM, and (b) how an ESG-LM can be improved if this credence is low. Research Question 3 then looks at the reporting of impacts themselves regarding indicator selection, indicator assessment and indicator quantification as well as the provision of information on the contributions and attributions by different actors. The dissertation draws on a variety of theories and adapts existing methods to achieve that. It operationalises concepts from empirical Sustainable Finance research and already existing impact assessment methodologies. It adapts scholarly and practitioner approaches for theory-based evaluation and applies a qualitative social science perspective towards theory-building and evaluation, while some of the assessment tools in the dissertation are grounded in Logic, Set Theory and Bayesian Epistemology. Examples for such tools include rules for the Attribution by actors, heuristics for the abduction of plausible outcome pathways, or a four-stage Argument and Decision-Tree to assess the credibility of ESG-LM claims (based on Bayes Theorem). My assessment of the entire methodology is positive overall, as it provides solutions to each of the three research areas. Limitations of the approach, and thus opportunities for further research, are the additional expertise and time required by analysts compared to the existing, and somewhat more pragmatic, solutions in the current market. However, this is outweighed in my opinion by the ability of the framework to strongly mitigate impact washing by actors in the financial markets as well as biases by analysts. Its overall methodology also provides opportunities for new research angles in the area of sustainability indicators and assessments.

Description: Two thirds of today's world trade is based on global value chains and supply networks. Purely regional supply chains have become less important in recent decades. The effects of these globalised structures are manifold. On the one hand, they promote employment and generate prosperity. On the other hand, they are beset by extreme social, ecological and economic imbalances. The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the fragility of existing supply chain systems. The lockdown continues to disrupt complex supply chains and many problems of existing production and consumption continue to worsen. COVID-19 is one example of the crises that can shake globally networked supply chains in the short term. Other crises, such as climate change, develop more insidiously and are less immediately recognisable. Different as they are, such crises have one thing in common: they highlight the vulnerability of global social and economic structures and illustrate the impact of global trade on the regions and people of the world. This is precisely where global sustainability strategy comes in - it aims to fundamentally reduce differences and inequalities in opportunities and quality of life. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced the entire world into upheaval, creating an opportunity to make sustainability a central political resilience strategy. In the wake of the Corona pandemic, the discussion about resilient communities has flared up. In order to guarantee supply in the face of such crises, these should be more strongly regional and circular in their economic approach and global and sustainable in their perspective. The aim should be sustainable, transparent, non-exploitative supply chains that guarantee the security of supply to cover basic needs and public services despite sudden changes and crises. This discussion paper draws a future scenario of globally cooperative, circular regional economies that fundamentally reduce global inequalities in opportunities and quality of life, while at the same time permanently preserving the natural foundations of life.

Description: The project "Plastic Credits - Financing the Transition to the Global Circular Economy" supports the implementation of a waste management structure in India's rural regions. By that it aims to improve the current waste collection and treatment structures in the pilot regions Goa, Maharashtra, and Kerala. Herein, the project focuses on low value plastics (LVP), and especially multi-layer plastics (MLP), that have no market value. In order to analyze the environmental impacts of the project, an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) was conducted. The considered environmental components comprise: greenhouse gas emissions, usage of primary resources, impacts on marine and terrestrial wildlife, standard of living, and economic costs.

Description: Energy performance contracting (EPC) as a market instrument has been effective in promoting energy efficiency worldwide, but it has encountered many insurmountable obstacles in rural energy management. In this study, based on the characteristics of energy management in rural areas, three EPC modes are designed and tested in 24,000 rural households. The test results show that two adapted EPC modes of local government involvement and energy payment directly from the national grid can effectively overcome the barriers encountered in the traditional EPC modes and work well under the economic and social environmental conditions in rural areas. The key to the adaptation of the traditional EPC modes is the introduction of the local government as the third party. Participation of the third party can effectively reduce and remove the barriers and risks and increase the mutual trust between the clients (households) and the energy service companies (ESCOs). Based on the testing results, this study suggests that governmental departments should formulate relevant EPC policies and technical guidelines within the rural context. This research recommends that farmers should not manage their energy services by themselves and it is suggested to out-contracting ESCOs by applying the modes developed and tested by this paper.

