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Chapter 2: Resource efficiency potentials in focus of research
Figure 4: Determining factors for the implementation of resource efficiency (Number of times mentioned in the 17 interviews)
capital has a minor importance in the implementation of
resource efficiency.
In the following, statements from the interviews to four
actor-related factors of implementing resource efficiency
(research, industry, politics and society) are summed up.
In general, research plays a central role in the implementa-
tion of resource efficiency. Expected challenges emerge
from its inter- and multidisciplinary nature, which is, how-
ever, important and increasingly necessary for this field
of research. Therefore, representatives from business and
society have to be involved in scientific research. The ap-
proach of the interface management could make an important
contribution. It connects expert knowledge to
solve issues, chances and problems of the real world. According
to the interviewed experts, the international cooperation
for all technology developments is increasingly
important. Therefore, it should be possible to ensure a
transfer of technology for resource efficiency. Some future
topics, such as the recycling of construction material, will
increasingly become a social challenge instead of being
Ressourceneffizienzatlas
Resource Efficiency Atlas
Determining factors
Public opinion
Regional enterprise and research clusters
Venture capital
Need of reaction to external factors (e.g. climate change)
Standards related to resource efficiency
Societal demand
Reluctance of changing existing processes by implementing
resource efficient solutions
Private resources for R&D
Attention on value chains and thus e.g. internationalisation
Resources and time (to identify information about
available technologies, process and methods)
Critical mass in staff availability
Knowledge (to assess and evaluate the potential
of new technologies and to adopt new technologies)
Business practices include performance criteria related to resource efficiency
Public R&D funds
Legislation/regulation
High importance
Average importance
Low importance
26 %
0 2 4 6 8 10
Numbers of mentions
an engineering or scientific challenge; thus, it will become
a multi-disciplinary challenge, because the implementation
of existing potentials can only be reached by systemic
changes and behavioural changes, based on simple and
open access to “green solutions” as well as their stronger
and wider distribution. However, there is a lack of relevant
experts established in this field. It is necessary to create
resource efficiency networks for bundling and developing
necessary expertise.
According to the experts’ opinions, there are still problems
related to the topic of resource efficiency in the German
research landscape. One of them is, for example,
a mainly third parties funding of quality research and,
therefore, an increased influence of the industry on these
research projects. In this way, it is very difficult to conduct
required multi-disciplinary research. Funding institutions
often fall back to traditional patterns, where complex issues
such as resource efficiency are optimized only in one
direction rather than optimizing the entire system.
Despite these difficulties, the topic “resources” is increasingly
dealt with at important international universities. This