Filtern
Erscheinungsjahr
Dokumenttyp
- Dissertation (92)
- Bachelorarbeit (7)
- Masterarbeit (6)
- Habilitation (1)
Sprache
- Englisch (106) (entfernen)
Schlagworte
- Nachhaltigkeit (12)
- Sustainability (5)
- Transformation (4)
- Governance (3)
- Steuerungsprozesse (3)
- Agriculture (2)
- Biodegradability (2)
- Biodiversität (2)
- Biologische Abbaubarkeit (2)
- Energiepolitik (2)
- Energiewende (2)
- Energy Policy (2)
- Ethiopia (2)
- Landwirtschaft (2)
- Nachhaltige Entwicklung (2)
- Sediment (2)
- Äthiopien (2)
- Ökosystem (2)
- Abwasseranalyse (1)
- Abwassermarkierungsstoffe (1)
- Afghanistan (1)
- Agrarwirtschaft (1)
- Anden (1)
- Antibiotikum (1)
- Arzneimittel (1)
- Baum (1)
- Bees (1)
- Bienen (1)
- Biochar (1)
- Biodiversity (1)
- Biomass burning (1)
- Cargo Bike (1)
- Circular Economy (1)
- Citizen Science (1)
- Climate Simulation (1)
- Coastel environment (1)
- Collaborative Initiative (1)
- Data Mining (1)
- Deutschland (1)
- Discourse Studies (1)
- Disease Resistance (1)
- Dorf (1)
- EU Water Framework Directive (1)
- Ecosystem services (1)
- Ecuador (1)
- Elektrifizierung (1)
- Energie (1)
- Energy Transition (1)
- Entrepreneurship (1)
- Entwicklung (1)
- Environmental Communication (1)
- Environmental governance (1)
- Erneuerbare Energien (1)
- Ernährungslage (1)
- European Union (1)
- Europäische Union (1)
- Food Security (1)
- Forschungsevaluation (1)
- Gemeinwohl (1)
- Gewässer (1)
- Gewässerbelastung (1)
- Graslandschaft (1)
- Grundschüler (1)
- Harz (1)
- Holocene (1)
- Ili Delta (1)
- Immunity (1)
- Indien (1)
- Institutional Change (1)
- Institutioneller Wandel (1)
- Internationale Organisation (1)
- Internationaler Vergleich (1)
- Jordan (1)
- Kasachstan (1)
- Kleinbauer (1)
- Kleinkredit (1)
- Klimamodell (1)
- Klimasimulation (1)
- Kollaborative Initiative (1)
- Konsum (1)
- Kostenverteilung (1)
- Krankheitsresistenz (1)
- Kreislaufwirtschaft (1)
- Kulturlandschaft (1)
- Käfer (1)
- Küstengebiet (1)
- Lastenfahrrad (1)
- Lebensmittelproduktion (1)
- Lebensraum (1)
- Lebensunterhalt (1)
- Ländlicher Raum (1)
- Management (1)
- Natürliche Ressourcen (1)
- Neoinstitutionalismus (1)
- Nichtstaatliche Organisation (1)
- Niederschlag (1)
- Non-Governmental Organisation (1)
- Nordseeküste (1)
- Ozonisierung (1)
- Ozonungsprodukte (1)
- Palaeoclimate (1)
- Paläoklima (1)
- Participation (1)
- Partizipation (1)
- Peru (1)
- Pestizid (1)
- Pflanzen (1)
- Pleistozän (1)
- Precipitation (1)
- Produktivität (1)
- Quartär (1)
- Quaternary (1)
- Renaturierung <Ökologie> (1)
- Renewable Energies (1)
- Research Evaluation (1)
- Resin (1)
- Restoration <Ecology> (1)
- Samen (1)
- Schlüsselkompetenz (1)
- Smartphone (1)
- Software (1)
- Soil quality (1)
- Soziales System (1)
- Stadtverkehr (1)
- Sustainability Research (1)
- Sustainable Development Goals (1)
- Süßstoff (1)
- Tourismus (1)
- Transaction Cost Theory (1)
- Transaktionskosten (1)
- Transdisciplinarity (1)
- Transition Management (1)
- Transitionsmanagement (1)
- Trinkwasser (1)
- Umweltbelastung (1)
- Umweltbildung (1)
- Umweltkommunikation (1)
- Umweltverträglichkeit (1)
- Unternehmen (1)
- Urban Mobility (1)
- Vereinigte Staaten (1)
- Vereinte Nationen (1)
- Verhalten (1)
- Verwaltung (1)
- Vögel (1)
- Wald (1)
- Waschmittel (1)
- Wassermangel (1)
- Wasserqualität (1)
- Wasserverschmutzung (1)
- Water Pollution (1)
- Water Quality (1)
- Wissensmanagement (1)
- cultural landscape (1)
- knowledge management (1)
- ozonation products (1)
- social-ecological systems (1)
- wastewater tracers (1)
- water resources management (1)
- Ökologie (1)
- Ökosystemmanagement (1)
Institut
- Fakultät Nachhaltigkeit (106) (entfernen)
European species-rich grasslands are threatened both by land use intensification as well as land abandonment. The studies shown in this thesis tested the possible use of ecological knowledge to ensure hay productivity whilst maintaining diversity of grasslands, with a view to informing ecological restoration. The overall approach was to understand interactions between plants, to study diversity effects on productivity, and mainly investigate how plant functional groups that arrive first in the system can create priority effects that influence community productivity both above- and belowground. A grassland field experiment was established and monitored for four years, in order to verify the effects of manipulating the order of arrival of different plant functional groups, as well as the sown diversity level on productivity and methane yield. The overall findings were: a) sowing legumes first created priority effects aboveground (higher biomass) and belowground (lower root length), plants