The circular packaging design guideline and holistic sustainability assessment in circular economy
The FH Campus Wien Circular Packaging Design Guideline provide recommendations for circular design for the whole supply chain. Circular design is a necessary prerequisite to achieve the goals of the European Circular Economy Package which requires full recyclability of packaging by 2030. Circular packaging should re-duce resource consumption and environmental impacts of packaging. The assessment of packaging sustainability requires the calculation of direct and indirect environmental impacts and circularity at the same time. A method for holistic sustainability assessment of packaging has been proposed by FH Campus Wien and developed in an ECR-working group (Efficient Consumer Response) with the participation of a number of companies along the whole supply chain (brand owners, retailers, packaging manufacturers and packaging systems).
Circular economy from an SDG perspective: A multi-stakeholder process for developing policy options
Based on a longitudinal case study (the UniNEtZ project in Austria), which includes a multi-stakeholder involvement, we investigate the process of developing CE policies for the Austrian Federal Government from an SDG perspective. Within this context, the main research question is how multi-stakeholder processes can enable the development of CE policy options. The study thus contributes to providing a structured approach of how different stake-holders from academia, industry, research funding agencies and government collaborate, how knowledge is created and transferred within this multi-stakeholder process, and what outputs, outcomes and impacts can be realized at the national level in the context of developing CE policies using an SDG framework.
Reporting of food waste in the EU – Results of current estimates in Germany
In February 2019, the German Federal Cabinet adopted the 'National Strategy for Reducing Food Waste', setting a framework for the future direction of this initiative. Among other things, it stipulated that an inter-ministerial "Indicator 12.3 Working Group" should prepare the data bases and methods for nationwide balancing of food waste generation (baseline). Based on existing 2015 data, this status quo analysis will be used as a starting point to agree on milestones for the respective sectors.
Private Party Standing and EU Risk Regulation
Standing determines a person's ability to obtain judicial review of a legal act by the government. Judicial review of EU measures, including risk regulatory measures, is an important device to ensure that the rule of law is respected. Even after the changes brought about by the Lisbon Treaty, private parties still have limited standing rights under EU law to challenge EU risk regulations.While they are able to challenge "decisions" addressed to them (or, in some cases, addressed to others), they generally have been unable to claim standing at the European courts to seek reviewof generally binding rules. These restricted standing rights for private parties have been the subject of debate and criticism, both before and after the changes brought about by the Lisbon Treaty.
The Market for Mechanical Biological Waste Treatment Plants in Europe
Both the number and capacities of mechanical biological treatment plants (MBT plants) have increased significantly in the past years. In late 2015, about 490 MBT plants were active in Europe, reaching a disposal capacity of circa 47 million annual tons. However, despite its steady growth, the MBT market showed volatility. The market development peaked in 2005/2006, with the commissioning of about 80 plants with a capacity of circa 9 million annual tons. In 2015, about 13 new facilities with a capacity of around 2.2 million annual tons went online. The MBT market has also shifted geographically, because the European countries have started implementing the EU Landfill Directive in different years. After MBT plants had mainly been constructed in Southern Europe, Germany and Austria before 2006, investments shifted towards the UK and more recently, towards Eastern Europe. In the coming years, an ambivalent development is expected. Whereas further MBT plants will be constructed in countries still sending large shares of their MSW to landfills, MBT technology will experience increasing pressure in the countries with low landfilling shares.
Refuse Derived Fuel – A European Market Heading for Overcapacity
During the last five years, the residual waste market has been transformed from one whose geography was largely defined by a country's borders to one that has become truly European in nature. Increasing, and now significant, tonnages of refuse derived fuel (RDF) and solid recovered fuel (SRF) are moving across national boundaries. In the UK, for example, the export of RDF and SRF has grown from 250,000 tonnes per annum (tpa) in 2011 to 3.4 million tpa in 2015.
What the TTIP Leaks Mean for the On-going Negotiations and Future Agreement?
Time to Overcome TTIP's many Informational Asymmetries
Evaluation of the Paris Climate Agreement According to a Global Standard of Transparency
The legal analysis of the COP 21, its results and prospects they open proposed in this paper is done according to a standard of transparency, in the context of a complex governance, that the theory of global administrative law aims to better understand. This assessment shows that the balance between transparency and opacity, intelligibility, effectiveness or Efficiency is both delicate to establish and unstable. If the way the cursor was positioned under the Paris Agreement may seem unsatisfactory, it must not be forgotten that it is intended to evolve.