News 2018

In working paper No. 11 entitled “Solidarisch, nachhaltig, beteiligungsgerecht: Weltkirchliche Caritas-Arbeit – Notizen einer Peru-Reise mit Caritas International” (engl.: "Solidary, sustainable, participatory: World Church Caritas Work – Notes on a journey to Peru with Caritas International") Prof. Marianne Heimbach-Steins reports on her time in Peru with Caritas International last December. Ι continue

On Tuesday, 08 January 2019 at 2 pm, ZIN member Prof. Dr. Andreas Löschel, the Chair of Microeconomics with a Focus on Energy and Resource Economics, organizes a guest lecture given by Oliver Geden and titled “Greenhouse Neutrality: The New Priority in Climate Protection”. | continue

On December 7 2018, ZIN junior scholar Carolin Bohn was guest in the radio show "Wissen im Gespräch" on the radio station WDR 5. The interview, conducted with Steffi Klaus, took the Earth Overshoot Day as an opportunity to talk about excessive resource consumption and potential solutions. | Continue

Münster/Madre de Dios – A project in Madre de Dios in Peru succeeds in conserving the rainforest and simultaneously assisting people in finding a way out of poverty. Marianne Heimbach-Steins, member of the ZIN board and director of the Institute for Christian Social Sciences of the Catholic Theological Faculty of the WWU, visited the project at the end of November as part of a dialogue trip with Caritas International – the international aid organization of the German Caritas Association. | continue

For the second time this year, the ZIN has welcomed new members. Prof. Bodo Philipp, Prof. Cornelia Denz, Prof. Christian Kray and Dr. Fabian Dielmann join the ranks of the thirteen members. Through their their respective research focuses, they broaden the interdisciplinary perspective of the ZIN by introducing points of views from the natural sciences. | continue

On 28 November 2018, the Committee for Economics and Energy of the German Bundestag invited ZIN-member Prof. Löschel  in his function as chairperson of the expert commission “Energy of the Future” that monitors the energy transition process in Germany. | continue

From September 1 to September 14, ZIN-member Prof. Gabriele Schrüfer conducted an excursion to Vietnam with students of the Institute for Geography Education at the University of Münster. The excursion took the group both to the capital Hanoi and the surrounding villages, as well as to the south of the country to Ho Chi Minh City. | continue

On 7 November, a conference on the subject of “Bildung für nachhaltige Entwicklung” (BNE) (translation: “Education for sustainable development”) took place in the district government Düsseldorf. At the conference, ZIN-member Prof. Gabriele Schrüfer  hosted a workshop titled “Didaktisch-methodische Hinweise zum Erwerb von Kompetenzen im Rahmen des Lernbereichs Globale Entwicklung” (in English: Didactic / methodological indications concerning the competence acquisition in the learning area global development“). | continue

In October 2018, ZIN-member Matthias Grundman published a new anthology titled „Gesellschaft von unten?! Studien zur Formierung zivilgesellschaftlicher Graswurzelinitativen“ at Betlz Juventa. | continue

On 26 October 2018, an interview with ZIN junior scholar Tobias Gumbert, titled “Plastik-Verbot: Die wichtige Suche nach Alternativen” (in English: “Plastic-ban: The crucial search for alternatives”) was published in the local newspaper Westfälische Nachrichten. The interview, conducted by Anna Spliethoff, focused on the ban on disposable plastic packaging, which was decided by the EU-Parliament two days before. | continue

On October 1st and 2nd, the junior research group DynaMo organized an interdisciplinary and international workshop titled „Mobility on the Move – researching the socio-cultural dimension of the transitions to come“. In numerous discussions, the research group, whose members are settled at the universities of Münster and Stuttgart as well as the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering (IAO), won valuable impulses for future work. ZIN junior scholar Berenike Feldhoff also participated in the workshop. | continue

Since September 2018, the newly designed newsletter of the ZIN is online – on its own website! The newsletter gives an overview of the activities of the ZIN, its members and its staff. In the future, the newsletter will be published and updated twice a year. | continue

On 6 October 2018, the Association of Nature and Biodiversity Conservation NRW (NABU NRW) organized the 1st NRW Nature Conservation Day at the Institute for Landscape Ecology under the topic “Blühende Land(wirt)schaft – Ist das Natur oder kann das weg?”. ZIN-member Prof. Tillmann Buttschardt attended the conference, which constitued the prelude to an annual series and that dealt with the problem of threatened species through the extensive agricultural use of land. | continue

