Research

An increased use of wood in construction is seen to contribute to a needed reduction of greenhouse gas emissions for climate change mitigation. Although Austria can be seen as a frontrunner in and supporter of wood construction in the recent decades, there are still significant legal, structural, financial and technical challenges for the use of wood in a circular bio-economy. The European Green Deal strongly supports this goal, however, the implications are difficult to assess since sustainable wood construction is a cross-cutting field, the development and implementation of specific measures are still in the making and need to be coordinated across different policy sectors with different goals and preferences. The project aims to assess the potential impacts of the new regulations on the forests and forest-based value chains and to identify purposeful instruments for policy implementation. The project therefore aims to i) analyse the relevant EU policies and their implications for a biobased circular wood construction in Austria, ii) analyse the institutional frame for wood construction in Austria and specific support mechanisms for the use of wood in construction, iii) compare the frame conditions and support measures across selected European countries (Germany, Switzerland, Finland) and iv) analyse barriers and fostering factors and derive recommendations and instruments for Austria. This is intended to support policy development and coordination on national and European levels and to support the role of Austria as a leading country in the use of wood and in developing a circular bioeconomy.

The RETOOL project aims to develop novel conceptual, empirical and policy-relevant insights on the relationship between democratic governance and the climate imperative, and by doing so reinvigorate democratic responses to the climate crisis in Europe. We will do so by: (i) developing new conceptual and empirical foundations for studying climate democracy; (ii) studying existing practice and innovations in democratic governance across a range of domains of climate transitions and levels of governance; (iii) synthesising knowledge across fields of study to identify opportunities for institutional strengthening and reform; and (iv) developing accessible and impactful project outputs, including a flagship publication, State of European Climate Democracy, and disseminating them to a diverse range of audiences in order to create new pathways for improving effectiveness of climate democracy and opportunities to mobilise and engage a diverse range of citizens through participation.

In summary, starting from climate risk storylines relevant to the EU regions, we identify climate change hotspots as case study areas (CSA) to model the SE impact of climate change and extreme events at NUTS3 scale for different future timeframes and scenarios, and we upscale the results to national and regional levels using a science-based DSS, that support a comprehensive SE evaluation and enhanced understanding of future climate change cross-sec-toral impacts and resilience options to foster policy recommendations and user adoption.