Open Access

Wiederverwendung (WV) von Erzeugnissen ist als Ansatz hinsichtlich der Ressourcenschonung zu verstehen. Durch Verwertungsmaßnahmen mit dieser Zielsetzung - Vorbereitung zur Wiederverwendung (VWV) - kann man bewirken, dass einst als Abfall eingestufte Erzeugnisse ihre ursprüngliche Funktion wieder erfüllen, so dass im Prinzip weniger Ressourcen für die Bereitstellung von neuen Produkten beansprucht werden müs-sen. Zumindest theoretisch wäre es dann möglich, nachhaltige Entwicklung mit Wirtschaftswachstum zu vereinbaren. Aus diesem Potenzial ergibt sich die hohe Stellung sowohl von WV als auch von VWV in der so-genannten Abfallhierarchie. Nichtsdestotrotz zeigt die Realität, dass die Umsetzungsmöglichkeiten von WV bzw. VWV bescheiden sind. Auf die Ursachen und Folgen dieses Phänomens geht dieser Aufsatz ein. Schlüsselwörter: Wiederverwendung, Abfallhierarchie, Effizienz, Suffizienz, Konsum-entenverhalten, Ressourcenschutz, Nachhaltigkeit, Kreislaufwirtschaft

The world currently faces important issues concerning climate change and environmental sustainability, with the wellbeing of billions of people around the world at risk over the next decades. Existing institutions no longer appear to be sufficiently capable to deal with the complexity and uncertainty associated with the wicked problem of sustainability. Achieving the required sustainability transformation will thus require purposeful reform of existing institutional frameworks. However, existing research on the governance of sustainability of sustainability transformations has strongly focused on innovation and the more ‘creative’ aspects of these processes, blinding our view to the fact that they go hand with the failure, decline or dismantling of institutions that are no longer considered functional or desirable. This doctoral dissertation thus seeks to better understand how institutional failure and decline can contribute productively to sustainability transformations and how such dynamics in institutional arrangements can serve to restructure existing institutional systems. A systematic review of the conceptual literature served to provide a concise synthesis of the research on ‘failure’ and ‘decline’ in the institutional literature, providing important first insights into their potentially productive functions. This was followed up by an archetype analysis of the productive functions of failure and decline, drawing on a wide range of literatures. This research identified five archetypical pathways: (1) crises triggering institutional adaptations toward sustainability, (2) systematic learning from failure and breakdown, (3) the purposeful destabilisation of unsustainable institutions, (4) making a virtue of inevitable decline, and (5) active and reflective decision making in the face of decline instead of leaving it to chance. Empirical case studies looking at the German energy transition and efforts to phase out coal in the Powering Past Coal Alliance served to provide more insights on (a) how to effectively harness ‘windows of opportunity’ for change, and (b) the governance mechanisms used by governments to actively remove institutions. Results indicate that the lock-in of existing technologies, regulations and practices can throw up important obstacles for sustainability transformations. The intentional or unintentional destabilisation of the status quo may thus be required to enable healthy renewal within a system. This process required active and reflective management to avoid the irreversible loss of desirable institutional elements. Instruments such as ‘sunset clauses’ and ‘experimental legislation’ may serve as important tools to learn through ‘trial and error’, whilst limiting the possible damage done by failure. Focusing on the subject of scale, this analysis finds that the level at which failure occurs is likely to determine the degree of change that can be achieved. Failures at the policy-level are most likely to merely lead to changes to the tools and instruments used by policy makers. This research thus suggests that failures on the polity- and political level may be required to achieve transformative changes to existing power structures, belief-systems and paradigms. Finally, this research briefly touches on the role of actor and agency in the governance of sustainabilitytransformations through failure and decline. It finds that actors may play an important role in causing a system or one of its elements to fail and in shaping the way events are come to be perceived. Drawing on the findings of this research, this dissertation suggests a number of lessons policy makers and others seeking to revisit existing institutional arrangements may want to take into account. Actors should be prepared to harness the potential associated with failure and decline, preserve those institutional elements considered important, and take care to manage the tension between the need for ‘quick fixes’ to currently pressing problems and solution that maintain and protect the longterm sustainability of a system.

In response to the challenges of the energy transition, the German electricity network is subjected to a process of substantial transformation. Considering the long latency periods and lifetimes of electricity grid infrastructure projects, it is more cost-efficient to combine this need for transformation with the need to adapt the grid to future climate conditions. This study proposes the spatially varying risk of electricity grid outages as a guiding principle to determine optimal levels of security of electricity supply. Therefore, not only projections of future changes in the likelihood of impacts on the grid infrastructure were analyzed, but also the monetary consequences of an interruption. Since the windthrow of trees was identified a major source for atmospherically induced grid outages, a windthrow index was developed, to regionally assess the climatic conditions for windthrow. Further, a concept referred to as Value of Lost Grid was proposed to quantify the impacts related to interruptions of the distribution grid. In combination, the two approaches enabled to identify grid entities, which are of comparably high economic value and subjected to a comparably high likelihood of windthrow under future climate conditions. These are primarily located in the mid-range mountain areas of North-Rhine Westphalia, Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria. In comparison to other areas of less risk, the higher risk in these areas should be reflected in comparably more resilient network structures, such as buried lines instead of overheadlines, or more comprehensive efforts to prevent grid interruptions, such as structural reinforcements of pylons or improved vegetation management along the power lines. In addition, the outcomes provide the basis for a selection of regions which should be subjected to a more regionally focused analysis inquiring spatial differences (with respect to the identified coincidence of high windthrow likelihoods and high economic importance of the grid) among individual power lines or sections of a distribution network.

