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In intensively used agricultural landscapes, path margins are one of the few refuges and nurseries for wildlife. They provide e. g. food sources and overwintering opportunities for many insects, serve as migration corridors for animals, protect soil from erosion, increase its water-holding capacity, and increase soil organic carbon, contributing thus directly to biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation. Path margins are often municipally owned but used and managed by agriculture. For a path margin to be functional, certain conditions must be fulfilled, such as the width, the botanical composition, and how it is managed through the seasons. Therefore, it must be managed under specific requirements. A multifunctional path margin can be achieved only through the commitment of all stakeholders (e.g., farmers, municipalities, conservationists, and civil society).
This working paper explores how funding requirements enable transdisciplinary research (TDR) for sustainable development in Africa, focusing on German public funders and their TDR programmes in sustainable land management and agricultural development. It consolidates experiences from Global North-South collaborations to identify good practices in funding TDR, particularly during the initial phase of defining research problems and objectives. Key findings suggest that funders should combine research and development funding for long-term TDR processes, explicitly define TDR expectations in selection processes, create TDR-friendly budget structures, and support a collaborative problem definition phase by funding joint proposal writing and facilitating joint learning. The paper aims to foster a dialogue on good practices in funding TDR between funders, researchers, and practice organizations in Germany and Africa, facilitated by a series of workshops under the INTERFACES project. Insights are based on key expert interviews and the first workshop with funders and researchers in Germany.
Exploring consumer attitudes toward reusable takeaway packaging: An empirical study in Germany
(2024)
Since the introducing of the new German packaging law 'VerpackG2' in January 2023, food service operators in Germany selling takeout food have been mandated to provide reusable packaging alternatives to single-use plastic food containers. This change in legislation has led to the emergence of various reusable consumer packaging systems in the German market. Reusable packaging systems have the potential to significantly reduce the negative environmental impact of single-use plastic packaging. However, for these systems to succeed and achieve their desired positive environmental impact, a comprehensive understanding of consumer behavior toward these systems is needed. This study extends the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) framework to identify the factors influencing consumers' intentions to use a reusable packaging system for takeaway food in the German food service industry. An online survey was developed, and 153 valid responses were collected from consumers in Germany. Structural equation modeling revealed that in this study, consumers' personal moral norms, attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control directly influence consumers' intentions to use the reusable packaging system. The results also show that context, motivation, and personal moral norms are positively related to consumers' attitudes, and context significantly positively affects consumers' perceived behavioral control. Furthermore, the study's results indicate that despite the high frequency of takeaway food orders in Germany, consumers' use of reusable packaging systems for takeaway food still needs to be improved.
Since the new German packaging law 'VerpackG2' came into force in January 2023, German foodservice operators selling food to-go are required to provide reusable packaging alternatives to their single-use plastic food packaging. This change in legislation has led to the emergence of various reusable consumer packaging systems in the German market. Reusable packaging systems have the potential to significantly reduce the negative environmental impact of single-use plastic packaging. However, for these systems to be successful and achieve their desired positive environmental impact, also a comprehensive understanding of consumer behaviour towards these systems is needed. This study extends the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) framework to identify the factors influencing consumers' intentions to use a reusable packaging system for takeaway food in the German foodservice industry. An online survey was developed and 153 valid responses were collected from consumers in Germany. Structural equation modelling revealed that consumers' personal moral norms, attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control directly influence consumers' intentions to use the reusable packaging system in this study. The results also show that context, motivation and personal moral norms are positively related to consumers' attitudes and that context has a significant positive effect on consumers' perceived behavioural control. Furthermore, the results of the study indicate that despite the high frequency of takeaway food orders in Germany, consumers' use of reusable packaging systems for takeaway food still needs to be improved.