invested less in roots and more in shoots, b) priority effects were more consistent below than aboveground, c) sown diversity did not affect aboveground biomass, d) the order of arrival treatments indirectly affected methane yield by affecting the relative dominance of plant functional groups. Since the researchers lack information on how legumes and non-legumes interact spatially belowground, (particularly related to root foraging) a controlled experiment was performed, using two grass species and one legume. The identity and location of the neighbours played a role in interactions, and the order plants arrived modulated it. When the focal species (grass) was growing with a legume it generally equated to the same outcome as not having a neighbour. Roots from the focal species grew more toward the legume than the grass neighbour, indicating a spatial component of facilitation. Since these studies involved root measurements, a method study was also conducted to verify how comparable and accurate are root length estimates obtained from different techniques. Results showed that the use of different methods can lead to different results, the studied methods did not have the same accuracy, and the automated methods can underestimate the root length. Overall, the results allow to conclude that different groups of plants arriving before others affected above and belowground biomass, roots may be key drivers during the creation of these priority effects, and interaction outcomes between plants depended on neighbour identity and location, modulated by the order they arrive in. The results suggest that priority effects can be used by sowing different species or plant functional groups at different time to steer a community to a desired trajectory depending on the restoration goal. However, there is a need to test contingency, potential, and long term impacts of such possible tools for restoration.
Metals fulfill crucial functions in areas as diverse as renewable energy, digitization and life style appliances, mobility, communication, or medicine. In the context of sustainability, achieving a more sustainable metal use means (i) minimizing the adverse effects associated with metal production and use and (ii) sustaining the availability of metals in a way that benefits present and future generations. Urgent need to act to avoid bottlenecks as well as meeting the challenge of possible conflicts of use among those areas of application calls for appropriate strategy making to intervene in the complex field of metal production and use that involves various, often interlinked operating levels, actors, and spatial and temporal scales. This dissertation focuses on strategies as a means to intervene in a system. It pursues the question, which design features could guide future strategy making to foster sustainability along the whole metal life cycle, and especially, how a better understanding of temporalities, i.e. understanding time in a diverse sense, could improve strategy design and help to bridge the assumed "transformation-material gap". This research converges the results from four research studies. A conceptual part explores the role of temporalities for interventions in complex and interlinked systems, which adds to the conceptual basis, on which the empirical part builds up to explore present and future interventions in metal production and use. The research revealed three essential needs that future strategies must tackle: (i) managing the complex interlinkages of processes and activities on various operational levels and spatial and temporal scales, (ii) providing clear guidance concerning the operationalization of sustainability principles, and (iii) keeping activities within the planet’s carrying capacity and embracing constant change as an inherent system characteristic. In response to these needs, the author developed three guidelines with two design features each (one relating to content, and one to the process of formulating and implementing the strategy) to guide future strategy making. The results show that time matters in this respect. If considered in close relation to space and diversely understood in the sense of temporalities, it serves to (i) understand the impact (duration and magnitude) of an intervention, (ii) recognize patterns of change that go beyond establishing linear, one-dimensional connections, and (iii) design interventions in a way that considers the resilience of a system. These findings can contribute to closer considering our understanding of transformation processes towards sustainability in future interventions in metal production and use.
