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Stefan Bringezu is a German environmental scientist and spokesperson for the Center for Environmental Systems Research at the University of Kassel (CESR). He has been a member of the International Panel for Sustainable Resource Management ("International Resource Panel") since 2007.

Biography
Stefan Bringezu, supported by a Bavarian talent scholarship, studied biology, majoring in ecology, microbiology and biochemistry,received his diploma with distinction. In Bayreuth he did his doctorate in the field of ecosystem analysis on aspects of density regulation of phytophagous insects.

From 1987 to 1992, Stefan Bringezu was a research associate at the Federal Environment Agency in Berlin and laid the foundations for the assessment of wood preservatives, antifoulings, etc. in the newly founded unit on biocidal agents in the non-agricultural sector.

In 1992, he joined the newly founded Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy, where he helped establish Friedrich Schmidt-Bleek's Department of Material Flows and Structural Change as a Senior Research Fellow.

From 1997 to 1998 he was acting head of the Department of Supply Systems and Environmental Planning in the Faculty of Spatial Planning at the University of Dortmund.

In 1999, Bringezu habilitated at the Faculty of Environment and Society under Karl-Hermann Hübler at the Technical University Berlin.

Returned to the Wuppertal Institute, he took over the leadership of the newly established research group Material Flows and Resource Management in 2003, a position he held until 2017.

In 2011, after turning down a call to the professorship of Industrial Ecology, Stefan Bringezu was appointed Professor of Sustainable Resource Management at the University of Kassel and became a member of the Center for Environmental Systems Research (CESR) and the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, as part of a special professorship.

In 2017, he moved fully to the University of Kassel and became the CESR's Executive Scientific Director in 2019. With the establishment of the Kassel Institute for Sustainability, on whose founding board he served, and the integration of CESR under this umbrella, Bringezu became the centre's spokesperson in 2022.

Research
As a member of the Wood Preservative Commission of the German Federal Health Agency, he drew up an extended catalogue at the end of the 1980s to include environmental assessment criteria, e.g. on the leaching potential of wood preservatives, and worked towards limiting compulsory use in the construction sector. Studies on underwater coatings paved the way for banning the use of highly toxic organotin compounds in antifoulings, initially for recreational boats.

At UBA, Stefan Bringezu had already contributed to an early publication on the method of life cycle assessment. At the Wuppertal Institute, he helped develop Friedrich Schmidt-Bleek's MIPS concept, which was intended as a screening life cycle assessment. He created, together with Helmut Schütz, Germany's first material flow balance, which was subsequently adopted by the Federal Statistical Office. The inclusion of the "ecological rucksacks" of foreign trade led to new indicators (Total Material Requirement (TMR), Raw Material Input (RMI), etc.) which, through international comparisons, have become became exemplary for mapping the physical basis of national economies in a global context. They found their way into the methodological guidelines of Eurostat and OECD for determining the resource productivity of countries. Meanwhile, the product material footprint is determined via the life cycle survey of RMI and TMR.

Stefan Bringezu turned to the issue of land use in the 2000s and pointed to the conversion of natural areas in the tropics through the use of biofuels. He expanded this into an overall view of global land use for all agricultural and forestry goods as well as raw materials from mining, and analysed the trends and environmental pressures of global land use.

One research focus is the sustainable design of the bioeconomy, for which he examined in particular the global climate and resource footprints as well as the socio-economic footprints using the example of Germany.

How the socio-industrial metabolism of the future can look and how resource use can be made sustainable was and is one of his central research questions. To this end, he developed proposals for science-based targets for global resource use, which can be used for orientation at both national and local level.

Stefan Bringezu also devoted himself to the system-based analysis of future technologies. In particular, he attributes a key role to the use of CO2 as a raw material.

His theoretical, empirically underpinned work examined the mechanism of innovation. The search for certainty and independence from proximate constraints seems to be essential here.

Another focus of Stefan Bringezu's research was and still is the search for resource-efficient and sustainable solutions for the building sector. The application of measurement tools and indicators of climate, material, energy, land and water footprints has been used in comparative studies (e.g. on recycled and carbon concrete ), software-based procedures for the planning of buildings and guidelines for engineers and architects and in guidelines for engineers and architects.

Science coordination and policy advice
In 1997/98, Stefan Bringezu initiated the ConAccount network, which brought together substance flow and material flow-based research groups, created a joint research agenda and subsequently organised regular meetings. The network formed a nucleus for the formation of the International Society for Industrial Ecology, which was founded in 2000.

In 2007, Stefan Bringezu was appointed to the newly founded International Panel for Sustainable Resource Management (now: International Resource Panel). He led-coordinated three reports: on biofuels, land use , global resource use and was instrumental in establishing a regular main report of the IRP of the IRP.

Stefan Bringezu advised the German government prior to the introduction of the German Resource Efficiency Programme (ProgRess), the European Parliament on the reduction of biofuel quotas, and the Director General Environment of the EU Commission, Janez Potočnik, on the circular economy and resource efficiency strategy.

The pilot report on monitoring the German bioeconomy and the web portal monitoring-bioeconomy.org serve as a reference for the further development of the bioeconomy strategy and the biomass strategy of the German Federal Government.

Publications (selection)

 * 2019: Toward Science-Based and Knowledge-Based Targets for Global Sustainable Resource Use. 10.3390/resources8030140
 * 2000: Future use of CO2 as a raw material base in the German chemical and plastics industry. A Roadmap [in German]. doi: 10.17170/kobra-202002211019
 * 2021: Pilot Report on Monitoring the German Bioeconomy. doi: 10.17170/kobra-202201115406
 * 2022: The World Budget. Safe and fair resource use for global survival and wellbeing.

Weblinks

 * Literature by and about Stefan Bringezu in the catalogue of the German National Library
 * Literature by and about Stefan Bringezu in the catalogue of the German Digital Library
 * Portrait of Stefan Bringezu at the International Resource Panel
 * Web portal: Bioeconomy monitoring
 * Keynote lecture by Stefan Bringezu at the Dresden Nexus Conference 2017: How SDGs Impact Our Monitoring of Resources on YouTube [retrieved 10 February 2023].
 * Statement by Stefan Bringezu on the circular economy in Germany on YouTube [retrieved on 10 February 2023].
 * Stefan Bringezu on the International Resource Panel on YouTube [accessed 14 February 2023]