Content:

1. Editorial

• Irene Ring

2. News from ESEE and its members

• Ecological economics training institute – call for funding applications
• Announcement of ESEE membership survey to be launched in September 2017
• Update on upcoming ESEE Elections
• Information on the sub-committees in the ESEE board
• Next ESEE conference announcement: ‘Co-creation in Ecological Economics’
• Updated county contact network
• Overview on European MSc programmes
• News from Environmental Policy and Governance (EPG), the ESEE Journal

3. Student spotlight

• Rania Papasozomenou: Homo Economicus has failed us

4. Hot topics

• Tim Foxon: Towards a Low Carbon Industrial Strategy
• Clive Spash: Publishing, Corporate Power and Ecological Economics?: A Reply to Plumecocq

5. Events, jobs and publications

• Call for review papers: Special issue on Relational Values for ‘Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability’ journal
• Job Opportunity: 7 Research opportunities at University of British Columbia
• Job Opportunity: 3 Post-doctoral positions at University of Bern and University of Reading
• Job Opportunity: 6 Professorships in sustainability science at Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science
• Job Opportunity: Natural Capital Accounting Fellowship at the James Hutton Institute, Scotland (3 years)
• New Master's degree in Social Sciences Applied to the Environment
• EAERE-ETH European Winter School
• Conference: Environ 2018
• Conference: First Agroecology Europe Forum
• Call for interest in new research project: ‘Bifurcations in Natural Resources Economics (1920s-1930s)
• Article: Statistical projection of the material intensity: Evidence from the global economy and 107 countries
• Article: Determining economic productivity under environmental and resource pressures: an empirical application
• Article: Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen and Degrowth
• Economic and technical assessment: Roadmap for the transition of the western Macedonia region to a post-lignite era

1. Editorial

 

By Irene Ring

Last year ESEE celebrated its 20^th birthday with the publication of the 1996 – 2016 Anniversary Bulletin (available for download here) yet we had no European event during 2016 to celebrate together. Now we’ve met in Budapest in person to celebrate, to look back on a bit more than two decades of scholarly work and community-building and reflect together on our achievements. In this vein, the local conference organisers put a special emphasis on bringing academic and practitioner communities together, crossing different disciplines and different knowledge systems. Collaborative practices, work at the science-society and the science-policy interface, values and valuation in ecological economics as well as transformative social innovation and advocacy were guiding themes through the conference.

An academic society naturally has a strong focus on research and education that are core for the transformation to sustainable societies. On the research side, ecological economists nowadays regularly contribute to research agendas and are requested to design or comment on research funding programmes; they edit very successful academic journals and they participate in activities at the science-society and the science-policy interface. Regarding education, this year’s printed ESEE conference newsletter for the first time included a special section introducing (mostly) European Bachelor and Master’s programmes on ecological economics or degrees including courses on ecological economics. You also find a link to this in this electronic newsletter, see ‘Overview on European MSc programmes’ in the next section.

Enjoy reading!

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2. News from ESEE and its members

Ecological economics training institutes – call for funding applications

The ESEE board is pleased to open a call for a series of transdisciplinary and collaborative training institutes on ecological economics aimed at early career researchers, practitioners and decision-makers in Europe. Events can be focused on any of the diverse range of topics associated with ecological economics, but will share a common participatory approach and structure. Local organisers can (annually) bid for up to 2000 euros for events that meet a number of criteria, as detailed below. Applications for 2018 must be made by 1st December 2017.

Event Criteria

• Highly collaborative and participatory; not just a series of lectures and presentations.
• Transdisciplinary: including participants beyond academia, e.g. decision-makers, practitioners, community representatives, etc.
• Students are heavily involved in organising the event.
• Zero or low cost for participation, with some kind of bursary opportunities for those in a low-income situation.
• A record is kept by the organisers of participant feedback on the event and this is made available to the ESEE.
• Environmental awareness: a plan to minimise (and potentially compensate) the carbon footprint and other environmental costs.
• The organisers should be ESEE members.