This dissertation addresses the question of how sustainability curricula can be implemented and established in higher education institutions. Universities – as hubs for knowledge generation, innovation, and education – provide a central leverage point for sustainably developing society at large. Therefore, the institutionalization of sustainability curricula is not only socially demanded, but also stipulated in numerous political statements from the international community (e.g., those of the UN and UNESCO) and operationalized via Sustainable Development Goal No. 4: "Quality Education". Previous findings on how such implementation can be successful and what factors support or inhibit the process have come primarily through case studies of individual higher education institutions. These studies have been largely descriptive rather than analytical and leave open questions about the generalizability of their findings. The present dissertation addresses this research gap. Through a meta-study (i.e., an analytical comparison of existing case studies), generalizable findings on the implementation processes of sustainability curricula are explored. In the first step, a case universe was collected in order to provide a database for deeper analyses. In two further analysis steps that built on the case universe from Step 1, certain factors that promote or inhibit the implementation of sustainability curricula (Step 2) and specific implementation patterns (Step 3) were examined. The presented findings add a complementary empirical perspective to the discourse on the establishment of education for sustainable development (ESD) at higher education institutions. First, the case studies that specifically address the implementation processes of sustainability curricula are reviewed and analyzed here for the first time as part of a research landscape. This research landscape reveals where research on such implementation processes has been or is being conducted. On this basis, both researchers and funders can reflect on the status quo and plan further research or funding endeavors. Second, this dissertation offers the opportunity to compare a multitude of individual case studies and thus to develop new and generalizable insights into the implementation of sustainability curricula. The empirical analysis uses 133 case studies to identify key factors that promote or inhibit the implementation of sustainability curricula and to add a complementary perspective to the discourse, which has thus far been dominated by theoretical considerations and individual case studies. The analysis thereby offers a new perspective on generalizable influencing factors that appear to be important across different contexts. Thus far, specific patterns of implementation processes have been infrequently studied, and with few datasets. This dissertation analyzes the complex interplay between over 100 variables and provides one of the first research attempts at better understanding the processes that lead to the deep-rooted and comprehensive implementation of sustainability curricula. Internal and external practitioners of higher education institutions can find examples and evidence that can be useful in planning the next steps of their sustainability curriculum implementation. This dissertation offers generalizable empirical findings on how universities can succeed in recognizing their own responsibility to that end and in realizing this transformation through the implementation of ESD.
Companies are invited to contribute to the United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and sustainability management accounting (SMA) has an important role to play in achieving them. However, if companies are to address the SDGs and linkages beyond organizational boundaries, SMA needs a broader scope than is conventionally assumed. Therefore, the author advances a multi-level framework that addresses context, action-formation, and transformative contributions (CAT) in the following directions: first, an innovative systematic method that allows screening company-related SDGs and assessing corporate contributions to selected SDGs is introduced; second, management control systems are integrated to support managers in guiding employee behavior to make contributions to the SDGs; and, third, self-reinforcing mechanisms of the path-dependence theory are incorporated to serve as a guide to identifying barriers to individuals and groups becoming involved in SMA. This advanced CAT framework contributes to corporate practice and research by providing a multilevel framework that offers concrete management guidance for SMA to address the SDGs. It also facilitates analysis of both enabling and inhibiting factors at the organizational level. The advanced CAT framework has several implications for SMA: it promotes backcasting from the SDGs for benchmarking purposes, integrates different social, environmental, and economic issues, facilitates future-oriented action and transformation planning, addresses different layers such as the company as well as individuals and groups within it and enables to identify barriers hindering individuals and groups from becoming involved in SMA.
