As the residential buildings sector accounts for around 30 percent of the final energy demand in Germany, this sector is increasingly becoming the focus of public attention with regard to climate change. In this book, decisions on energy consumption by private households are examined. The analyses are based on several empirical methods. The results show that the road to more sustainable energy consumption in residential buildings is not hampered by a lack of will on behalf of the consumers. However one should be realistic that there are many instances where improving thermal institution involves additional economic costs for individual households.

Important progress has been made in recent years in the valuation of social costs of energy and transport. This progress has encouraged the insight that systems of "Green Accounting" considering social costs and policy instruments for the internalization of social costs are necessary tools to realize the worldwide goal of sustainable development. This workshop report provides an excellent survey of the latest results of social costs in the energy and transport sector. Further, the theoretical framework of social costs is extended to a broader concept of sustainable development. Finally, concepts and first experiences of the internalization of social costs e.g. through least cost planning or an ecological tax reform are reviewed.

An empirical analysis of the factors that determine the employment impact of environmental innovations. The multivariate estimations are based on a methodology taking direct and indirect employment effects on the firm level into account. The data are derived from interviews with more than 1500 firms in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the UK specifically conducted for this analysis. In addition to the empirical study based on interviews, case studies from five selected business sectors are used to provide profound insight in the environmental innovation behaviour of the firms.

Fair and efficient pricing has become increasingly important in international environmental and transport policy. Thus the valuation and internalization of social costs is now a crucial element within strategies towards sustainable mobility. The book provides methods and results from major European and American studies evaluating both social costs of transport and first experiences with their internalization in different contexts: infrastructure planning, urban road pricing and highway tolling. Additionally, complementary non-monetary instruments for a transition towards sustainable mobility are presented and discussed.

As the Kyoto conference of the parties on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change once again underscored, man-made climate change has become one of the major challenges to our generation and many generations to come. Since scientific evidence on climate change can be seen as increasingly reliable, the focus of our attention has to turn more and more to the question of foreseeable damages and to possibilities to prevent and mitigate climate change. In other words, we need to analyse the economic aspects of man marle climate change and the policy options to prevent its most severe impacts. This book reports on the findings of an international workshop on these aspects of global climate change. It was organised by the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) in Mannheim, Germany on March 6th and 7th 1997. In the light of the ongoing international policy-making process on climate change, we decided to publish the report after the Kyoto conference from December Ist to 10th, 1997, to include the results of the conference, which emphasise the importance of economic aspects and economic policy options when it comes to addressing the problern of man-made climate change. Thus, this book went to press in February 1998 the moment we received the official version of the Kyoto Protocol, which is reproduced in the annex."

As the residential buildings sector accounts for around 30 percent of the final energy demand in Germany, this sector is increasingly becoming the focus of public attention with regard to climate change. In this book, decisions on energy consumption by private households are examined. The analyses are based on several empirical methods. The results show that the road to more sustainable energy consumption in residential buildings is not hampered by a lack of will on behalf of the consumers. However one should be realistic that there are many instances where improving thermal institution involves additional economic costs for individual households.

Why does one country take the lead over others in the development and introduction of environmental innovations? This book analyzes lead markets for innovations such as fuel cells and photovoltaics, and offers insight into why this is. The authors use case studies to illustrate the policy framework that favors environmental innovation, and offer recommendations for research and development, environmental and industrial policies.

Ein wichtiges Ziel okologischer Modernisierung ist die Verbindung umweltfreundlichen Wirtschaftens mit einer Verbesserung der Wettbewerbsfahigkeit. Zentrale Instrumente in diesem Kontext sind Standards fur Umweltmanagementsysteme, wie beispielsweise das EG-Oko-Audit (EMAS). Wahrend das Kosten-Nutzen-Verhaltnis von EMAS bereits erforscht wurde, sind die Innovations- und Wettbewerbswirkungen bislang noch nicht systematisch untersucht worden. Diese Forschungslucke wird in dieser Studie mit Tiefenfallstudien und einer telefonischen Breitenbefragung geschlossen.

Aus der Studie des ZEW und des IOW lasst sich fur Unternehmen die Handlungsempfehlung ableiten, durch Verzahnung von Umwelt- und Innovationsmanagement ihre Wettbewerbsfahigkeit zu starken. Entscheidend ist die F&E-Abteilung, die an der Weiterentwicklung von EMAS beteiligt werden sollte, um eine starkere Verknupfung zu produktbezogenen und strategischen Fragestellungen zu erreichen."

Integrierte Umweltschutztechniken gewinnen international an Bedeutung, weil von ihnen neben okologischen Vorteilen gleichzeitig auch Impulse fur den Standortwettbewerb und damit den Arbeitsmarkt erwartet werden. Die Studie liefert erstmals empirisch fundierte Aussagen zu den Beschaftigungseffekten integrierter Umweltschutztechnik. Sie stutzt sich auf Fallstudien, eine Breitenerhebung bei Industrieunternehmen inkl. einer telefonischen Zusatzbefragung bei umweltinnovativen Firmen, eine Patentanalyse sowie Modellrechnungen mit einem allgemeinen Gleichgewichtsmodell fur die Europaische Union.
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Als Leitbild der internationalen Umwelt- und Entwicklungspolitik hat sich der Begriff einer nachhaltigen Entwicklung spAtestens seit der Rio-Konferenz 1992 durchgesetzt. Zunehmend wird anerkannt, daA die wirtschaftliche Entwicklung absolute Belastungsgrenzen der Natur berA1/4cksichtigen muA. Dadurch stellt sich die Frage, wie MaAnahmen, die innerhalb eines Konzeptes einer nachhaltigen zukunftsvertrAglichen Entwicklung vorgeschlagen werden, ordnungspolitisch zu bewerten sind. Im ersten Teil wird aus einer ordo-liberalen Perspektive ein allgemeines PrA1/4fraster zur ordnungspolitischen Bewertung umweltpolitischer MaAnahmen entwickelt. Im zweiten Teil wird das PrA1/4fraster auf ein zur Zeit viel und kontrovers diskutiertes umweltpolitisches Instrument - freiwillige Selbstverpflichtung der Wirtschaft - angewendet.