Further Guidelines and Suggestions
In addition to the mandatory criteria, the ESEE suggests the following guidelines for the events. These guidelines will also be used to decide between competing applications if more than one application is made for sponsorship in an annual round.

• Duration: 2 days for pre-conference events, 3-5 days for other events.
• Number of participants: 20-30 participants; a relatively small group of students helps to build group cohesiveness and identity.
• A mix of students and post-docs with at least a third post-docs.
• Provision of opportunities for publication of outputs.
• Provision of opportunities for ECTL credits associated with courses.
• Remote locations preferred to maximise engagement.
• Family friendly with childcare options available.

As the decision on competing proposals is taken by the ESEE Board, active ESEE Board members are excluded from submitting applications for the competition. However, they are still free to submit applications, but these will only be considered in the case of no other eligible application(s) being available from applicants outside the ESEE Board for the upcoming year.

Procedure for Applications
Candidates can apply to the ESEE annually for up to 2000 euros towards the cost of an event to be held within the following two years, provided it meets the criteria, but they are responsible for raising the remainder of the funding. Applications must include a short rationale for the event, including a description of the event format (max 2 pages), a budget, an indication of what budget costs the ESEE funds will be spent on, and an overview of other (potential) funding sources.

Applications for 2018 must be made by 1st December 2017. Please send the application to: esee.training@gmail.com.
 

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Announcement of ESEE membership survey to be launched in September 2017

The ESEE Board Membership and Fundraising Committee has developed a survey to collect perceptions from members on the Society's activities. The Survey includes five main sections on: 1) interest in Ecological Economics; 2) ESEE membership activities; 3) ESEE conferences and meetings; 4) ESEE publications and publicity; 5) ESEE and education.

The feedback from all ESEE members is crucial to help the ESEE Board in identifying priorities and shaping initiatives to strengthen the field of Ecological Economics in Europe. All responses will be anonymous and results will be shared in aggregated form.

Stay tuned for further instructions that you will receive by e-mail in September.

Please participate – we are counting on your support and feedback!
 

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Update on upcoming ESEE Elections

As we announced in our Ordinary General Meeting in Budapest in June 2017, ESEE will be running elections once again at the end of this year! This time the terms of office of 7 Board Members and our Student Representative are ending after 3 years.

As usual, we hope that the Board Members whose terms are expiring will stand again. However, we also hope for a broad feedback among the larger ESEE membership and count on your interest in playing an active role in the ESEE Board and getting nominated for the election later this year. To be elected to the Board provides an opportunity to influence the direction of the Society and Ecological Economics in Europe, and to work in a well-motivated team. Active engagement in the work of the sub-committees shall be considered as a matter of course.

This year’s election committee will be headed by our President, Irene Ring, with further members Joan Martinez-Alier from Spain and Eva Cudlinova from Czech Republic.

An official call for nominations together with a more detailed timetable for the elections and information regarding the procedure will be made in the September newsletter. The same information will be made available on the ESEE website as well.

In the meantime, if you have any questions regarding nominations and/or elections, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Best wishes,

Begüm Özkaynak,
ESEE Secretary
 

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Information on the sub-committees in the ESEE board

Work in the ESEE Board is largely organised in sub-committees. During the last ESEE board meeting in June 2017, we partly reorganised the sub-committees. Here is an update regarding the assigned tasks, committee chairs and members:

a. Education Committee: Juha Hiedanpää (Chair), Daniel O’Neill, György Pataki.                           
Agenda: summer schools; ESEE training institutes; student prizes; educational courses and programmes in Ecological Economics.

b. Membership and Fundraising Committee: Nuno Videira (chair), Nina Eisenmenger (Treasurer), Erik Gómez-Baggethun (Country Contacts), Ellen Stenslie (Students).                                           
Agenda: country contacts; membership; fund raising.

c. Conference and Meetings Committee: Olivier Petit (Chair), Timothy Foxon, György Pataki (for ESEE 2017), Juha Hiedanpää (for ESEE 2019), Irene Ring, Ellen Stenslie (Students).      
                           
