r+Impuls Workshop “Legal requirements for operating resource-efficient installations and business administration tools for assessing them”

Representatives from seven funded projects came together in the second r+Impuls networking workshop to discuss the legal and economic challenges associated with operating resource-efficient installations.

Due to the intense interest in the legal challenges, the first block of events was again dedicated to this topic as was the case in the first networking workshop. To start with, in her keynote presentation, Sabine Meißner from the Re-Mining project pointed out the numerous legal challenges that arise in project practice in connection with obtaining approval of remediation projects for mining dumps in the field of conflict between resource and environmental protection and economic efficiency.

Following this, under the expert guidance of Andreas Franz (Regierungspräsidium Arnsberg (regional administrative council)), the participants were able to gain an insight into the existing legal requirements resulting from the Federal Immission Protection Act for constructing and operating industrial installations, and received competent answers to their questions.

The subsequent discussion dealt with the questions of which permits may be needed for using an innovative, resource-efficient technology that go beyond the scope of the Federal Immission Control Act, and who the suitable contacts and partners may be on the side of the official authorities.

The afternoon session discussed environmental-economic tools for assessing resource efficiency at operational level. Many of the projects have reached a comparatively high level of technology maturity which is why issues of economic efficiency and environmental assessment are becoming more important as competitive advantage arguments.

In his keynote presentation, Dr. Peter Hense from the iCycle project discussed the challenges associated with the comparative life cycle assessment of recycling activities. The subsequent block was led by Christoph Scope (Chair of Sustainability Management and Environmental Accounting of the TU Dresden), who pointed out in his presentation how difficult it is to adequately illustrate the positive effects of resource efficiency with established controlling instruments. The participants were introduced to instruments that can be used for an integrated assessment of new technologies under economic and environmental aspects, such as material flow cost accounting, environmental accounting or life cycle costing.

Once again, the workshop was moderated by Marcus Bloser (IKU GmbH) and Dr. Christian Sartorius (Fraunhofer ISI).