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Successful doctoral defense - congratulations Dr. Gilang Hardadi

On May 22, 2025, Gilang Hardadi successfully defended his doctoral thesis” Using Econometrics and Multi-Regional Input-Output (MRIO) Models to Simulate Short-Term Socio-Economic Impacts of a Just and Equitable Low-Carbon Transition.” In his work, Gilang demonstrates how Multi-Regional Input-Output (MRIO) Models can be used to assess the impact of climate economic instruments, such as carbon taxation, tax revenue recycling, or carbon border adjustments on the tax load of different income groups and on industrial transformation. The results of his work inform policy makers on the effectiveness and social implications of climate policy. Profs. Stefan Pauliuk and Yasushi Kondo were the thesis advisors, and Prof. Karsten Neuhoff wrote the second thesis review. Read more about Gilang’s work here: https://doi.org/10.1111/jiec.13045

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Critical Mass Sprint for the Industrial Ecology Community Database

2025 is the year when we move the industrial ecology data commons prototype, launched in 2018, into a functional and helpful data archiving and retrieval tool for the entire industrial ecology community! We plan to collect, format, and upload a larger number of datasets on product material composition, energy intensity, and lifetimes of products, focussing on products and commodities including appliances, buildings, vehicles, infrastructure, industrial assets, and energy system technologies. Read more about the 2025 Critical Mass Sprint for industrial ecology data here: https://www.blog.industrialecology.uni-freiburg.de/index.php/2025/03/03/2025-iedc-critical-mass-sprint/

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Successful EU Horizon project meeting in Freiburg

In February 2025, more than 30 European researchers gathered at Industrial Ecology Freiburg for an annual project meeting to coordinate their research on estimating the impact of the circular economy (saving material resources by sufficiency, eco-design and better recycling) on the EU material industries and their climate impact. Read more about the CIRCOMOD (Circular Economy Modelling for Climate Change Mitigation) project here: https://circomod.eu/

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Material Requirements of Decent Living Standards – new publication by Johan Vélez and Stefan Pauliuk

Decent living standards are practical threshold for the energy, GHG, and material consumption required to alleviate poverty. We quantify the amount of materials in stocks and flows needed to provide a decent living standard to an individual: a material footprint (MF) of about \(6 \frac{t}{\text{cap} \cdot \text{yr}}\) and in-use stocks of about 43 \(\frac{t}{\text{cap}}\) are required. We also estimate which lifestyle and technology choices are effective in reducing material demand. Read the paper here: https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.3c03957

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New paper linking the indicators for poverty fight, inequality, and growth

Decent living standards, economic inequality, and total economic output are not independent! A new paper by Stefan Pauliuk shows that per average capita service \( \text{pcs} \), the Gini coefficient of inequality \( G \), and the personal decent living standard \( 5 \, \text{dls} \) are coupled as below: The work concludes with calling upon the research community to assess the inequality of physical stock and flow indicators related to human wellbeing, identify suitable physical wellbeing measures, and extend the debate on desirable levels of inequality to physical socio-metabolic indicators. Read the paper here: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2024.108161