Agenda: ESEE conference venues, planning and supervision; ESEE workshops and meetings; ESEE supported events.

d. Publications and Publicity Committee: Jasper Kenter (Chair), Tom Bauler (EPG), Daniel O’Neill, Begüm Özkaynak, Felix Rauschmayer, Ellen Stenslie (Social Media, Students).            
                  
Agenda: website; newsletter; relations with journals; marketing and PR.
 

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Next ESEE conference announcement: ‘Co-creation in Ecological Economics’

The next International Conference of the European Society for Ecological Economics is to be held 18^th – 21^st June 2019 in Turku, Finland.

Since being founded in 1996, the European Society for Ecological Economics (ESEE) has promoted transdisciplinary research on the theoretical and practical prerequisites of sustainable development.

In 2019, ESEE will hold its biannual conference in Turku, Finland. In the historic, beautiful and intellectually stimulating setting, we will discuss recent developments in the behavioural, social and institutional theories in ecological economics through the practical environmental and developmental concerns that matter the most.

The 13th International Conference of ESEE in Turku will focus on the ongoing co-creative turn in ecological economics, environmental policy studies and sustainability sciences in more general.

ESEE 2019 will be organised by Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke) and University of Turku.

A call for sessions and papers will be opened in the fall of 2018.

Contact: Mr. Juha Hiedanpää, Research Professor in Natural Resources Policy, Natural Resources Institute Finland (LUKE) (juha.hiedanpaa@luke.fi) (Chair of the Local Organising Committee).

Follow us:
http://esee2019turku.fi/                                                                                                                       @ESEEORG                                                                                                                                                         #ESEE2019

       
 

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Updated county contact network

Erik Gómez-Baggethun, Vice-President and member of the ESEE Board’s Membership and Fundraising Committee, has updated the ESEE country contact network. Ahead of the ESEE 2017 Conference in Budapest, Hungary, the ESEE Board met the country contacts to exchange experiences and explore joint initiatives.


 

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Overview on European MSc programmes

For the occasion of the ESEE 2017 Conference in Budapest in June 2017, ESEE has prepared an overview of European MSc programmes relating to ecological economics, including basic information on the programmes, contact persons, and programme details. This is available for download here. 
 

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News from Environmental Policy and Governance (EPG), the ESEE Journal

During the last ESEE Board meeting in June 2017 in Budapest, the ESEE Board has confirmed a change in the position of the ESEE Editor of EPG. We thank Begüm Özkaynak for her tremendous job over 5 years, taking care of the links between the society and the ESEE’s journal. We welcome Tom Bauler, Vice-President of ESEE, in this important role. His first job will be co-editing the special EPG issue from ESEE 2017 in Budapest together with the Chair of the Local Organizing Committee for the Budapest Conference, György Pataki and ESEE President Irene Ring.

Good news also regarding the development of the journal. EPG’s citations have gone up by 64% in the last year, and its impact factor to 2.032 – which is really encouraging.

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  3. Student spotlight

Homo Economicus has failed us

Interview with Rania Papasozomenou

Tell us about yourself.

I am a PhD student and researcher at the Humboldt University of Berlin, where I also got my M.Sc. in Integrated Natural Resource Management. Through my initial training as an environmental scientist I came to realise that everything we do is grounded upon and limited by natural boundaries. This is something neoclassical economics ignores. I enjoy working with heterodox economics, such as ecological economics, to bring a pragmatic understanding of the relationship between nature and society into my research.

What are you researching?

In my research, I am diagnosing the water sector in a Greek island complex. Based on institutional approaches, I identify the reason for the persistence of the water sector dysfunction, and analyse why it is so difficult to provide sufficient water of good quality. Everything that we humans do, we do for a reason. Not fixing something which is not working has a reason and finding that reason is the first step in rectifying the problem. I identified a discrepancy between how the central and the local governments approach the issue and their ability to influence water provisioning and I recommend interventions that have the potential to bring about positive and durable change. I am also working in a research project that identifies challenges and opportunities for mainstreaming urban rainwater harvesting in three major European cities (Berlin, Barcelona and Stockholm).

If you were in charge of the world economy for one day, tell me one thing what you would do and why?