Description: Transnational corporations' (TNCs) economic operations cover numerous countries and can be diverted between several continents. These units have reached a level of significance, having not only economic, but also social and environmental implications. This justifies that they shall be treated separately as a social phenomenon, when considering strategies for the development towards sustainability. This paper presents the concept of Responsible Corporate Governance (RCG), as a strategy to "govern" TNCs. RCG is suggested as a stakeholder based policy instrument, which aims at allocating responsibilities to societal actors aiming at corporate accountability. RCG recognises that the process of societal change is strongly based on what can be called as bottom up-processes. Learning processes take place through the interaction of the different societal members, which eventually leads to macro changes. Therefore, governing TNCs towards sustainability improvements is considered to be a collective process including all stakeholders. Firstly, the paper places the concept of RCG in the ongoing debate of political modernization based on the fact that society develops overtime and the political system must correspondingly modernize. In this context, political overload developed as a consequence of increased resource interdependencies is explained and as a resolution, network approach is discussed. Secondly, demands on the orientation of the TNCs in terms of accountability and innovative action are brought forward. Here, the paper also lists down corporate elements (stakeholder empowered corporate governance, management and performance evaluation systems, transparency enhancement and accountability verification), which need to be in place to attain an accountable orientation in the society. Following, using an analytical framework, the orientation and capabilities of each societal actor (environmental non-governmental organisations, financial institutions, intergovernmental organisations) to affect improvements in the corporate responsibility elements are investigated and recommendations for their effective orientation are listed.

Description: Although small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) contribute considerably to Germany's carbon emissions, regional savings and cooperative banks - SMEs' most important financiers - hardly consider this aspect in lending to these businesses. However, given Germany's commitment to climate neutrality by 2045, suitable approaches for injecting climate finance into these SME lending processes are greatly required. Against this background, the paper at hand aims to introduce the specific case of regional banks into the debate on green finance and green banking and suggest future research in this context. In discussing the state of research on the peculiarities of regional savings and cooperative banks, we outline the resulting opportunities and limitations for climate impact assessments in SME lending. We argue that while the dual bottom-line orientation of regional banks in Germany precludes them from applying simple positive or negative screenings, their in-depth knowledge about local clients and circumstances enables them to be active and engaging partners for the green transformation of SMEs. Nonetheless, we explain why developing solutions to utilise this knowledge for climate finance by integrating climate impact assessments into routine lending processes remains a particularly challenging task.

Description: The paper sketches out a theoretical framework for analysing the interplay between eco-efficiency, cognition and institutions. It derives from analytical shortfalls of the prevailing literature, which features strongly engineering and business economics, by using insights from New Institutional Economics, from Cognitive Science and, partly, from Evolutionary Economics. It emphasises the role cognition and institutions play in the adoption of "green" technologies by firms. A cognitive perspective derives from recent research on simple heuristics and context-based rationality; it is proposed that those findings can serve to analyse decision-making of individual actors respectively firms and, thus, should complement economic analysis. A second proposition is that eco-efficiency and normative rules such as a Factor Four strongly rely upon institutions, i.e. the ability of institutions to evolve over time and the development of those institutions that are most appropriate to enhance technological change. In this regard, business institutions and competition are crucial, but regulatory needs remain in order to safeguard continuity of knowledge creation. The framework allows for an analysis why overall adoption of eco-efficiency still can be considered relatively slow and why some markets and firms are far ahead. As a brief case study the article reflects upon German waste law's ability to enhance eco-efficiency.

Description: The paper sketches out a theoretical framework for analysing the interplay between eco-efficiency, cognition and institutions. It derives from analytical shortfalls of the prevailing literature, which features strongly engineering and business economics, by using insights from New Institutional Economics, from Cognitive Sciences and, partly, from Evolutionary Economics. It emphasises the role cognition and institutions play in the adoption of "green" technologies by firms. A cognitive perspective derives from recent research on simple heuristics and context-based rationality; it is proposed that those recent findings can serve to analyse decision-making of individual actors or firms and, thus, should complement economic analysis. A second proposition is that eco-efficiency and normative rules such as a Factor Four strongly rely upon institutions, i.e. the ability of institutions to evolve over time and the development of those institutions that are most appropriate to enhance technological change. In this regard, business institutions and competition are crucial, but regulatory needs remain in order to safeguard continuity of knowledge creation. The framework allows for an analysis why overall adoption of eco-efficiency still can be considered relatively slow and why some markets and firms are far ahead. As a brief case study the article reflects upon German waste law’s ability to enhance eco-efficiency.

