The Evolution2Green project aimed to develop an overall political concept for social change processes towards a green economy. Economic growth should go hand in hand with ecological sustainability and social justice. In the sense of a change of path towards a more careful use of resources, for example with technology metals, the IZT was responsible for numerous relevant case studies. Methods of futurology and future design were also used, such as future workshops.

In August 2018, the IZT then published the project's Roadmap "Use products for longer". Among other things, it shows which legal and political adjustments need to be made so that products can be used for longer. In addition, the IZT published numerous supplementary case studies: about Repair Cafés, Car-Sharing, pioneering companies like Vangerow and FairphoneIZT texts on Efficiency, consistency, sufficiencyon the protection of non-smokers, on Feedstock Challenge in the chemical industry, to the Packaging-free shopping, to Micro-pollutants in water bodies and to the Recycling of technology metals.

The initial idea of the project:

Although the German sustainability strategy and its implementation were again highly praised in the second peer review, at the same time it was recommended that the German government create long-term framework conditions for implementation and rebuild capacities. In addition, a look at the last progress report on the sustainability strategy showed that progress had by no means been made on all indicators. In other areas, the indicators pointed out that the progress achieved was not sufficient. The reasons for this were manifold and the interrelationships often complex. For example, the lack of progress in energy productivity was explained by technical and economic path dependencies; the lack of increase in the area under organic farming was not least due to a lowered political priority. These and many other cases from practice showed that a holistic concept of the transformation of the economic system can only be designed if the various opportunities and obstacles to the diffusion of technical, social and systemic innovations are taken into account in their diversity.

The following outcomes were targeted:

  • An overall strategy for the transformation of the economic system towards a Green Economy
  • A contribution to the assessment and measurability of progress towards sustainable management
  • Proposals for green-economy-oriented management models
  • New findings on consumer behaviour, following on from previous BMBF initiatives