What is the one thing, the one intervention that would ensure that once enforced, the world and those living on it would be better off? I am not sure I have an answer, I am not a believer in magic solutions or panaceas. Whatever happens should be the result of a democratic, deliberative process and that would require more time. Perhaps my intervention would be ensuring that democratic and deliberative processes are allowed the space and time to take place. I suppose I would also liberate national governments from the influence of global markets, perhaps by erasing national debts.

Tell me one thing that you think many ecological economists don’t realise, but should.

Orthodox economics has fallen from grace, it is losing its credibility. This is the chance for heterodox economics to unite, identify what we all have in common, and work towards an alternative to the current paradigm. Such an approach would benefit from the incorporation of human volition and values. Homo-economicus has failed us; we are so much more. We are capable of cooperation, altruism and respect for other human beings and nature, and this other-regarding nature of ours informs our actions on a daily basis. Our new paradigm should be one that accepts and nurtures that.

Interviewer: Ellen Stenslie

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  4. Hot topics

Towards a Low Carbon Industrial Strategy

By Tim Foxon, SPRU (Science Policy Research Unit), University of Sussex

In January 2017, the UK Government launched a Green Paper (proposals for public consultation) on an industrial strategy for the UK. Though the idea of an industrial strategy is taken for granted by some of our European partners, this is still relatively novel for the UK due to the dominance of free market economic thinking in the political discourse. Actually, though, this is the third attempt in 8 years by successive UK Labour, Coalition and Conservative governments to formulate an industrial strategy incorporating low carbon objectives. This latest version appears to have more traction however, as the new government, led by Prime Minister Theresa May, has proposed a more interventionist approach, even re-naming the business department the ‘Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy’. The implementation of the new industrial strategy has been put on hold, following the calling of a snap general election in June 2017, ostensibly to give the UK Government a stronger position in the forthcoming Brexit negotiations.

The proposed industrial strategy restates the Government’s commitment to its carbon reduction targets under the 2008 Climate Change Act of reducing the UK’s carbon emissions by 80% by 2050, with intermediate carbon budgets currently including a 57% reduction by 2030 (on 1990 levels). However, it also states that two other areas of energy policy need higher priority going forward; ensuring affordability of energy for households and businesses and securing industrial opportunities for the UK from energy innovation. The emphasis on affordability of energy reflects the political salience of this issue, following rises in domestic energy bills in recent years due largely to increases in international gas prices. Indeed, both the Conservative and Labour parties have committed to placing a cap on future domestic energy bills in their election manifestos. This then creates tensions with aims to secure industrial opportunities for the UK, if such a cap limits the ability of private energy firms to invest in developing manufacturing and service capacities for low carbon energy technologies. More broadly, myself and colleagues from the Centre for Innovation and Energy Demand have argued that the strategy represents a missed opportunity to integrate low carbon objectives into wider economic and industrial thinking. The overarching emphasis of the strategy is in terms of improving productivity of the UK economy, understood as labour productivity, rather than resource or energy productivity.

With colleagues from the Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy, we have proposed six elements relating to the structure, operation and governance of economic systems for a more integrated low carbon industrial strategy:

1. A mission-oriented approach from government: Building on the ideas of Mariana Mazzucato, low carbon should become a long-term strategic direction for innovation, with the state as an active participant in economic processes that create and shape markets.

2. Promotion of renewable energy and circular economy practices in production: Renewable energy technologies have a greater potential for delivering industrial benefits than nuclear power or carbon capture and storage options, and more systemic changes to economic systems are needed to promote circular economy practices of re-use and re-manufacturing of products.

3. Demand-side measures, including energy and resource efficiency: The promotion of energy efficiency and demand reduction measures should be seen as an important way of meeting industrial objectives. These should focus on job creation potential, as well as social and environmental objectives, and require the creation of new mechanisms for investment.

4. Reorienting innovation systems: A low carbon innovation system should be supported by appropriate institutions and actors, policies that target both technology-push and market-pull innovation, and the provision of financial resources and knowledge through generation and learning.

