Ecology and sustainability

Ecology is the dimension which receives the strongest attention in political discussion. The central problem area in ecological sustainability is climate change, which designates global warming caused by man. Sustainability relative to ecology means to choose a treatment of nature, which safeguards an intact (clean) environment for all people on Earth.

Social metabolism

The so-called “social metabolism” is the starting point of assessing ecological sustainability. Social metabolism views the Earth as a limited system of a closed-substance global ecosystem. On account of an increasing consumption of resources by man, increasingly environmental problems arise, such as climate change, hole in the ozone layer, loss of biodiversity, erosion, desertification as well as contamination of soil, water, and air.

The ecological footprint

The most familiar indicator for the consumption of natural resources is the so-called “ecological footprint”. It quantifies the question, how many renewable resources are required for human consumption of products and services. This means, the consumption of material, energy and utilization of land is calculated in terms of space. The consumption of fossile energy resources is thus calculated in terms of CO₂ absorption area, i.e. of the required space of forests and oceans. The whole of mankind in the meantime consume nearly 1.5 planets a year, with tendency strongly increasing.

For more information: www.my-footprint.at

Other indicators in order to measure consumption of resources are, for instance, the Water Backpack, which indicates with reference to products, how much water has been used in their production. Or the Material Backpack, also called “Ecological Backpack”, which calculates the consumption of renewable and non-renewable raw materials for products or even for nations.

“Austria as a living environment“

In the Austrian Strategy for Sustainable Development, the essential ecological aims are described in the chapter “Austria as a living environment”. It comprises the topics of environmental and climate protection, maintenance of biodiversity and landscapes, land use and regional development as well as mobility and traffic systems.

Social Production and ecology

Social Production furthers in a well-targeted manner sustainable products made of renewable raw materials or recycling materials, and thus contributes to active environmental protection. Through the procuration of regional cooperation partners, transport routes are minimized, and regional development is strengthened, especially due to the fact that a large number of occupational projects are situated in regions lacking infrastructure and rural regions. Some social enterprises are explicitly dedicated to ecological social agriculture. Finally, the footprint of regionally produced products shows clearly better results than the one of globally imported products.