Whereas the extant literature discusses what Sustainability-Oriented Innovations (SOIs) are and why firms develop them, little is known about how they are developed. To enable firms to innovate for sustainability, it is essential to know more about the processes underlying SOI development, which are considered as very difficult, with many firms failing. Drawing on several academic papers and relying on qualitative research methods, the thesis uses the Fireworks model to examine how innovation processes unfold at established small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The main contribution of the thesis is to advance the Fireworks model to the context of SOIs unfolding at SMEs. The findings reveal that SOIs unfold in an emergent, somewhat chaotic way, that duration and outcome are uncertain, that the overall journey is composed of multiple intertwined innovation paths, of which several will likely lead to setbacks. To manage this complex process, the thesis suggests to set four management foci: (1) to create a dedicated organizational unit for exploration, (2) to create conditions allowing intelligent learning for efficient exploration, (3) to carry out in-depth investigation of the related technological innovation systems, and (4) to plan carefully the re-integration of the innovation into the core business for commercialization.
Organophosphorus flame retardants and plasticizers (OPEs) have been utilized for decades as plasticizers and, to a lesser extent, as flame retardants in various consumer products to improve their material properties. The research presented in this thesis investigated the occurrence, distribution and transport of OPEs with a focus on the coastal and estuarine environment. Due to the wide range of physicochemical properties of OPEs, the environmental fate and behaviour of OPEs was investigated over a range of compartments, starting from the atmospheric occurrence to the aquatic phase and the behaviour in sediments. The aim was to gather information on the OPE contamination situation in the coastal and estuarine environments, to identify specific contamination patterns for source assessment and to investigate the distribution behaviour of OPEs between gas- and particle-phases to evaluate their environmental transport mechanism. To achieve these scientific goals, sensitive and robust chemical analytical methods for the detection and quantification of OPEs in a variety of environmental samples using gas-chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrometry were developed. Water samples were removed along the Elbe and Rhine Rivers to test the hypothesis of whether specific point sources, such as wastewater treatment plants, are the major input pathways for OPE contamination in rivers. A total of 65 water samples, including an intensive measurement campaign during the flood event in 2013 at the Elbe, was taken and analysed for OPEs. No obvious point sources were identified along either of the rivers analysed. No significant increase or decrease in the OPE concentrations or a change in patterns were observed over a transect of over 300 km at the Elbe, with an increase in water discharge of 2.5. This finding suggested that the OPE input in large rivers is primarily driven by diffuse sources, such as surface runoff, or by minor point sources rather than local point sources. To examine the specific pattern of OPE contamination in individual rivers and estuaries, 37 sediment samples from 8 rivers in Europe and China were analysed. With this analytical data, a fingerprint analysis of the OPE patterns identified could be conducted. All the rivers investigated in Europe displayed a very similar fingerprint. In contrast, the fingerprint from China differed significantly from the one in Europe. For example, in China, the OPE restricted in Europe, Tris(2-chloroethly)phosphate, was found to be one of the major OPE components, while Tris(2-butoxyethyl) phosphate, a major compound in Europe, was negligible in China. The investigation showed that the fingerprinting analysis is a useful tool to identify different regions or characterize specific rivers regarding their OPE contamination. In addition, it could be shown that legislative restriction and processes have an impact on local or even EU-wide contamination patterns. At a coastal site next to the German city of Büsum, 58 air samples were taken over one year. Using the newly developed analytical method, it was possible to analyse the gas, as well as the particle phase, of the samples collected with very low detection limits for OPEs. In contrast to expectations, no annual trend in OPE concentrations, phase distributions or patterns was observed, but the investigation of the phase distribution challenged the previous scientific consensus that OPEs occur as primarily bound to particles in the atmosphere. Several compounds were detected in significant amounts in the gas phase. To validate these novel results, a model analysis based on the chemical properties of OPEs was conducted using three different phase distribution models. The results from the environmental data were strongly supported by the simulations, and the formal knowledge could be refuted. Consequently, the atmospheric transport assumptions and estimations about the long-range transport of OPEs have to be reassessed because compounds in the gas phase undergo other types of transport degradation and elimination mechanisms than particle-boundones. The novel findings presented in this thesis challenged an important aspect regarding the perceived scientific knowledge about the behaviour of OPEs in the environment and call on the scientific community to reassess the environmental behaviour of OPEs. The insights presented on the patterns highlight the impact of environmental policies and regulatory mechanisms to work towards the final goal of a good environmental status and the avoidance of adverse effects of discarded chemicals on humans and the environment.