5. Enabling green finance: The availability of green finance, including for example public investment banks and new instruments such as green bonds, is an important, and still somewhat understudied resource for a low carbon industrial system.

6. Learning approaches embedded in governance: A low carbon industrial strategy needs to create institutions that enable learning so that knowledge exchange networks, innovation agencies, and financial institutions can discover the most appropriate pathways to a low carbon future.

Whether the new UK government will maintain a strong commitment to its low carbon objectives and take forward steps to integrate these better into its industrial strategy, in the face of pressures and uncertainties created by the forthcoming negotiations on Brexit, remains to be seen.
 

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Publishing, Corporate Power and Ecological Economics?: A Reply to Plumecocq

By Clive Spash

In the Spring 2017 edition of the ESEE Newsletter Gaël Plumecocq raised a series of serious concerns over power and inequity in academic publishing. The publishing world is described as one where academics supply work and publishers extract the rent; the former are exploited by the latter; while copyright is used against the originators of the work. There is much to be concerned about here. However, where the commentary goes wrong is in tarring all publishers with the same brush.
 
There is no differentiation made in the commentary between the multi-national corporation extracting millions (e.g., Elsevier) and the small firm making a living. Yet, this is a crucial distinction between institutions, and one that is highly relevant in any social ecological transformation of society. I was an editor for Environment and Planning C (EPC) for 10 years. It was owned by a small independent publisher (Pion) that maintained high production standards, while encouraging strong editorial control over content and presentation. I am Editor-in-Chief of Environmental Values where again a small independent publisher (White Horse Press) runs a family business and is concerned for hands-on production quality and editorial involvement. There is also a massive difference in the institutional subscription rates between say Environmental Values and Ecological Economics (over 350% more per issue). In addition, the former gives ESEE members free access (although few people make use of it), and offers free advance access to the full text of all forthcoming articles and book reviews unless an author objects. The difference between such small family businesses serving the community and the corporations exploiting them is like chalk and cheese.
 
Elsevier is notorious for capitalist exploitation and bad practice. It was heavily involved in arms trade fairs before protests led to it selling that off (see Guardian 2008), at a profit. It has an ongoing embargo by academics (see also Guardian 2012). Profits mean outsourcing production to countries with ‘cheap’ labour. Profits do not seem to require quality, as is very evident with the decline in production standards of Ecological Economics, e.g., its fluctuating monthly issue size, errors and random article ordering. Unfortunately, neither editors nor the community seem much concerned, and least of all over the hard copy. When I have raised questions the report back is lack of editorial control over production quality, content and appearance and that Editors have been actively disempowered. In the past, Elsevier violated its contract with ISEE, but the then ISEE President (John Proops) refused to pursue the matter and renewed the contract rather than move the journal to a better publisher. Things are so bad with Elsevier that the board of the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management (JEEM) resigned and started a new journal (at a University Press) and told members of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economics not to publish there or subscribe anymore; this had been their flagship journal for 30 years.
 
The traditional publishing model in academia was for a University Press to be allied with academics in a community publication project. Publications like JEEM started out this way but Universities sold-off their assets and big publishers like Elsevier bought them up. Academic societies ran their own journals. They covered costs through individual (not just institutional/library) subscriptions for hard copy. Electronic publishing changed this model and has decimated revenue from individual subscriptions, while libraries have moved away from single subscriptions to bundles. The business model has been changed to favour the big players. Small academic publishers and family run firms are fighting in the corporate world, where dominance of online media is a major strategy. So do not lump them into one basket.
 
Open access is also not the miracle solution it is commonly touted to be. In fact, corporations have used open access to their own advantage. This has resulted in the passing of State funds directly to the big publishers, and the creation of a divide in publishing between the rich academics, who have grants and funds to pay for open access, and those who do not.  The former get their work sent out as free for the users and the former have theirs hidden behind payment barriers. Neither is the open access electronic journal necessarily a wonderful alternative, because it still requires free labour to maintain production and quality and is also being heavily used as a commercial vehicle with hidden profit (e.g., selling subscriber information for marketing, as done by social media). There is also a lot of junk being produced in vast quantities.
 
