The project "Assessing social sustainability of biotech products" is conducted by the Eco-efficiency & Sustainable Enterprises Working Group, in cooperation with the Trifolium Beratungsgesellschaft, within the "Sustainable Bioproduction" programme of the Federal Ministry for Development and Research (BMBF). The project aims to develop a system for assessing the social sustainability of biotech products. In addition, the organisational learning capacities for the generation of sustainable innovations (ecologically, socially, and economically optimised innovations) within organisations shall also be determined. While ecological and economic "Headline-indicators" have a relatively broad consensus already (from a political economy and business management perspective), the work on social indicators, especially regarding their quantification, remains in early stages of a longer development process. The Wuppertal Institute possesses the expertise for the related assessment of economic sectors, product lines, enterprises, and households as well as for the development and application of social assessment concepts. Based on this expertise, the project will elaborate the social assessment of biotechnological production and make it available for practical application through a software tool.
Within a complementary but independent project part, the partner DECHEMA e.V. (Karl-Winnacker-Institut, Biotech process engineering workgroup) and its subcontractors (Johannes-Gutenberg-University Mainz (CMPP), University of Saarland (Technical Biochem), and ifu Hamburg GmbH) will elaborate on the ecological and economical assessment of biotechnological productions.
The project "Assessing social sustainability of biotech products" shall:
- make use of the existing international scientific know-how for the sustainability assessment of biotechnological production,
- develop a concept for the assessment of the social sustainability of biotechnological production in cooperation with experts (external: limited stakeholder-base, internal: employees/managers of selected entities),
- promote an integrated sustainability assessment, if possible, by a partial integration of "social assessments" component into a software system,
- develop a concept that promotes innovation and cooperation processes in and between companies for sustainable product and technology development. For the evaluation of the organisational innovation capacities the concept draws on criteria that identify the innovation potential.