On the 4th and 5th of October, the interdisciplinary symposium “Transformation zur Nachhaltigkeit. Hindernisse – Wege – Strategien” ("Transformation to Sustainability. Obstacles - Paths - Strategies "), organized jointly by the ZIN and the Katholische Akademie Franz Hitze Haus, took place. The event, which was attended by people both with a background in science and practice, focused on the profound socio-economic transformation that is urgently needed to safeguard the natural foundations of human life. However, the conference not only analyzed the obstacles that currently slow down a successful transformation, but also put a special focus on discussing ways of action and implementation within the ever-shorter remaining time. | continue

The ZIN staff members Benjamin Görgen and Björn Wendt participated at the 39th Congress of the German Sociological Association in Göttingen with an ad-hoc group on “Die Nachhaltige Gesellschaft. Sozial-ökologisches Wissen als neue Herrschaftsideologie oder systemsprengende Utopie?” (English: “The Sustainable Society. Social-ecological knowledge as a new ruling ideology or system-splitting utopia?“). | continue

From 25. 09. – 28. 09. the 27. Scientific Congress of the German Political Science Association, dedicated to discussions about the “Limits of Democracy” takes place in the Goethe-University Frankfurt.
On this four-day congress, the ZIN is represented by Jun.-Prof. Antonia Graf as well as by the ZIN staff members Pia Buschmann, Tobias Gumbert and Carolin Bohn. | continue

From 24. – 25. 09. 2018, the Akademie Franz Hitze-Haus, the Akademie Die Wolfsburg and the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung organize the conference “Umweltpolitik: global und gerecht” (in English: “Environmental Policy: global and fair”) as part of the series “Sozialethik konkret” (translatable as: “Social Ethics in Practice”). The ZIN is represented twice at the interdisciplinary event by ZIN-spokeswoman Prof. Doris Fuchs and ZIN-member Prof. Sabine Schlacke. | continue

On Monday and Tuesday (10. 09. – 11. 09.), the working group “Sustainable Consumption” of the German Committee for Sustainability Research in Future Earth (DKN) meets in Berlin. ZIN-Spokeswoman Prof. Doris Fuchs participates as a member of the working group. | contiune

A new monograph by ZIN-member Björn Wendt titled “Nachhaltigkeit als Utopie. Zur Zukunft der sozial-ökologischen Bewegung“ (in English: Sustainability as Utopia. On the Future of the Social-Ecological Movement“, own translation), was published on August 16th in the publishing company Campus-Verlag. | continue

The German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU) handed over a policy paper titled “Just & In-Time Climate Policy: Four Initiatives for a Fair Transformation” to the Federal Minister for Environment Svenja Schulze and the State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Georg Schütte. ZIN-Member Prof. Sabine Schlacke is a Council Member of the WBGU since 2008 and a chairwoman since 2016. In this role she fundamentally influenced the development of the document. | continue

ZIN-member Thomas Dietz investigates the effectiveness of voluntary sustainability standards in the coffee industry as part of the research project TRANSSUSTAIN. Now he explains some results of the project in the article “Fairtrade? Bio? Für viele Kaffeebauern sind die Siegel ein Unglück” by Marius Hasenheit, which was published on 13th August 2018 in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. | continue

On Thursday, 4th and Friday, 5th October 2018, the Center for Interdisciplinary Sustainability Research (ZIN) of the University of Münster and the catholic academy “Franz Hitze Haus” hold a scientific symposium titled “Transformation zur Nachhaltigkeit. Hindernisse – Wege - Strategien” in Münster. | continue

Starting in autumn 2018, the laboratory MExLab ExperiMINTe of the WWU Münster carries out a project training students to become sustainability ambassadors. The project, funded by the German Federal Environmental Foundation (DBU) and the UNESCO-Global Action Program Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), is, among others, supported scientifically by the ZIN. | Continue

ZIN –Spokesperson Prof. Doris Fuchs, together with Frederike Boll, contributed a chapter dealing with “Sustainable Consumption” to the second edition of the edited volume “Global Environmental Politics. Concepts, Theories and Case Studies”. In their chapter, the authors identify relevant actors and changes in global Sustainable Consumption Governance. | Continue