Academics are typically publicly funded. Why then do governments not treat them as producing work under State copyright, like some do their civil service? For example, Crown Copyright which operates in the UK and Australia means open access after one year with no payment at all to publishers. The USA also reserves government copyright over work of its employees. Instead we see open access being used to buy-out publishers in the neoliberal mode, rather than enforcement of rights.
 
The above is all about journals, but there are similar concerns over our work appearing as books and book chapters, and the ability to maintain copyright. Publishers try to get infinite copyright forever and pay little or no royalties. Academics mostly just sign away their rights without thinking, because they want to get their work out there and are already paid (e.g., by the State). They often seem powerless actors within the publishing structures. Yet, clearly some authors are able to make a living from publishing (e.g., in the literary world).
 
There are also small independent presses, run on a variety of business models, who are trying to serve their community of scholars without exploitation, or themselves being exploited, who would like to be respected for what they do and expect no more than a reasonable payment for services provided. They are also being forced into practices against their will, due to corporate competition, and fighting for survival.  The loss of small independent presses will be a loss for us all.
 
The discussion of alternative publishing models, as suggested by Gaël Plumecocq, is a good idea. However, this should also take into account the history of and variety in publishing and why the corporate oligopolists are in control. This also should relate to why academics are exploited and disempowered, and that also means understanding who controls access to information and to what ends.

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Call for review papers: Special issue on Relational Values for Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability journal

The ecological economics community has worked for a long time on topics closely related to people's preferences, principles and virtues about human-nature relationships. A number of scholars are discussing the concept of ‘relational values’ as a hopefully meaningful alternative to discussion of intrinsic vs. instrumental ‘values of ecosystems’ (e.g. Chan et al., 2016 and Pascual et al., 2017). As a next step in this conversation, the journal ‘Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability’ (COSUST) is launching a special issue on relational values. The special issue is co-edited by Kai Chan (University of British Columbia), Rachelle Gould (University of Vermont) and Unai Pascual (Basque Centre for Climate Change). Deadline for submission of extended abstracts is 1 September 2017.

Contact: relationalvalues2018@gmail.com

Further information.
 

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Job Opportunity: 7 Research opportunities at University of British Columbia

The Food Systems PRISM Lab (www.prismlab.weebly.com) at the University of British Columbia – Okanagan is seeking high-calibre Undergraduate, Masters, PhD and Postdoctoral researchers who have a strong interest in research and publication in the field of food system sustainability. Students may propose their own research questions, or apply to work in the context of funded research projects (see link below for descriptions of specific funded research projects for which students are currently being recruited).

Contact: Dr. Nathan Pelletier (nathan.pelletier@ubc.ca)

Further information.
 

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Job Opportunity: 3 Post-doctoral positions at University of Bern and University of Reading

Opening for 3 Post-doctoral research positions, each starting in November 2017, of which 2 positions will be held at the Centre for Development and Environment of the University of Bern (Switzerland) for a period of 36 months each, and one position at the School of Agricultural Policy and Development of the University of Reading (UK) for a period of 42 months. These 3 research positions are part of the ERC Consolidator Grant funded project ‘Indigenous Communities, Land Use and Tropical Deforestation’. The application deadline is 18^th August 2017

Further information.
 

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Job Opportunity: 6 Professorships in sustainability science at Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science

Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science, HELSUS (www.helsinki.fi/en/helsinki-institute-of-sustainability-science), is a new cross-faculty research unit in sustainability science at the University of Helsinki. The mission of the institute is to contribute to sustainability transformations of societies by means of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research and education. The research focuses in particular on urban studies, consumption and production, and Global South and Arctic contexts.

HELSUS is now seeking outstanding candidates for 6 positions of assistant/associate/full professor in sustainability science (see the descriptions below). The deadline for applications is 31^st August 2017.

Further information.
 

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Job Opportunity: Natural Capital Accounting Fellowship at the James Hutton Institute, Scotland (3 years)

Join our Social, Economics and Geographical Science Group to provide leadership on the application of natural capital accounting in Scotland, working with industry and policy as well as a range of natural science researchers at the James Hutton Institute.

