Monitoring of CO₂ emissions and the material footprint of the city of Vienna (MOCAM)

The City of Vienna has set itself ambitious goals for sustainable development with the Smart Climate City Vienna Framework Strategy, opens an external URL in a new window. These goals are measured using different indicators. Important indicators for measuring the goal of “maximum resource conservation” are consumption-based greenhouse gas emissions and the consumption-based material footprint. Consumption-based means that all goods and services that are consumed in Vienna should be used for the calculation. The material footprint, in turn, indicates the amount of materials that have to be moved to provide the goods and services consumed. According to the Smart Climate City Vienna framework strategy, both indicators should be reduced in Vienna. To do this, however, it is necessary to know current consumption-based greenhouse gas emissions and material footprints. The project Monitoring CO₂ emissions and the material footprint of the City of Vienna, in short MOCAM, aims to calculate the consumption-based greenhouse gas emissions and the consumption-based material footprint in Vienna for 2019, broken down by the most important economic sectors. The results show that Vienna has a smaller material footprint compared to the Austrian average. The main reason for this is a lower consumption of raw materials in the sector with the usually highest material footprint, namely the construction industry. Vienna also has lower CO2 emissions, mainly due to the transport sector. However, the results also show that great efforts still need to be made in the future to reduce CO₂ emissions and the material footprint. For the latter, a consistent implementation of a circular economy that follows the principles of the waste hierarchy of avoiding, reusing and recycling waste is necessary. The project is carried out on behalf of the municipal department MA 23 - Economics, Labor and Statistics - and under the leadership of the Institute for Social Ecology (SEC), opens an external URL in a new window at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU). Another project partner is the Institute for Ecological Economics, opens an external URL in a new window at the Vienna University of Economics and Business. Information and publications on the project can be accessed under the following links:

Project database of TU Wien, opens an external URL in a new window

Project report - extended version (in German), opens an external URL in a new window 

Project report - abstract (in German, opens an external URL in a new window)