ZIN-spokeswoman Prof. Doris Fuchs, ZIN-member Jun.-Prof Antonia Graf  as well as ZIN junior scholars Carolin Bohn, Berenike Feldhoff and Tobias Gumbert attend the international conference “Sustainable Consumption Research and Action Initiative (SCORAI)”, from the 27th – 30th June in Copenhagen. The SCORAI initiative, founded in 2012, aims at promoting innovative research in the field of sustainable consumption and networking with practice and politics. In 2018, an international conference organized by SCORAI has taken place for the third time. Numerous renowned scholars will join the conference, as well as five ZIN members who present papers on various sustainability-related topics and, in some cases, also organize own sessions. | Continue

In 1976 linden trees came into blossom at the end of June – this year, however, it is the end of May but cherry trees and winter barley are already further developed than in the last years. These observations clearly indicate that the seasons have changed, a development caused by climate change. The TV magazine “Lokalzeit Münsterland” focused on them in their show on June 7th. | Continue

The so called “sustainability map” of the network Hoch^N  has been expanded: ZIN-spokeswoman Prof. Doris Fuchs is now recorded as a partner for a sustainable education landscape. | Continue

A few weeks ago ZIN-member Prof. Löschel was announced as one of the Lead Authors of the IPCC’s (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) Sixth Assessment Report (2018-2022). In an in-depth interview with the Canadian online newspaper “National Observer” Prof. Löschel spoke i.a. about the Paris Climate Agreement. | Continue...

ZIN-member Prof. Andreas Löschel will take over the important function of being Lead Author of the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Together with colleagues from all over the world Prof Löschel will summarize the global state of knowledge on climate change. The report will be published in 2021/2022. Its results will also play an important role in implementing the Paris Agreement of 2015. | Continue...

The deal was virtually made over night. This morning two of the four major electric utilities companies active on the German market, RWE and E.ON, revealed that RWE’s subsidiary Innogy, responsible for the production of sustainable electricity, had been divided. Prof.  Andreas Löschel comments on the background circumstances of this deal and possible consequences for energy market consumers in an interview on radio station Deutschlandfunk Kultur. | Continue...

Many actors from politics, the sciences, the economy and civil society agree on the necessity of a societal transformation towards sustainability.In their contribution “Power and social inequality as neglected dimensions of sustainability research. Reflections on the relationship between sustainability and responsibility” ZIN-Junior Scholars Björn Wendt and Benjamin Görgen point at this blind spot of sustainability research. | Continue...

The Institute of Landscape Ecology together with NABU North-Rhine-Westphalia will organize a conference on pollinator decline taking place in Münster at the 17th of February 2018. The conference is hosted by the Animal ecology and multitrophic interactions lab at the Institute. Participants will discuss current research projects on pollinator decline as well as possible counter strategies taking into account all relevant groups. | Continue...

The final conference of the “Fit for climate change” project will be held on the 15th and 16th of February 2018 at the Institute for Landscape Ecology. Results of the project will be presented and external experts will supply context to these results at the conference. The research project monitored measures to adapt wet forests to climate change taken in the south of Münster since 2014. | Continue...

How are civil society groups joining forces in order to advance sustainable urban development? This question is at the center of the currently published study “Nachhaltige Stadtentwicklung durch zivilgesellschaftliche Zusammenschlüsse und lokale Bewegungen? Ergebnisse einer soziologischen Begleitforschung” (Sustainable Urban Development by Civil Society Alliances and Local Initiatives? Results of sociological accompanying research) by Benjamin Görgen, Matthias Grundmann, Niklas Haarbusch, Jessica Hoffmann, Dieter Hoffmeister and Björn Wendt. They studied this question based on the example of a local initiative from Münster. | Continue...

The ZIN welcomes three new members who will enrich the sustainability research at the center. Jun.-Prof. Antonia Graf, Prof. Judith Könemann and Prof. Samuel Mössner joined the current ten members from seven departments at the ZIN. | Continue...

In her contribution to the journal “Zeitschrift für Umweltrecht” ZIN-member Prof. Sabine Schlacke reflects upon the climate conference COP23 that took place in November 2017 in Bonn. Many ZIN-Members participated in different events during the conference. According to Prof. Schlacke, the past conference in Bonn acted as a stopover on the way to the following conference COP24 that will be hold in Poland in December 2018. | Continue...

The article “World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: a second notice”, published in the scientific journal “Bioscience” has gathered support from more than 15.000 scientists from 184 countries. The warning calls on humankind to rethink and act in order to prevent the catastrophic damages of current environmental degradation. ZIN-Spokeswoman Prof’in Doris Fuchs counts among the endorsers of this declaration. | Continue...