IFF Social Ecology e-Newsletter Nr. 3 – March 2003

+ Immediate job openings / Stellenangebote:
– Financial administrator
– Sozialwissenschaftliche/r DiplomandIn
+ Coming Events:
– iff-lecture by Faye Duchin (April 9): Household Lifestyles and the Future of the Environment
– iff-lecture by Marina Fischer-Kowalski (May 8): Zur Naturgeschichte der Gesellschaft
+ 3rd Ramingstein meeting on the Foundations of a Social Ecology of Time and Space
+ Department News:
– Colleagues from Laos back in Vienna
– Marina Fischer-Kowalski back in Vienna after sabbatical
– Sommersemester 2003 at IFF Social Ecology
+ Publications:
– EUROSTAT 2001:Material Use Indicators for the European Union, 1980-1997
– Land-Use Change and Socioeconomic Metabolism in Austria
– Theoretische Grundlagen für die gesellschaftliche Beobachtung nachhaltiger Entwicklung
– Internationaler Handel und globale Umweltverträglichkeit
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Immediate job openings:

FinanzadministratorIn am IFF Social Ecology, 30 Std./Wo.
Informationen auf www.iff.ac.at/socec
Bewerbungen bitte per e-mail bis spätestens 28.3.2003
an: gerda.hoschek [at] uni-klu.ac.at

Sozialwissenschaftliche/r DiplomandIn
für Diplomarbeit zum Thema „Veränderungen in Arbeitszeit
und Time Use in den Ländern der Europäischen Union
(EU-15) seit 1970“
Kontakt: marina.fischer-kowalski [at] uni-klu.ac.at

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Events:

IFF Lecture with Faye Duchin
„Household Lifestyles and the Future of the Environment“
Faye Duchin, Professor of Economics, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, New York), will be
Visiting Professor in our department throughout April. During her stay she will give a public lecture.
Ms. Duchin is a former student of Nobel Laureate Wassiliy Leontief and is world famous for her work
on the extension of input output analysis for sustainability questions. April 9, 18:30, IFF Schottenfeldg.
29, 1070 Vienna

IFF Lecture with Univ.Prof. Dr. Marina Fischer-Kowalski
„Zur Naturgeschichte der Gesellschaft“
May 8, 19:00, IFF Schottenfeldg. 29, 1070 Vienna

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3rd Ramingstein meeting on the Foundations of a Social Ecology of Time and Space
Jointly organized by Verena Winiwarter (Forschungsinitiative Umweltgeschichte) and Helga Weisz
(IFF-Social Ecology) the third Ramingstein meeting took place between February 19th to 22nd . The
meeting was funded by the Austrian Ministry of Science, Education and Culture, research program:
sustainable development of cultural landscapes, as part of the project „Foundations of a Social
Ecology of time and space“.
A interdisciplinary group of scientists came together to discuss the relevance of time and space for
social ecological research. Lectures were give by Prof. David Auerbach, physicist University of Graz,
Prof. Joan Martinez-Alier, economist, UAB Barcelona, Dr. Helga Weisz, biologist, IFF-Social Ecology,
Prof. Helmut Haberl, biologist, IFF-Social Ecology, and Dr. Verena Winiwarter, historian, University of
Vienna. The Ramingstein meetings will be continued.

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Department News:

Colleagues from Laos back in Vienna
Two Laotian researchers who are participants in the SEAtrans (Southeast Asia in Transition) project
are currently in Vienna for their second sojourn. Their objective is to complete the report on the
findings in the country study undertaken jointly in the Lao PDR. There, socio-ecological indicators
were assessed for the national level and for a case study in a remote village in Vientiane Province.
The report will serve as one of the inputs for the third SEAtrans workshop scheduled in June 2-5,
2003.
Mr. Bounnam Pathoumthong and Mr. Sithong Thongmanivong are also pursuing Ph.D studies at the
University of Vienna, Institute of
Anthropology under the supervision of Prof. Harald Wilfing. At the IFF-Social Ecology, they cooperate
closely with Heinz Schandl, Clemens Grunbuhel, and Niels B. Schulz.

