How can production systems become more sustainable in order to conserve resources, save energy and not harm ecosystems? In a new publication in the renowned journal Nature Sustainability, Ingo Liefner and Sebastian Losacker from the Economic Geography group together with Balkrishna Rao from IIT Madras argue that the so-called principle of frugality needs to be widely implemented to achieve more sustainable modes of production and consumption. They explain that due to high transition costs for manufacturing companies frugal productions methods are not automatically introduced despite resource-savings. In contrast, financial policy support and changes in the curricula of educational institutions are needed to implement the principle of frugality.
The publication is available free to read. There is also a blog post in the „Behind the Paper“ section at Springer Nature.
Liefner, I.; Losacker, S.; Rao, B.C. (2020): Scale up advanced frugal design principles. Nature Sustainability. DOI: 10.1038/s41893-020-0585-7