Description: The transition to a greener and more circular economy has been a European policy priority for several years. The Circular Economy Action Plan of 2020 underlines the ambition. The following EEA initiatives are meant to support the transition process: - Bellagio Process on circular economy monitoring principles (EPA network); - Enhancement of EEA indicators on circular economy (ETC/WMGE); - Explorative work on novel data streams (FWC); - Co-creation work - knowledge sharing of monitoring experience (ETC/Eionet). The scope of the present task was to report on the co-creation process that was undertaken at the end of 2020. The co-creation process was organised to identify: (i) best practices on monitoring strategies, data sources and target setting; and (ii) areas of circularity measuring and monitoring that remain challenging and require additional investment. The co-creation process partially built on the work done during the Bellagio Process/Initiative which was run in parallel. This ETC report presents and documents the evidence gathered throughout the co- creation process as well as providing a retrospective analysis of the links to the Bellagio Principles.

Description: An increasing number of publications about theoretical approaches and new findings illustrate the relevance of the topic environmental risk assessment. The actual discussion about high oil prices is not incorporated under this headline; but it should be, as natural resource scarcity is a crucial economic factor. In practical experience, more and more banks, insurance companies as well as investors realize that there are certain areas with a high correlation between sustainable development and corporate success, corporate risk exposure and corporate performance. In this discussion one of the most obvious topics are risks related to climate change. According to the findings of surveys evaluated in this paper climate change starts to affect economic development and companies' performance in various ways. Over the next decade, economic losses due to climate change are estimated by US$ 150 billion per year. As result world's business leaders have described climate change as the biggest challenge of the 21st century. Hence, the incorporation of climate change as a risk factor is essential, but risks related to climate change feature a severe issue of complex structure and uncertainty; traditional risk assessment tools appear in the light of not being able to either reflect the multifaceted system nor provide sufficient outcomes. Environmental risk assessments in general so far have mainly emphasized - if at all - on actual and possible impacts of the release of materials or emissions (external effects). But an overall sustainable risk assessment has also to take into account the risks related to the inflow of materials. The main reason for neglecting the inflow risks from an environmental perspective can be seen in the fact that these risks seem to be less tangible and more uncertain. Nevertheless, in a world where economic development and the use of natural resources is not uncoupled yet, a steadily increasing economic power will result in a continually rising extraction of resources. As all resources are limited, the risk of scarcity will rise; and the example of water illustrates that it already exists. Indeed, scarcity is not tangible for all kind of resources from a present point of view. Hence, a specified analysis is needed considering different market and supply conditions. A comprehensive analysis of environmental risks needs to encompass risks affecting the output as well as the input side of a value chain. This paper enlarges the discussion on environmental risk assessments upon the input dimension using the example of carbon risks. Firstly, carbon risks are defined as risks related to climate change at the corporate level with a focus on the input as well as the output dimension. Secondly, an analysis of the current discussion on the topic of carbon risk evaluates the status quo of scientific work in this field. Thirdly, in terms of developing a practically oriented tool, the Value-at-Risk approach and it's application to measure input oriented carbon risks are scrutinized. The results discuss how future volatility and market prices can be utilized to describe the uncertainty resulting from markets acknowledging and pricing oil scarcity as a risk factor. Finally recommendations with a focus on strategic management decisions and financial performance analysis are given and further research opportunities are drawn. The conclusion is; once markets have acknowledged the depletion mid-point as a measure of oil scarcity, natural scarcity will result in a significant higher Value-at-Risk. The Value-at-Risk of one barrel of crude oil could then be as high as US$ 15.5 in the short term and even US$ 17.2 in the long term. The scope of this paper is neither intended to predict one likely development nor to demonstrate how this tool can actually work in terms of forecasting single companies' performance. But in order to point the way ahead, this paper provides scenarios for potential future developments and sets a frame for risk assessments due to oil scarcity.