Global climate change and environmental degradation are largely caused by human activity, thus progress towards a sustainable future will require large-scale changes to human behavior. Human-nature connectedness—a measure of cognitive, emotional, spiritual and biophysical linkages to natural places—has been identified as a positive predictor of sustainability attitudes and behaviors. While calls to ‘reconnect to nature’ in order to foster sustainability outcomes have become common across science, policy and practice, there remains a great deal of uncertainty, speculation, and conceptual vagueness around how this ought to be implemented. The overarching aim of this thesis is to advance conceptual and empirical understandings of human-nature connectedness as a leverage point for proenvironmental outcomes and sustainability transformation. In particular, the thesis attempts to assess the nuances of the HNC-PEB relationship by investigating the scalar relationships between where someone feels connected to nature and where someone acts proenvironmentally. This research was conducted through conceptual exploration (Chapters II, III, IV, and VI), systematic literature reviews (Chapter I and V) using hierarchical cluster analysis, and empirical case studies (Chapters VII and VIII) relying on structural equation modeling and two-step cluster analysis. In this thesis, the relationship between humannature connectedness and pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors was investigated in a small microregion of Transylvania, Romania, where traditional relationships with the land and changing socio-economic characteristics provided an interesting case study in which to explore these connections. The key findings can be organized into three sections: Section A, which addresses human-nature connectedness and its potential for sustainability transformation; Section B, which addresses human-nature connectedness as a determinant of pro-environmental behavioral outcomes, and Section C, which explores the relationships between human-nature connectedness and energy conservation norms, attitudes, and behaviors. Results cumulatively suggest that human-nature connectedness is a multidimensional construct that requires greater integration across heterogeneous disciplinary and methodological boundaries in order to reach its potential for meaningful sustainability transformation. Results also highlight the critical need to adopt systemic approaches to understanding how interactions between human-nature connections, norms, attitudes, and behaviors are hindering or promoting sustainability outcomes. This thesis makes two main contributions to the literature: first, it considers the human-nature connectedness and pro-environmental behavior literature within a systems-thinking and VI sustainability transformation lens; and second, it extends the human-nature connectedness and pro-environmental behavior literature by investigating the multidimensional aspects of these constructs. Overall, these insights point to the deep leverage potential of humannature connectedness when conceptualized and operationalized as a multidimensional construct.

The image of the solitary scientist is receding. Increasingly, researchers are expected to work in collaborative interdisciplinary teams to tackle more complex and interrelated problems. However, the prospect of collaborating with others, from different disciplines, exerts countervailing forces on researchers. There is the lure of transcending the limitations of one’s own knowledge, methods and conventions, belonging to diverse intellectual communities and tackling, together, ambitious research topics. On the other hand, there is the risk that collaborating across disciplinary boundaries will be taxing, confounding at times, with no guarantee of success. In short, interdisciplinary collaboration is both a desirable and difficult way to conduct research. This thesis is about collaborative interdisciplinary research from the perspective of a formative accompanying researcher. I accompanied an interdisciplinary research team in the field of sustainability over three years for the duration of a collaborative project. Formative accompanying research (FAR) is an approach to ‘research into research’ that learns about, with and for a collaborative interdisciplinary team. I found – through immersion in the literature, my own daily experiences of collaborating, and my observations – that interdisciplinary collaboration is very difficult. It requires a basic understanding and appreciation of other disciplines and methods, as well as the skills to integrate research inquiries and findings across diverse epistemologies. It also requires awareness that collaborative interdisciplinary research is more than an intellectual task of knowledge creation. Other factors matter, such as interpersonal relationships, power differentials, different research tempos and a sense of belonging. And these factors have an impact on processes and outcomes of collaborative knowledge creation. Knowing this implies a willingness to keep learning and to tolerate discomfort so as to cultivate deeper levels of collaborative capacity. I discovered that in these deeper levels lie skills for staying with inevitable tensions, for talking and listening to generate new understanding together, and for applying a researcher’s frank curiosity to oneself too. A formative accompanying researcher, who is part of the team she is researching, has to navigate delicate terrain. In this thesis, I develop a FAR methodology that takes seriously the questions of positionality and relationality, and reflect on the experiences of putting these into practice. A FAR practice involves remaining in dynamic movement between observing and participating, between exercising curiosity and care, and between the researchers’ own sense of impartiality and investment in relation to the issues at hand. There is merit in furthering the methodology and practice of FAR on its own terms. This includes attending to the skills required by a formative accompanying researcher to remain oriented within the concentric circles of research, relationship and loyalty that make up a collaborative team. There is also the question of how FAR, and other forms of research into research, can help to advance collaborative interdisciplinary research. I argue for creating the conditions in research teams that would enable treating collaboration as a capacity to develop, and that would facilitate team members’ receptivity to learning with FAR. Furthermore, I explore dilemmas of intervening as a formative accompanying researcher and of sustaining dynamic positionality over the long-term. In the field of sustainability research, and in multiple other research fields, the future is a collaborative one. This thesis is concerned with how to collaborate so that the experience and the outcomes lend themselves to what Rabinow terms a “flourishing existence”.