Contact: Kirsty.Blackstock@hutton.ac.uk

Further information.
 

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New Master's degree in Social Sciences Applied to the Environment

Universidad Pablo de Olavide in Seville is offering a new Master’s Degree in Social Sciences Applied to the Environment based on a multidisciplinary syllabus which includes aspects of anthropology, economics, geography, history, psychology, and sociology. The course provides innovative epistemological, theoretical, and methodological training to give students a comprehensive grasp of socio-environmental phenomena.

Further information:
English version.
Spanish version.
 

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EAERE-ETH European Winter School

The European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (EAERE) and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich) are launching a new EAERE-ETH European Winter School series in Environmental and Resource Economics. The 2018 summer school will take place between January 28^th and February 2^nd, 2018 in Monte Verità, Ascona, Switzerland. Applications are open now, deadline is 15^th September 2017.

Further information.
 

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Conference: Environ 2018

The 28^th Irish Environmental Researchers Colloquium, Environ 2018, will be jointly hosted by Environmental Sciences Association of Ireland and Cork Institute of Technology (CIT) and held at CIT on 26^th March - 28^th March 2018.

Contact: conference@esaiweb.org or administrator@esaiweb.org

Further information to follow shortly.
 

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Conference: First Agroecology Europe Forum

First Agroecology Europe Forum, 25^th – 27^th October 2017, Lyon, France.

The First Agroecology Europe Forum intends to bring together actors from a wide horizon, who want to share their views and knowledge to design the agricultural and food systems of tomorrow. The Forum also aims at the creation of an inclusive European community of professionals, practitioners, and more generally societal stakeholders interested in agroecology.

Further information.
 

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Call for interest in new research project: ‘Bifurcations in Natural Resources Economics (1920s-1930s)’
New research project sponsored by the European Society for the History of Economic Thought (ESHET Grant 2017-19). Research project on the parallel development of two trends of research in natural resources economics in the 1920s-1930s: a trend of theoretical modelling on the road to Hotelling's 1931 model, and a trend of empirical applied studies through the Brookings Institution energy programme. Research project opened to all interested scholars.

Contact: missemer@centre-cired.fr

Further information.
 

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Article: Statistical projection of the material intensity: Evidence from the global economy and 107 countries

An innovative application of Beta distribution is applied for the first time to Resources Intensity Projections, at the global level and 107 countries (forthcoming in Journal of Industrial Ecology).

Efthimiou, G. C., P. Kalimeris, S. Andronopoulos, J. G. Bartzis, (2017). Statistical projection of the Material Intensity. Evidence from the global economy and 107 countries. Journal of Industrial Ecology, Vol. (…), pp. xx.xx (In press).
 

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Article: Determining economic productivity under environmental and resource pressures: an empirical application

The current study is divided into two parts. Part I deals with the indices of resource and impact decoupling for 13 countries of the EU, for a period spanning from 1990 to 2011. Part II uses data envelopment analysis to determine the resource productivity index on the basis of the same sample of countries, over the same period of time.

Bampatsou, C., Halkos, G., & Dimou, A. (2017). Determining economic productivity under environmental and resource pressures: an empirical application. Journal of Economic Structures, 6(1), 12.
 

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Article: Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen and Degrowth

Missemer, A. 2017. Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen and Degrowth. European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, vol.24(3), pp.493-506.
 

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Economic and technical assessment: Roadmap for the transition of the western Macedonia region to a post-lignite era

A proposed roadmap for the transition of Greece’s most coal intensive (in terms of electricity production) prefecture to a post-carbon era. New economic activities and mining rehabilitation are evaluated through I-O (Input-Output) Analysis and different economic scenarios are examined in the context of the forthcoming transition towards a more sustainable regional economic development.

Rovolis, A., Kalimeris, P., Prodromou, M., Mantzaris, N. (2016) Roadmap for the Transition of the Western Macedonia Region to a Post-Lignite era. WWF – Hellas. https://www.wwf.gr/images/pdfs/Roadmap_PostLignite_EN.pdf.

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