How can the idea of material efficiency be combined with the emotional climax of a world cup soccer game? Can an edible cup replace the fried sausage? This year for the first time an academic working paper, written at the Faculty of Industrial Design at the Berlin University of Art by the seminar “Ecology and Design” received the German Material Efficiency Award. With this award, the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology recognises best –practice examples for cost-effective improvements in the field of material efficiency.

Under the supervision of the environmental scientist Dr. Norbert Kopytziok, an Ecologic Senior Fellow, eight students wrote the interesting working paper on material efficiency during summer semester 2006. The Jury of the German Material Efficiency Award recognised that with the right design many products can be created more material efficiently. Therefore, it is important that students in this field deal with the subject of material efficiency. The jury felt that the seminar “Ecology and Design” at Berlin University of the Arts has offered this possibility.

The award ceremony will take place on 1 December 2006 during the Designer Night at Euromold 2006 in Frankfurt am Main.

The working paper discusses possible alternatives for saving material in production and packing of consumer goods. The working paper analysed the example of beer and fried sausages consumed during the emotional climax of a soccer world cup game.

Non-returnable bottles for alcohol are marked by high energy consumption during production and also by poor weight ratio with regard to content versus packaging. When the beer, as it happened in some soccer stadiums, is imported from long distances like the USA, not even reuseable cups could improve the ecological balance.

According to an extrapolation, during the 64 games of the 2006 soccer world cup 652,800 fried sausages were eaten, which are not sustainable due to long ways of transport as well as a high water usage for the production of feedings.

Thus, a combined way to solve these problems is to consume locally brewed beer out of edible cups. Other alternatives like Instant-Beer, frozen beer or drinkable cups made of ice were disapproved after closer investigation.

The working paper is available for download [pdf, 200 KB, German].