Glass recycling as added value for climate and environmental protection
Cities are often said to be engines of renewal and social processes. This gives them a crucial creative function that generates a new opportunity for innovative initiatives, such as that of a Smart City. Vienna has a good starting position to be a Smart City in an international comparison, but Vienna is also facing challenges that are significantly linked to growth dynamics in population development. This includes the handling of increasing amounts of municipal and industrial waste. To be able to cope with this, circular economy takes an important role. The Austrian glass recycling system is well developed to recycle glass and thus reducing waste. Austria Glas Recycling (AGR) is a non-profit company with the aim to supply and optimize a working circulation system for glass packages in Austria.
Together with the project partner, the student team faced the challenge of filtering out the added value of AGR in a sustainable circular economy. In addition to the core business of the AGR, five impact areas were defined, which can be seen as target-oriented starting points for strengthening competitiveness or maintaining AGR’s pioneering role.
The five Impact areas are: 3-Pillar Model, Social Innovation, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Networks and Raw Materials. These five areas have been investigated with the help of opinions from experts and intensive research and in the end used to create a catalog of ideas. This catalog contains manageable, practical, and focused recommendations for AGR.
Parallel to the catalog of ideas, the project group conducted a workshop together with the Eco- Social Study Forum (ÖSSFO) with the topic: “How far does sustainability go?”. The aim of the workshop was to work on sustainability together with the participants in order to subsequently develop sustainable visions on the aspects “everyday life”, “company” and “city”. The results of the workshop could also be included as suggestions in the catalog of ideas.
Students involved in the project:
Alexandra Friedl (FH Krems), Fionn Herold (BOKU), Gordana Maric (AAU), Stefanie Perl (University of Vienna), Wolfgang Thaler (University of Vienna)
Contact AGR:
Harald Hauke: hauke@agr.at