Marina Fischer-Kowalski back in Vienna after sabbatical
Guest Professorship at Yale,
CENERGIA in Rio de Janeiro,
Workshops on MFA in Brazil
Marina Fischer-Kowalski spent the first part of her sabbatical as guest professor at the Center for
Industrial Ecology (Faculty of Forestry and the Environment, Yale University, New Haven), where she
had a wonderful opportunity to encounter the challenge of a highly-trained US-American perspective
on social ecology and utilize Yale’s excellent library and research facilities
The second part of her sabbatical was spent at CENERGIA, a newly created Center for
interdisciplinary postgraduate studies at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, coinciding with the
take-off of Brazils new leftist government led by „Lula“ who promptly chose Marina’s academic host,
Mauricio Tolmasquim, for Secretary of State in energy policy. Nevertheless, she returned very
impressed with the „Carioca“ (i.e. Rio de Janeiro’s) way of organizing interdisciplinary research.
Marina’s presence was taken advantage of for organizing two workshops on material flow analysis.
One took place in the 18-million-inhabitants city of Sao Paulo, organized by professor Helena Ribeiro
at the School of Public Health.
The second workshop was organized by Ricardo Gorini at Cenergia, exloring the insights provided by
MFA for understanding Latin America’s international role as „extractive economies“. This workshop
bore the stamp of the international IHDP-program on „Industrial Transformation“ and brought together
some of Brazil’s most advanced research on material and energy flow analysis. Apart from Marina,
key presenters were José Alberto Machado (Federal University of Manaus) who had collaborated with
the IFF on an EU-financed MFA-study on the Amazon region (Amazonia 21), and Roberto Schaeffer
who published an input-output analysis of Brazilian trade in the journal Ecological Economics that
confirmed the diagnosis of the MFA-studies concerning energy and carbon.

Sommersemester 2003 at IFF Social Ecology
Die Lehrveranstaltungen des Sommersemesters 2003 sind letzte Woche angelaufen.
Spätentschlossene können nach Absprache mit den verantwortlichen LehrveranstaltungsleiterInnen
gerne noch einsteigen.
Nähere Informationen finden Sie online unter http://www.iff.ac.at/socec/lehre/lehre_aktuell.php

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Publications:

EUROSTAT 2002: Revised time series accounts on material use in the European Union
In 2002 the IFF-Social Ecology under took a material flow study with the goal to revise, improve and
extend the EUROSTAT 2001:Material Use Indicators for the European project was funded by and
carried out for the Commission’s Directorate General for the Environment and EUROSTAT. The
results of the revision are now published as EUROSTAT working paper (EUROSTAT 2002: Material
Use in the European Union 1980-200: Indicators and Analysis. Working papers and studies). The
working paper is available online under:
http://europa.eu.int/comm/eurostat/Public/datashop/print-product/EN?
catalogue=Eurostat&product=KS-AO-02-005-__-N-EN&mode=download
The revisions predominantly referred to the accounting of biomass, which was substantially improved.
As a result the levels of the indicators are substantially lower in the revised estimate (minus 17 % for
the European Union as a whole). The working paper documents the data sources and applied
methods used for establishing the accounts in great detail, thus contributing to a further refinement of
MFA methods. In the analytical part the revised indicators are used in Environmental Kuznet Curves
analysis, IPAT decomposition analysis and in physical trade balance analysis. The reports concludes
with recommendations on how to further improve the analytical and policy use of theses accounts.
The project is now in the second year. We will extend the time series back to 1970 and continue to
work on the analytical value of the MFA approach by combining MFA and Input output analysis.
For further information on this study feel free to contact project leader Helga Weisz (helga.weisz@uniklu.
ac.at).

Krausmann,F., H. Haberl, N.B. Schulz, K.-H. Erb, E. Darge, V. Gaube, 2003. Land-Use Change and
Socioeconomic Metabolism in Austria, Part I: Driving Forces of Land-Use Change 1950-1995.
Land Use Policy 20(1), 1-20.
Haberl, H., Erb, K.-H., Krausmann, F., H. Adensam, N.B. Schulz, 2003. Land-Use Change and
Socioeconomic Metabolism in Austria, Part II: Land-Use Scenarios for 2020. Land Use Policy
20(1), 21-39.

Haberl,H., M. Fischer-Kowalski, F. Krausmann, H. Schandl, H. Weisz, V. Winiwarter 2002.
Theoretische Grundlagen für die gesellschaftliche Beobachtung nachhaltiger Entwicklung. Die
Bodenkultur 53 (Sondernummer), 55-64.

Eisenmenger, Nina (2002): Internationaler Handel und globale Umweltverträglichkeit. Kann eine
Verbindung der Welt-System Theorie mit dem Konzept des gesellschaftlichen Metabolismus zu
einem besseren Verständnis beitragen? In: Kurswechsel 4/2002: Nachhaltigkeit – zwischen
Vereinnahmung und Alternative, S. 85-98

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