Project Head:
Engelbert Schramm
Project Team:
Engelbert Schramm
Ines Weller Kooperationspartner:
Institut für ökologische Wirtschaftsforschung
Öko-Institut
Contract KG
Funding:
Umweltbundesamt
Duration:
1995 – 1996
Field of research
Research Area:
Everyday Life Ecology, Energy, Consumption
about the Institute
|
Fire prevention requirements have led to an increasing use of flame proofing agents in
plastics. These agents often contain problematical substances in environmentally relevant
amounts. Thus, one sixth of the halogen bromine used at present globally is found in
different consumer products of daily use in the form of flame proofing agents. A reduction
of risk by means of material flows management fails as a rule because of the limited
possibilities available to businesses. Knowledge about material flows and product lines
must be gathered, company and branch wide, if a conscious material flows management is be
carried out; for example, in the cooperation on innovation among the chemical industry,
users of plastic, producers of consumer products and recycling companies. The
ECOFORUM
project analyzes the possibility, using the company and industry wide knowledge collected
in the manner noted above, of forms of material flows management without government
regulation, carried out by economic actors and others. The project involves separate
studies of product lines, as well as an offer of an information exchange in discussion
circles to all participants along these product lines (including activists in
environmental and consumer politics). Employing product tree analyses, the possibilities
and limits of ecological innovation in fire prevention will be investigated, using
computer and auto seat product lines as examples.
|